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Mahamaya, also known as Maya, is the mother of Gautama Buddha and the wife of Raja Suddhodhana. Buddhist legend says that Mahamaya had a dream in which a white elephant with six tusks had entered her side. This dream symbolised that she had conceived a child who would become either a world ruler or a Buddha.
When Mahamaya felt she was close to giving birth, after ten lunar months, she set off for her parents home. She stopped outside the city of Kapilavastu, in a grove of trees called Lumbini grove. The child came forth from her right hip as she stood upright, holding on to the branch of a sal tree, the posture which all mothers of Buddhas adopt during birth. Seven days after the birth, she died and was reborn in the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods (Tavatimsa Heaven).
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