which events to emphasize and how to interpret their
meaning. However, the visual images that are used by
all schools and regions to narrate the Buddha’s life
seem to provide a more resonant level of clarity to
the Buddha’s teachings than could be achieved with
texts alone.
From the dream of Queen Mayato the
great renunciation
The Buddha’s mother, Queen Maya(sometimes Ma-
hamaya, “Great Illusion”), dreamt that a silvery-white
elephant, holding a white lotus flower in its trunk, en-
tered her right side. Brahmanic priests asked to inter-
pret the dream foretold the birth of a son who would
become either a great monarch or a sage. This miracle
is portrayed only on early Indian STUPAreliefs in which
Mayareclines with a small elephant floating above her.
The symbolism of the elephant probably resonated with
early patrons as the pan-Indian symbol of supreme roy-
alty and of the life-giving rain from thunderclouds.Mayagave birth to the future Buddha at Lumbin,
a village in southern Nepal. She entered a grove of
trees, reached up to grasp a branch, and the prince
emerged from her right side. This miraculous birth is
often depicted on aniconic reliefs that include no im-
age of the baby. Mayais shown as a nearly nude In-
dian fertility spirit called a s ́alabhañjika,a yakslwho
stands in a dance posture holding the branch of a tree.
Beginning in the second century C.E. in the Gandhara
region in present-day Pakistan, a tiny child is shown
emerging from her side. In artworks from China and
Japan, Mayais shown as a fully clothed dancer with a
baby diving out of her long right sleeve.BUDDHA, LIFE OF THE, INARTA representation of the birth of the Buddha. (From a painting at Yongjusa in Suwo ̆n, South Korea.) © Leonard de Selva/Corbis.
Reproduced by permission.