His vow shook the Heavens; the ten-directional lands all trembled. The Western Paradise suddenly rained down a sky full of mandara flowers, petals whirling like snow. Buddhas and bodhisattvas alike halted and looked up, astonishment and doubt upon their faces.
Seven days later, Lady Maya passed away suddenly. Prince Siddhartha was thereafter raised with devoted care by his aunt, Mahaprajapati.
Born brilliantly perceptive, he mastered the Five Sciences in childhood and delved deeply into the Four Vedas. His appearance was peerless, endowed with the Thirty-Two Marks of a Great Man and Eighty Minor Characteristics, unmatched in all the world. At seventeen, he married his cousin Yasodhara, and later they had a son, Rahula.
Though he enjoyed all the splendor and wealth of royalty, he harbored not a trace of indulgence. One day, while touring the city and leaving through its eastern, southern, western, and northern gates, he personally witnessed infants crying in swaddling clothes, white-haired elders bent with age, sickly bodies reduced to scattered bones, and corpses stiff and cold. He also encountered a shramana walking serenely, quiet stillness between his brows—he suddenly felt that worldly affairs were like bubbles and life like a lamp in the wind. Compassion welled within him, and thus was born his resolve to leave the mortal world behind.
On the night of his nineteenth year, he quietly left the palace, shaved his head, changed his clothes, and first went to Vaishali to seek the Dharma. He then traveled to Rajgir to study, but ultimately found that none of those he encountered offered the ultimate truth. He therefore entered the ascetic forest of Uruvilva Village, south of Gaya in the Magadha Kingdom, and practiced bitter austerities for six years. His father the king sent five close attendants to serve him.
During that time, he ate