Buddha, The awakened master

Twenty-five centuries ago,around 543 B.C. King Suddhodana,or the chief of Shakya clan, ruled a land near the Himalaya Mountains,presently known as Lumbini, Nepal.

The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, present-day Nepal, as the birth place of Gautam Buddha and has been the same from centuries until now. Because now-a-days some of the Indian officials have started to claim that India was the birth place of Gautam Buddha. It is so because Gautam Buddha grew up in Kapilvastu but still today the exact location of the ancient Kapilvastu remains unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pardesh as claimed by the Indian officials or Tilaurakot, present day Nepal as per believed from centuries until now. Both places belonged to the Sakya territory and are just 15 miles apart. Note that even Indian officials are not able to prove it so far.

           

              Birth Of The Awakened, Buddha

One full moon night during a midsummer, King Suhhodana's  wife Queen Maya ( A Koliyan princess: Koli people are historically an ethnic Indian group native to Rajeshthan, Himanchal Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharastra uttar pradesh and Haryana states) retired to her quarters to rest, and she fell asleep and dreamed a vivid dream. Four angels came down and carried her high into white mountain peaks and clothed her in flowers. A magnificent white bull elephant with six tusks, one bearing a white lotus in its trunk approached Maya and circled her three times. Then the elephant struck her on the right side with its trunk and vanished into her.

When Maya awoke, she told her husband about the dream. The King had no answers to what her dream actually meant. So he at once ordered Brahmans to be present in his palace. 64 Brahmans came and interpreted that Queen Maya would give birth to a son and he was indeed a great soul who was going to take birth as a human.

10 months later when the time for the birth came near, Queen Maya, as per the Shakya tradition, wished to travel from Kapilavastu, the King’s capital, to her childhood home, Devadaha, to give birth.With the King’s permission and blessings she left Kapilavasthu on a palanquin.

On the way to Devadaha, they reached a garden which was full of blossoming trees.The Queen got so enchanted that she asked her courtiers to stop, and she left the palanquin. As she reached up to touch the blossoms, her son was born under the same sal tree. It is so said that  the Queen and her son were showered with perfumed blossoms, and two streams of sparkling water poured from the sky to bathe them. And the infant stood, and took seven steps.

Then Queen Mayadevi and her son returned to Kapilavasthu. the king was so happy to see his son and Queen back. He then announced a birth celebration. During the birth celebrations, Siddhartha placed his feet in a hermit seer's hair the seer then examined the birthmarks. after his observation he announced that the child would either be a great conqurer or a great saint.  

 Five days later, Suddhodana held a naming ceremony of the new born and invited scholars and fortune tellers. On their examination of the birthmarks of the new born they all came under the same conclusion as the hermit  announced. They all predicted that the baby would either be a great king if he remains attached to worldly riches and desire if not he would beame a great sage.

Unfortunately Queen Mayadevi died a few days later, and the infant prince was nursed and raised by his mother's younger sister, Maha Pajapati Gotami, also married to King Suddhodana. Maha Pajapati Gotami also became the very first buddhist nun later and she is the one to compel Buddha to open a gate way for women as nun in buddhism.

However when Siddhartha was just an infant his father, the king remained worried about the future of his kingdom and his son.Because it took them twenty years of waiting, King Suddhodana and Mayadevi had no children until twenty years of their marriage. Buddha came with a light of hope for a father as well as a curse to King's Kingdom.

The king then decided to raise his son in the lap of luxury, away from sufferings, pain, diseases and so on.....