the personality of the Buddha, we must say a word about
the more legendary portions of his biography, for though of little
importance for history they have furnished the chief subjects of
Buddhist art and influenced the minds of his followers as much as or
more than the authentic incidents of his career[393]. The later legend
has not distorted the old narrative. It is possible that all its
incidents may be founded on stories known to the compilers of the
Pitakas, though this is not at present demonstrable, but they are
embellished by an unstinted use of the supernatural and of the hyperbole
usual in Indian poetry. The youthful Buddha moves through showers of
flowers and an atmosphere crowded with attendant deities. He cannot even
go to school without an escort of ten thousand children and a hundred
thousand maidens and astonishes the good man who proposes to teach him
the alphabet by suggesting sixty-four systems of writing.

The principal scenes in this legend are as follows. The Bodhisattva,
that is the Buddha to-be, resides in the Tusita Heaven and selects his
birth-place and parentage. He then enters the womb of his mother Maya in
the shape of a white elephant, which event she sees in a dream. Brahmans
are summoned and interpret the vision to mean that her son will be a
Universal Monarch or a Buddha. When near her confinement Maya goes to
visit her parents but on the way brings forth her son in the Lumbini
grove. As she stands upright holding the bough of a tree, he issues from
her side without pain to her and is received by deities, but on touching
the ground, takes seven steps and says, "I am the foremost in the
world." On the same day are born several persons who play a part in his
life--his wife, his horse, Ananda, Bimbisara and others. Asita does
homage to him, as does also his father, and it is predicted that he will
become a Buddha and renounce the world. His father in his desire to
prevent this secludes him in the enjoyment of all luxury. At the
ploughing festival he falls into a trance under a tree and the shadow
stands still to protect him and does not change. Again his father does
him homage. He is of herculean strength and surpasses all as an archer.
He marries his cousin Yasodhara, when sixteen years old. Then come the
four visions, which are among the scenes most frequently depicted in
modern sacred art. As he is driving in the palace grounds the gods show
him an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a mon