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litavistara (98,3) states that her death in childbed was not the child's fault, but was due to the shortness of her life span. For otherwise, her heart would have been broken at the departure of the adult Bodhisatta in search of a teacher.
Little Gotama was taken care of by his mother's sister Mahāpajāpatī, as, for different reasons, Tisalā took care of Vaddhamāņa. Thus, in a way, both the Jina and the Buddha had two mothers, something, which, according to Jung (1976 $494 sqq.) and Neumann (1962: 132 sqq.) is an essential item of heroic myth. Ananda's story in the Märkandeya Purāņa ch. 76 is a similar case of dvi-mātstva..
Now Nyberg (1938: 7) and Widengren (1965: 102) assume that the Buddha-vita for its part influenced the eastern Zaraluštra legend. Comparing the relevant Persian tradition to the Buddhist Jātakas, as Widengren demands, will not get us much further. Besides, he may mean the birth and life of Gotama Siddhattha in certain Indian texts other than the Jātakas. Moreover, one wonders that he does not mention Windisch's book Buddha's Geburt. Furthermore, details such as the statement in the late Dēnkart (7,1,56 sqq.), that Zaraluštra's native village was quite bright three days before his birth, and the old legend in Yašt 17,18 sq. that Zaral uštra was the only child who laughed when he was born, at any rate only occurs of the Bodhisatta in the Mahāvastu.139 On the other hand, a similar phaenomenon to the bodily marks of the Indian Mahāpuruşa (vide infra) are not found in the culture of ancient Irān. This is all the more striking as they were known of in Sakian-Khotanese140 and Tokharian.141
Though we meet with Vaddhamāņa Mahāvīra and Gotama Siddhattha, motwithstanding the peculiar circumstances of their births, as human beings in the respective canonical traditions, they were deified very early. This, too, was a result of the belief that before their present existences they stayed in a heaven, and that their descents were accompanied by special phenomena in the sky, and that the gods took an active interest in their passing away - in the case of the Buddha they stood packed together around his deathbed. 142 The Jains, for their part, began to perform pūjā in front of statues for the Jinas as if they were Hindu gods and later to speak of Mahāvīra as Gurudeva.
Something similar developed, as is well-known, in the Buddhist Mahāsānghika school as a precursor of Mahāyāna.143 Typical of the deification process may also be the male proper name Buddhadeva (MW)
139 Widengren, Ibid., p. 101; - Printz 1925: 127 sq. 140 See Leumann 1920: 116-122; Bailey 1963: 91 sq. 141 See Couvreur 1946: 577-610. 112 Bolléc 1984: 177 note 27 (which should read: Kalpasūtra $125 f.). 143 Glasenapp, von 1936: 57 et passim.