Madame A. Christina Albers
Buddha
Buddha Gayā
Now onward wandering from place to place
Met many sādhus, each holding a doctrine.
Among these were five pious mendicants,
In a sequestered grove near Uruvelā.
Their lives were pure, but their austerities
Extreme and stringent beyond human reason.
Here stayed the Lord sometime, but soon He found
Not here could He accomplish His life’s mission,
And grew His frame so weak that in the end
He fainted, lay exhausted by the wayside.
A herdsman came that way, driving his flock.
He saw that noble form all prostrate lying.
Then from the teeming udder of a ewe,
He pressed into His mouth its milky substance,
And lo, the Lord revived and opened His eyes.
Still felt He weak and neath the sylvan verdure
The cooling foliage of a shading tree
He found a seat. Here deep in meditation
Sujātā saw Him, pious herdsman’s wife,
Unto whose mother-heart the gods had granted
The longed for precious gift of a son-child.
She sought a holy man, to whom to offer
A gift prepared by her own pious hand:
A bowl of milk-rice, served in golden basin.
She saw the Lord in glory neath that tree,
Thought Him a god and prostrating in worship,
She placed the bowl of milk-rice at His feet.
The Lord partook and felt His body stronger.