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Lumbini - Religious Significance
After fulfilling the practice of the Ten Perfections (Paramis)
for four incalculables (asankheyya) and a hundred
thousand world cycles (kappa), the
Bodhisatta or Future Gotama Buddha took conception in
the womb of Maya Devi, the queen of Suddhodana,
chief of a small Sakyan republic, just across the
present Indo-Nepalese border. On the full-moon day of May in
623 BC, Maya Devi was traveling in state from
the Sakyan capital of Kapilavatthu, to Devadaha,
her parents’ home, to deliver her first child in keeping
with the ancient tradition of her people. Along the way she
passed through Lumbini Garden, a pleasure grove of
Sala trees which were then in full bloom. Stopping to admire
the flowering trees and plants, she began to feel the pangs
of childbirth. Quickly she summoned her female attendants to
put up a curtain around her. Holding the branch of a Sala
tree to support herself, she gave birth to the
Bodhisatta while standing up. According to
Majjhima Sutta No. 123, as soon as the
Bodhisatta was born, he took seven steps to the North
and declared his position in the world with these words:
Aggo ’ ham asmi lokassa
– I am the chief in the world.
Jetto ’ ham asmi lokassa
– I am the highest in the world.
Setto ’ ham asmi lokassa
– I am the noblest in the world.
Ayam antima jati
– This is my last birth.
Natthi dani punabbhavo
– There is no more becoming for me.
As soon as the
Bodhisatta
was born, a great immeasurable light surpassing the radiance of
the gods appeared, penetrating even those abysmal world
inter-spaces of darkness where the sun and moon cannot make
their light prevail. The ten thousand-fold world system shook,
quaked and trembled and there too a great immeasurable light
appeared to herald the birth of the
Bodhisatta.
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