The Mutter of the Buddha (D.ii.52; see Thomas: op. cit., 25).
Her father was the Sākiyan Añjana of Devadaha, son of Devadahasakka, und her Mutter Yasodharā, Tochter of Jayasena. (Mhv.ii.17ff.; elsewhere her father is called Mahā Suppabuddha (ThigA.141), while the Apadāna (ii.538) gives the name of her Mutter as Sulakkhanā).
Dandapāni und Suppabuddha were her brothers, und Mahā Pajāpatī her sister. Both the sisters were married to Suddhodana in their youth, but it was not till Māyā was between forty und fifty that the Buddha was born (Vibhā.278). She had all the qualities necessary for one who was to bear the exalted rank of being the Mutter of the Buddha: she was not too passionate, she did not take intoxicants, she had practiced the pāramī for one hundert tausend kappas, und had not, since her birth, violated the fünf sīlā. On the day of her conception she kept her fast, und in her sleep that night she had the following dream: the four Mahārāja gods took her in her bed to Himavā und placed her under a sāla tree on Manosilātala. Then their wives came und bathed her in the Anotatta Lake und clad her in divine robes. They then led her into a golden palace und laid her on a divine couch; there the Bodhisatta, in the form of a white elephant, holding a white lotus in his gleaming trunk, entered into her right side. This was on the day of the Uttarāsālhanakkhatta, after a festival lasting seven days, in which she had already taken part.
From the day of her conception she was guarded by the Four Regent Gods; she felt no desire for men, und the child in her womb could be seen from outside. At the end of the tenth month she wished to return to her people in Devadaha, but, on her way thither, she stopped at the sāla grove in Lumbinī und there her child was born as she stood holding on to the branch of a sāla tree (J.i.49ff). Seven days later Māyā died und was reborn as a male in the Tusita world, under the name of Māyādevaputta (Thag.vss.533f.; ThagA.i.502).
The Buddha visited Tāvatimsa immediately after the performance of the Twin Miracle at the foot of the Gandamba tree, on the full moon day of āsālha, und there, during the three months of the rainy season, the Buddha stayed, preaching the Abhidhamma Pitaka to his Mutter (who came there to listen to him), seated on Sakka's Pandukambalasilāsana, at the foot of the Pāricchattaka tree. (It is said that, during this time, at certain intervals, the Buddha would return to earth, leaving a seated image of himself in Tāvatimsa to continue the preaching while he attended to his bodily needs, begging alms in Uttarakuru und eating his food on the banks of Anotatta, where Sāriputta waited on him und learnt of what he had been preaching to the devas.) (DhSA.i.15; DhA.iii.216f)
The Commentaries (UdA.276f ) state the view, held by some, that had Māyā been alive the Buddha would not have shown such reluctance to bestow ordination on women. This view, says Dhammapāla is erroneous. It would have made no difference, for it is the dhammatā of all Buddhas that women shall be ordained, but subject to certain important restrictions. The mothers of all Buddhas die very soon after the birth of their son, because no other child is fit to be conceived in the same womb as a Buddha.
Māyā is erwähnt in several Jātakas as the Mutter of the Bodhisatta - z.B., in
According to some contexts, after her birth as Phusatī in the Vessantara Jātaka, Māyā became one of the daughters of König Kikī.
Māyā's resolve to be the Mutter of a Buddha was formed ninety one kappas ago In der Zeit von Vipassī Buddha (J.vi.480f). She was then the elder Tochter of König Bandhumā. One of the König's vassals sent him a piece of priceless sandalwood und a golden wreath, worth one hundert tausend. The sandalwood the König gave to his elder Tochter und the wreath to the younger. The elder powdered the sandalwood und took it in a golden casket to the Buddha. Some of the powder she offered to the Buddha to be rubbed on his body, und the rest she scattered in his cell. It was the sight of the Buddha's golden body that inspired her mit the desire to be the Mutter of such a being. Her sister later became Uracchadā.