________________
14
Māyā sees her son sitting118 or even standing, 119 then gives birth to him after a full ten months, not after 9 or 10, as is the case with other children. The canonical Pāli texts explicitly stress this.120 Besides, she does so in an upright position after plucking a flower from a tree 121
Queen Māyā's erect posture is emphasized already in the canon as something special, something not done by common women.122 This is interesting in connection with the fact that in modern gynaecology the delivering posture in general and the standing posture in particular have been much discussed of late. Its outcome was the insight that the specific surroundings and cultural development of primitive tribes also essentially shape childbirth circumstances. The way of living of these tribes and the specific bearing postures they practice are not natural as in the case of animals - quasi instinctive - but they are acquired by their whole mode of life; they represent an expression of a traditional social system that seems to be frozen, as it were, in its development.123 Though tradition does not allow us to make a relevant statement as to the Säkya Queen, her standing posture may, nevertheless, not be selfdetermined. DN II 14, however, tells us that the lords of the quarters receive the child first, before the humans, which can mean that Queen Māyā was delivered without any assistance. Women of the Benín (Africa), as Richard Burghart informed me, consider a birth in a standing position to be particularly heroic. Did the Sākya women share this view ? So much for the old tradition in Pāli.
Yet in the Mahāvastu the Bodhisatta suddenly comes into being, in a non-physical way, out of Māyā's right side, 124 without splitting it
118 Ps IV 181.21 sqq.(Mātā) nisinnam Bodhisattam kucchi-gatam taco paticchädetum
na sakkoti. Olokentiya ca bahi thito viya pannayati (30 ...) Bodhisatto pana antokucchi-gato mataram na passati, na hi anto-kucchiyam cakkhu-viññānam uppajjati = Sv 436,18 sqq. In art, this has never been represented, as far as I know, c.g. in the way Marx Reichlich depicted the Christ child in his mother's womb (1502; see, e.g. Lechner 1981: plates 231-234) to which Johann-Michael Fritz (Heidelberg) kindly drew my attention. Embryonic animals, however, are known in Indian art from prehistoric and historical rock shelters in Bhimbetka, Satkunda and Ramchaja south and cast of Bhopal (sce, c.g. Neumayer 1983: 75d and 77h [bovid with foetus
inside body), 77a and 77g (antelope with foetus]). 119 Muu I 144,3 sqq. 120 D II 14; M III 122. Cf. the discussion in Printz 1925: 119 sqq. 121 Usually, trees like the aśoka here (thus Lüders 1941: 62 against Ja I 52,24 sq.,
where it is a śāl trec. See also Printz 1925: 126.) flower when touched by a lady's foot; here we have the case of a woman delivering after touching a tree with her hand. See, e.g. Bollée 1983: 238 and now also Syed 1990: 77 sqq. - For the symbolism implicd I refer to Eva Tornow's forthcoming study Das Geburtsmotiv in
den altindischen Religionen (working title) 122 DN II 14; MN III 122. 123 See Hauffe/Köster-Schlutz 1987: 395. 124 Muu II 20,14 > Windisch 1908: 121. - Hieronymus, The Christian Father of the