The thirteenth (25 W. L., 2 after the fourth angle) shows us Mâyâ asleep, guarded by female servants, receiving the Buddha in a dream, in the shape of a white elephant carried by lotus-cushions, descending from heaven into her lap[32].
The twenty-seventh (53 W. L. eighth angle, 1) shows us Mâyâ on her journey to her paternal home. According to time-honoured usage she goes there to wait for her confinement. However, she doesn’t come any farther than Lumbini garden, and the following sculpture (55 W. L. angle nine, 1) tells us how she, while standing there under a tree, saw the Buddha born from her side, and how the latter immediately took seven steps to each of the four zones of heaven, and as many steps to the zenith, and that as a sign of his next authority over the five parts of the world[33].
A rain of lotus flowers falls upon him, and lotus-plants open themselves under his feet on each step he takes. The crescent of the moon on the hind part of his head must refer to his heavenly or perhaps princely origin[34].
On the following sculptures we see the young king’s son, most times on his father’s knees, honoured by brahmins and laymen. His mother is no more to be seen, because she (as every Buddha-mother) died seven days after his birth.
The thirty-first sculpture (61 W. L., 1 after the southern staircase) may refer to the brahmin who perceives the Buddha-tokens at Siddhârta’s body, and predicts his next greatness; however, in quite another sense than the king wishes.
On 77 and 79 (W. L., angle two, 5 and 6) we perceive similar scenes, but this happens more after all.
The forty-ninth (97 W. L., angle five, 4) on the westside sketches us Siddhârta’s authority over others, and also as for manly strength. In a wedding match (svayamvara) he bends a bow no other can bend, and sends his arrow through seven cocoa trees. On this ground he gains the hand of his cousin Rashodara, the most beautiful girl of all Shâkya virgins[35].
Four other sculptures refer to the four encounters outside the palace, which, in spite of paternal precautions, showed him life’s misery. What then would be the use of these precautions to celestial beings who only revealed themselves to him, and to his equerry and guide in order to persuade the next Buddha in giving up all worldly greatness and domestic happiness; in leaving his father and family, and gaining strength in a life of retirement, of privation and expiation, of self-denial and self-command in order to finish his heavenly task: the redemption of suffering mankind!
Outside the eastern gate he first comes across a decrepit grey-head (111 W. L., 6 after the seventh angle); afterwards, on his drive from the southern gate, he meets a sick one in death-struggle (113 W. L., angle 8, 1); and when he finds himself outside the western entrance a corpse shows him the end of life (115 W. L., angle nine, 1), and finally, outside the northern gate, a mendicant friar or bhikshu teaches him as how to gain the victory over life and death, and find peace by ruling all carnal desires (117 W. L., angle nine, 2).
On the sixty-first sculpture (121 W. L., 1 after the western staircase) he discusses his resolution with his disappointed father. The sleeping watchmen or servants refer to the night which passes on discussing the subject.