25. The miracles at Katilavastu

 

Now when ten months had passed in this way and the time for the Bodhisativa's birth was come, there appeared in the palace and the park of king guddhodana two and thirty omens.... From the slopes of the Himalaya came young lions continually and after pacing round the excellent city named Kapila with rejoiced greetings, keeping the city on their right, they lay down on the thresholds of the gates without doing harm to any one. Five hundred young white elephants came and saluted king Cuddhodana's feet with the end of their trunks. Children of the gods with girdles round their waist appeared in king Cuddhodana's private appartments and seated themselves on the lap of first one and then another. (76:8,16).

 

Only the three omens shown on the relief are quoted out of the thirty two; the lions, the elephants and the divine infants. The scene with the lions is on the right; two lions sit before the usual style of gateway, next to them are the guards and three other persons standing, perhaps also guards, expressing their wonder. On the left a pendapa, in the right end of which the king is sitting; the space between him and the gateway is taken up by elephants about the size of dogs, one of which, as the text says, touches the king's foot with his trunk.

 

The king has a divine infant on his knee, a second stands near and a third on the king's other side; they all have a band crossed over the middle of the breast, fastened with a large clasp, and are indicated further by a crescent behind the head. To the left of the pendapa are three female attendants, inside the pendapa three more female figures are kneeling whom, to judge by the grander costume of the front one, we may consider to be the queen with two of her women. According to Pleyte (1.1. p. 41) they are the gods daughters who are mentioned in the description of other tokens; if this were correct, then the sculptor must have deviated from the text which tells us that these apparitions remained part of them in the air and part of them carried speciallynamed emblems that do not appear on the relief.