Queen Maya was the wife of Suddhodana, virtuous ruler of the minor kingdom of Kapilivastu. One night she had a strange dream: a Bodhisattva descended from heaven, riding on a white elephant, the symbol of divine kingship.

The white elephant touched Maya's side with his trunk, and she became pregnant with the spirit of the Buddha. The Buddha's birth was similarly miraculous. On the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, Queen Maya was walking in the Lumbini Garden in Suddhodana's palace grounds, south of the Himalayas.

As she stood under a sala (ashoka) tree and raised her right arm to pick a blossom, the infant Buddha sprang from her side without causing his mother pain or bloodshed.

He immediately took seven steps towards the north, and announced in a loud voice that this was his final incarnation.

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