Premature labor can cause maternal complications even today and the other two conditionsobstructed labor and hemorrhageremain leading causes of maternal deaths.11 The detailed description of Mayas gestation, delivery, and death could be intended to ward off suspicions that Mayas death was accidental rather than spiritually significant. [9] Rhula therefore became Prince Siddhrtha's first and only son. . For example, the Pli Apadna, as well as another account found in the texts of monastic discipline of the Mlasarvstivda tradition, derive rhu from the eclipse of the moon, which traditionally was seen to be caused by the asura (demon) Rhu. Tendzin was seven months pregnant when she first started bleeding at her natal home in the Zangskar region of Ladakh. .7. Yaodhar - Wikipedia If Mayas temperament is indeed such that she is full of benevolence and devotion and is free from all envy, jealousy, intrigue, fault, and deceit, why would she choose death over seeing her son become a Buddha? [73], Pli texts state that despite Rhula being his son, the Buddha did not particularly favor him: he is said to have loved problematic disciples such as Agulimla and Devadatta as much as his own son, without any bias. Schumann hypothesized that Prince Siddhrtha conceived Rhula to please his parents, to obtain their permission for leaving the palace and becoming a mendicant. When Asita begins to weep, the king assumes that the newborn Buddha is fated for death. The Ambalatthika-Rhulovda Sutta became one of the seven Buddhist texts recommended for study in the inscriptions of the Emperor Aoka. I was working as an anthropologist in the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh, which has been Buddhist since the first century CE. Both the listing of Mayas virtues and the depiction of the Buddha as unsullied by birth may have served as a bulwark against fears that Mayas death was due to her being unworthy. Seven days after the birth of Gautam Buddha, his mother Mayadevi died. [74], Later in Rhula's life his mother Yaodhar became ordained as a nun. . In Ladakh, these traditions can make women reluctant to deliver in hospitals, even as they scapegoat those women who have bad outcomes, using karma as an ultimate and unfalsifiable explanation. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, she dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side. Maya ( / mj /; Devanagari: , IAST: my ), also known as Mhmy and Mydev, was the queen of Shakya and the birth mother of Gautama Buddha, the sage on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. The name Gautam is boy's name . [50] This rule was later expanded in the case of women ordaining, as both parents and the husband had to give permission first to allow women to join the order of monks and nuns. My eyes blurred as I thought about what one of my Buddhist teachers in India once told me: tears were of no use to the dead. He explained that excessive grief can draw the deceased persons consciousness back into the very world it seeks to transcend. He believed that if Prince Siddhrtha had left an heir to the throne, there would have been no sound reason for him to leave secretly at night. ", cited in Sekiguchi (1998, p.16), translated by Meeks (2016, p.144), Raun Kshiki, Most traditions relate that the Buddha then called riputra and asked him to ordain Rhula. [37][38] It was an Indian custom to renounce the world only after the birth of a child or grandchild. Even today, after significant reductions in maternal mortality across the globe, roughly eight hundred women die every day from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. By making Mayas death necessary and Mayas character faultless, the narrative appears to dispel doubts about why a benevolent and nonviolent Buddha would be born through a process that killed his mother. Maya means illusion in all Hindu texts. . Although a Buddhist discourse seeks the meaning of karma, ritual, and offended local deities, I am more interested in the medical causality that fails to provide appropriate, life-saving care when needed. Where? Surname information is crowd-sourced; the Geni community would be grateful if you helped update this page with information about the Gautam surname. Modern authors like Andr Bareau have argued that mention of the Lumbini grove reflects a desire to incorporate indigenous goddess cults into the early and still fragile Buddhist religion. Gautam Buddha: Life History, Teachings, and Contributions - Tour My India [28][29][note 3], The second type of explanation consists of the more naturalistic argument that Yaodhar was practicing religious austerities involving fasting and sleeping on a straw bed, which caused Rhula's growth to slow down. Like Maya, some women in the Buddhist Himalayas and in North India still travel to their natal homes during their first pregnancy, where they will be pampered with better food and care than they would receive at their in-laws house. The Bodhisattas mother gave birth to him standing up. His teacher riputra recommended him to practice breathing meditation,[65] but was unable to give Rhula the instructions he needed. [45], Archaeologist Maurizio Taddei has noted that in many Gandhran art depictions, Rhula's life is linked to that of a previous life of the Buddha, the hermit Sumedha. The relieved king performs the proper purificatory rites for the Buddhas birth after which the entire family (king, queen, and newborn Buddha) returns to the palace in Kapilavastu from Mayas family home in Lumbini. [5] Since the intractability of the Indian naming methods and their meanings confounded the Europeans, they supposedly introduced the naming method of having first name, middle name, and surname in their urge to influence, modernize and develop the Indian system accordingly.