King Suddhodana’s wife had a dream. She went to the forest
and called for him. There she told him that she wanted her dream interpreted by
a brahman to determine if it was good or bad. The brahmans told her that a son
is to be born unto them. He will be live the life of a monk and deserve great
praises. The king and queen were overjoyed to hear the news. The king gave to
the poor and Maya cured the ill.
Finally, the day came for the birth of Buddha. The queen
insisted on having her child in the innocence of nature. The king had the
servants prepare the gardens with precious decorations. He had the servants use
pearls and precious stones and rare perfumes. Upon Buddha’s birth, everything
in the world became beautiful and pure. The kind named him Siddhartha. The
hermit Asita further verified the extreme glory to come with the life of this
child. Only seven days after the birth of this child, Maya passed away. The
child was to be looked after by her sister, Mahaprajapati.
One day Mahaprajapati put jewelry on the young prince.
However, it was hard to tell he was even wearing any because of how radiant he
was. Siddhartha finally came of age where he was assigned a teacher,
Visvamitra. Visvamitra was in awe and he told the prince that he could teach
him nothing, in fact, the prince should teach him instead. After that, he had
his first meditation. Hermits who passed him bowed as he quietly meditated
under a tree. The shadow of the trees had all moved except the one the prince
was under.
The prince traveled to a city where he saw and old man and
became extremely upset. He could think of nothing other than old age. He
decided to return to the city where he had two more encounters. The first was a
man afflicted with disease. The second encounter of the two was the corpse of a
man. He was continually amazed at how man continue day by day with the
knowledge of death.
Photo found online.
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