Click here for larger version[18]
Sujata preparing milk & rice pudding as an offering of thanks to a tree spirit that had granted her wish.
[19]
Sujata offering milk & rice pudding in a golden bowl to Sakyamuni, who breaks his fast.
[20] Sakyamuni
throws the bowl into the river, & it
floats upstream instead of downstream, indicating that he will become enlightened; the bowl is saved by a naga king.
[21] The
grass cutter Sottiya offers Sakyamuni eight handfuls of
grass as a sitting mat.
[22] Sakyamuni resolves to
meditate beneath a bodhi tree until he attains enlightenment.
[23] Pha Phom, Pha In & other gods pay homage to Sakyamuni.
[24] Sakyamuni
meditates into the night on the eve of a full moon.
Click here for larger version[25] The evil
Mara sends his
three daughters to tempt & distract Buddha, who remains unperturbed.
[26] Mara on the back of his elephant mount Girimekkhala (Mekkhala Luang) leads an army to attack Buddha, but the earth goddess
Mae Thoranii wrings water symbolising the accumulated merit of Buddha from her hair, drowning the army.
[27] The seven-headed naga king
Muchalinda coils its body to raise Buddha above the rising floodwaters, &
shelters him with its hood from the rain.
Click here for larger version[28] Didn't manage to photograph it!
[29]
Two merchants,
Tapussa & Bhallika, offer rice cakes & honey to Buddha, who accepts them as his first two lay followers; it is believed that hairs given to them by Buddha during this encounter are enshrined in Burma's
Shwedagon pagoda.
[30] Pha In & Pha Phom invite Buddha to preach the Dharma to people on earth.
[31] Buddha goes in search of the hermits
Asita & his
former teachers Uddaka & Alara Kalama, but learns that they are all dead.
[32] In Deer Park at
Sarnath, Buddha
gives his first sermon & preaches the
four noble truths &
eightfold path to his
first five disciples - Kondanna (โกณฑัญญะ Konthanya), Bhadiya (ภัททิยะ Phathiya), Vappa (วัปปะ Wappa), Mahanama (มหานาม) &
Assaji (อัสสช Atsachi); at this point the first
sangha was formed, & the
Triple Gem (Buddha, Dharma & Sangha) was complete - this event is now celebrated on
Asanha Puja, which is also the day before
Khao Phansa (start of Buddhist Lent or rains retreat).
[33] Buddha preaching to either
Yasa (
firstborn son of Sujata) or
Yasa's father, which would lead to the number of his disciples increasing to 60?
Click here for larger version[34] Buddha taming the
serpent king in the hut of Uruvela Kassapa, one of three fire-worshipping brothers; they & their followers would swell the ranks of Buddha's disciples to beyond a thousand.
[35] No idea!
Click here for larger version[36 & 37] No idea! But somewhere at this point Buddha
returned to his home & his stepbrother
Prince Nanda, son
Rahula & cousins
Ananda & Anuruddha were all ordained.
[38] Buddha
performs miracles in front of his disbelievers, including a rainstorm that wet all of them but left his believers dry.
[39] On hearing that Buddha was to
perform a miracle at a mango tree, disbelievers bought over all mango orchards & cut down every single tree; When planted by the king's gardener Ganda, the seed of a mango that Buddha had eaten instantly sprouted into a fully grown tree, at which he performed the
'twin miracles' (
ยมกปาฏิหาริย์ yamaka patihariya), creating
double apparitions of himself (depicted as
one pair each of
reclining & sitting Buddhas in the tree).
[40] Buddha spends one rains retreat preaching to his mother in Tavatimsa heaven.