[5]. Siddhartha Gautama - World History Encyclopedia The feminine counterpart is known as Gautami. According to some traditional sources, the prince is sixteen then. Buddha was born in B.C. The most famous accounts of the Buddhas life insist that he grew up not knowing death until he left the palace and encountered the legendary four sights (an old person, a sick person, a corpse, and a renunciant). One, for example, is this sentence: the fundamental connection between birth and death that shapes human existence and that is perpetuated by an ignorance that Buddhist practice is supposed to dispel. No. As happens elsewhere in the world, the blame falls on the womanfor her actions, dress, or comportmentrather than on the rapist. She gave her life so that her progeny would be given to benefit the world; the ultimate sacrifice. Other women give birth seated or lying down, but not so the Bodhisattas mother. Schumann concludes that the Buddha's discourses to his son were essentially not different in nature from those he gave to his other disciples. [75], When he was 20 years old, Rhula fully ordained as a monk in Svatth. Siddhrtha Gautama(Pli : Gotama Buddha) was a spiritual teacher from the ancient Indian subcontinent and the historical founder of Buddhism. When the news reached the palace that Siddhrtha had attained enlightenment, Yaodhar was overjoyed and gave birth to Rhula. Family of Gautama Buddha - Wikipedia In the wake of his daughters death, her father enforced the customary fine for rape that Phuntsog needed to pay, namely, an offering at the village altar to purify the village god and a set of clothes and butter for the future infant, which the rapist owes the pregnant womans family as payment. Whereas monks would worship certain early male disciples following their particular specialization, and nuns would honor nanda in gratitude for helping to set up the nun's order, novices would worship Rhula. She kept her subsequent pregnancy hidden from her family and community. Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha - UNESCO World Heritage Centre Mayas death can help us to better understand this ideology. [14][17] and in the Pli Udna, the Buddha included him as one of eleven particularly praiseworthy disciples. Buddha | Biography, Teachings, Influence, & Facts | Britannica This long gestation period was explained by bad karma from previous lives of both Yaodhar and of Rhula himself, although more naturalistic reasons are also given. His father was a chief of the Shakya clan. . With great thoughts, God Gautam Buddha change this world thought. The birth of Buddha is celebrated as Vesaka in some countries. Whereas Tendzin quietly bled to death in her in-laws home, my sister drove me through the night to Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the nearest major hospital, where I was mistakenly given magnesium to slow my labor before the attending obstetrician realized that I was leaking amniotic fluid. [102] Writing about the Buddha's teachings methods used for Rahula, psychologist Kishani Townshend argues "Buddha's use of Socratic questioning, poetic devices and role modelling are still relevant to developing virtue in today's children."[103]. [58] The Buddha's teachings have led to numerous discourses being named after Rhula in the Early Buddhist Texts. Gautam Buddha was born 563 years ago in the Terai region of Nepal between Kapilvastu and Devdah at a place called Rukminadei, 8 miles west of Nautanwa station, where there was a forest named Lumbini. Gautam Buddha Biography and History. - Storyofthegod This boys name is . After 12 years of Rahula birth, the Buddha returned to his hometown, where Yaodhar had Rhula ask the Buddha for the throne of the kya clan. The United States currently has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the industrialized world and more than half of all maternal deaths are preventable errors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Maya, like Yashodora, is the archetype of the ultimate Martyr. Akkrum. Gautama Buddha in Digha Nikaya as quoted in Avatars down the ages by Felicity Elliot. [42], The accounts continue and describe that Rhula was raised by his mother Yaodhar and grandfather King uddhodana. [17] His instructions were very age-specific, using vivid metaphors and simple explanations. I repeated the prayer often during the second and the third day of my hospital stay. [1], Some other rishis, who were also mentioned as Gautam, were - Devabaagar, Aruni Uddlaka, Svtaketu, Chirakaaree, Kripchariya, Ekadan, Dvidan, and Tridan. [5] Earliest texts do not describe Rhula in much detail, and he remains an ideal figure without much depth in character. Vaishali (Bihar) was the Buddha's last rainy season residence. Roughly three-fourths of all postpartum deaths and neonatal deaths occur in the first week after delivery. Lines On Gautam Buddha In English Example 1. I was deeply affected by Tendzins story because two years earlier my own first pregnancy had ended with an antepartum hemorrhage caused by placental abruption, a condition in which the placenta prematurely separates from the uterus. She was involved in these practices during the time when Siddhrtha was practicing self-mortification. [9][17] He developed his habit of being amenable and easy to teach in previous lives. As was the Shakya tradition, when Queen Maya