Maya
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Maya
摩耶 (Skt, Pali; Jpn Maya)
Also known as Mahamaya. The wife of King Shuddhodana of the Shakya tribe in India, and the mother of Shakyamuni. She died seven days after giving birth to Shakyamuni at the Lumbini grove, and her younger sister Mahaprajapati raised the young prince. According to the Sutra of the Collected Stories of the Buddha's Deeds in Past Lives, Maya was the eldest of the eight daughters of a man named Suprabuddha who lived in Devadaha near Kapilavastu. She married into the royal family of the Shakya tribe at Kapilavastu along with her seven younger sisters. Maya and her youngest sister Mahaprajapati were married to Shuddhodana and the other six sisters to Shuddhodana's three brothers. A differing account appears in the Mahasammata Sutra, which states that Suprabuddha had two daughters, Maya and Mahamaya, and that it was Mahamaya who married Shuddhodana and gave birth to Shakyamuni. According to the Miscellaneous Agama Sutra, Shakyamuni, having attained enlightenment, ascended to the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods to preach his teaching to his mother, Maya, who had been reborn in this heaven. The Causality of Past and Present Sutra states that, when the pregnant Maya reached out with her right arm for a branch of an ashoka tree at the Lumbini grove to pick some blossoms, Shakyamuni was born out of her right side.