THIS IS THE WONDER TALE about the birth of Buddha. It is an older story than the one abut the birth of Jesus.

Buddha’s mother was a Queen who lived in a grand palace in the faraway country of India. It was summer time. For almost a week the King and Queen and all the people of their land had been celebrating the annual summer festival. Each evening hundreds of men and women had gathered in the King’s palace gardens to dance and be happy. Daily the King and Queen, sitting each on a royal chair hoisted on the shoulders of strong men, had been carried in procession through the streets of the city. All the while musicians made music with harps and drums and the people crowded about their rulers singing and throwing garlands of flowers into the royal chairs. And many were the gifts that the King and Queen gave away in return. The people said:

"Our Queen Maya is beautiful as a water lily, and as pure in her thoughts as the white lotus flower."

At the end of the last day of the festival, the tired Queen went to her own room and lay down on her couch to rest. Soon she was fast asleep and dreaming.

She dreamed that four beautiful and strong angels were lifting her up from her couch and carrying her off. Higher and higher they flew with her, until they were near the top Of a very great mountain.

The angels showed her a palace gleaming like gold. They led her up its marble steps. They showed her through one beautiful room after another until finally she came to a bedroom that seemed to have been made just for her.

In her dream, she heard the angels tell her to lie down on the couch to rest. Presently, she saw a pure white elephant quietly enter the room. Gentle as an angel he seemed as he came up to her couch and stood beside her. On the end of his trunk he carried a large lotus flower, white as the cleanest snow, and he gave it to the Queen.

That very moment when the Queen took the flower, the room was filled with a heavenly light. In her dream she heard a terrific earthquake. Even the deaf heard the great roar, and the blind were suddenly able to see. Men who had been dumb and unable to speak began at once to talk together. Lame persons rose from their beds and walked. Beautiful music was heard everywhere. Harps played without anyone touching the strings. Trees at once began to blossom with new flowers. Lotus buds of all colors burst into bloom everywhere. Even the wild animals became gentle. None roared or howled or frightened children anywhere.

In the morning when the Queen awoke from her dream, she found herself in bed in her own palace as if nothing had happened. At once, she told the King the story of her dream, and the two were filled with wondering. The King said:

"I will call my sixty-four counselors immediately."

The sixty-four counselors hurried at once to the palace. The King welcomed them with refreshments of rice and honey, and told them his wife’s dream.

"What does the dream mean? What is it that is going to happen" he asked. The chief counselor answered:

"Do not be anxious, O King! The dream is a good one. Your Queen is going to have a baby boy. When he is grown this child will either be King in your place or he will become a great teacher who will teach the people of many countries to know what they do not now understand. He will free them from their evil ways and will lead them to live in peace."

When the King heard these words from his chief counselor, he was very pleased, for the King did not yet have a boy child who could be taught to become a King.

Months afterwards, when the good Queen Maya realized that her baby would soon be born, she said to her husband:

"O King, I wish to go to the city of my parents."

Since the King wished to please his Queen, he consented, and ordered that her royal chair be made ready for her. He chose the strongest and best of his servants to take her safely to her mother’s home.

The royal procession had gone but halfway to the Queen’s former home, when they passed by a most

beautiful park. On catching sight of the masses of flowers among the trees, Maya the Queen insisted that she must get down out of her chair and spend a while walking through the grove. She wanted to stand under the trees and to breathe in the sweet perfume of their flowers.

Queen Maya walked into the beautiful grove. like singing with the birds that flitted about her. never before seen a lovelier spot.

A whole hour passed, but it seemed scarcely more than a few moments. Queen Maya began to feel that her baby was soon going to be born.

Quickly a couch was prepared for her and a curtain She felt She had thrown around her. When the baby was born, four angels appeared holding in their hands the four corners of 1 golden net. Into this net the baby was laid as if in a cradle, The angels spoke sweetly to the mother, and said:

"Be joyful, O Lady. A mighty son is born to you."

Presently four kings stood beside the four angels, and the angels gave the newborn child into the hands of the four kings. They in turn laid the child down on an antelope’s skin that was soft to the touch. Before long the mother thought she saw her babe lift himself up on his feet. He stood for a moment and looked around in all directions, He even took one step and another and another until he had walked seven steps. All the while one angel held a white umbrella over him and the other angels laid garlands of flowers before him.

Then the child lay down again upon his antelope blanket and soon fell asleep just like any other small baby.

As servants carried the mother and babe back to the palace angels sang above them in the sky. The King, hearing the strange music, ran to meet his Queen. When he saw his newborn boy child he danced for gladness. The King’s greatest wish had come true. He had a son! A Prince had been born who would some day rule the kingdom of the Sakyas! And the King called his son’s name Siddhartha Gautama.

But the young child never did become a King. When he was old enough to choose for himself, he decided there was something more important for him to do than to be a King. He felt he could not learn what he needed to know if he stayed on in a rich King’s palace. He wanted to know how it feels to be poor and hungry, and to work for one’s own food.

So in the darkness of night the young Prince fled from the palace, taking with him nothing but the clothes he had on. Even these clothes he soon exchanged for the clothes of a beggar. Walking from town to town, begging his food in the streets, sleeping in the woods, he hunted for men who were thought to be wise. He asked them questions. He also spent hours sitting alone in the shade of the forest thinking. He wondered about sickness and about dying, about what happens after dying and what happens before one is born.

So it came about after some years that this young man became wiser than those who tried to teach him. Even today, after two thousand five hundred years, the name of this man is honored every day by millions of people.

But he is not called by the name that his father gave him. He is called the Buddha. This name means "the man with a light." But the Light that Buddha had was no ordinary light such as the light of a lamp. His Light was for the heart and for the mind. His Light is not the kind that eyes can see. Nor is his Light the kind that burns the fingers.

Buddha’s Light you can feel only with your heart when you know you are at peace with yourself. Buddha’s Light is the Light of Truth.

Also see Buddha’s Teachings