became pregnant, she left for Kapilavastu (her father's kingdom) to give birth. Accounts about Rhula indicate a mutual impact between Prince Siddhrtha's life and the lives of his family members. [57], According to the Pli texts, once Rhula had become novice, the Buddha taught Rhula regularly. Most of the worlds historical records rarelyif everprovided details of pregnancies or deaths in childbirth, given that such deaths were too mundane to mention in a record largely written by and for men. . Theravda tradition further built on this genre, with Pli manuals of religious teaching for novices. [7] Apart from the early texts, there are many post-canonical Buddhist texts that contain accounts about Rhula. Gautam Buddha was born in 583 B.C. In theory, these two discourses are not mutually exclusive. The ten months suggests that the Buddha was not born too early or precipitously; the description of Maya standing up may imply an easy, unobstructed labor; finally, a delivery unsullied by blood or water suggests that Maya did not experience a hemorrhage or premature rupture of her membranes. Gautam Buddha Biography. Key Points Mahamaya was the birth mother of Gautama Buddha, She was a princess of the Kollia republic. The Therigatha and Theragatha literature are rife with meditations on corpses and death. Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. Ganesh is the daughter or son (its an elephant lol) of the king and the queen. . Answer (1 of 2): Siddhartha Gutama. So why does Mayas death play such a small role in the Buddhas own life and teachings? Later, King uddhodana prevented Yaodhar from hearing any news of her former husband, and she gradually became healthier, as the pregnancy continued normally. However, the sage explains that he is crying because he will not live to hear the Buddhas teachings. There were several great and renowned rishis, who belonged to the Gautam gotra but all of them assumed the generic name of Gautam only. There appears to have been some cause for concern after her delivery, but it is unclear if this was due to bleeding, infection, or other . Several scholars have raised Rhula's example to indicate that children in Buddhism are seen as an obstacle to spiritual enlightenment,[96] or that Buddhism, being a monastic religion, is not interested in children. [95], From the narratives surrounding Rhula several conclusions have been drawn with regard to Buddhist perspectives on childhood. Narayanan, Srinivas. [1] " Tama" means "darkness" and "g" means inter alia "bright light". This is a mythical story, and therefore replete with metaphor, symbology, and archetypes. Buddhist practice is not meant to dispel ignorance that is related to birth and death or human existence. Before we go to the names which signify Buddha, lets get to a brief history. Like most pregnant women in Ladakh, she kept working until the day she went into labor, but, unlike married pregnant women, she did not have the benefit of extra meals or respite from some of the most backbreaking chores, given that her family was unaware she was pregnant. He taught the young novice about truth, self-reflection, and not-self, eventually leading to Rhula's enlightenment. Gautam (etymology) - Wikipedia Buddhist Studies scholar John S. Strong notes that this account draws a parallel between the quest for enlightenment and Yaodhar's path to being a mother, and eventually, they both are accomplished at the same time. [46][45] Mlasarvstivda texts continue and tell that her plan backfired when the Buddha had Rhula eat it himself, and Rhula therefore became enamored by his father and wished to follow him. Gautam Buddha was born in 563 BC. First, the need for purification implies that birth was seen as polluted, even for the divine Buddha. In these texts, Rhula is seen as a Mahyna type of Buddha-to-be, who would save many sentient beings and lives in a Pure Land. Modern scholars imply that Maya preferred death to seeing her son renounce home to become a monk.18 However, this interpretation seems odd, given the universal experience most mothers have of children growing up and leaving home, which rarely drives themespecially those as enlightened as Mayato suicide. To prevent him from becoming an ascetic, his . Yaodhara: Wife of Gautam Buddha - WikiReligions The Buddhacarita tells us that Maya was en route to her natal family when sorrow and fatigue set her mind [o]n visiting that faultless [Lumbini] grove.21 The text recounts how Maya was overcome with labor pains while in the grove, where she gave birth to the Buddha standing up, holding onto the branch of a sacred sal tree. His father was king uddhodana, leader of the Shakya clan in what was the growing state of Kosala, and his mother was queen Maya. In one version of the story the gift is a ring signet. I'll paste here the take in Wiki Siddhrtha Gautama (Devanagari: Siddhrtha Gautama . The silent stigmatizing of maternal death in the Buddhist and Indian context is related to a deeper view of the unfortunate and often passive female body. Instead of being hurt by the flames, however, she performed an act of truth and the fire transformed into a pond of water. If a woman delivers in a hospital or her natal home, her lack of seclusion in her marital home threatens local protective deities who can harm mother, baby, and household prosperity. [49] He then looked at his father and says, "Pleasant is your shadow, recluse". After she made the declaration, the child floated according to her vow. Indologist Bhikkhu Telwatte Rahula argues that the child was conscious of being without a father.