8. After this period of gradual approach to the required perfection the Bodhisattva went to Bodhimanda, the place appointed for his reception of the Buddhaship. Here he had to withstand a furious attack by the demon Mara, who first endeavored to annihilate him by his armies, and then to seduce him by the fascination of his three daughters. But Gautama withstood his male and female adversaries with equal calmness and success. Of the latter he had possibly had enough in his princely palace. 9. All these trials having been surmounted, he placed himself under the Bodhi (or Intelligence) tree, and there, engaging in the most intense meditations, gradually reached the intellectual and moral height towards which he had long been climbing. He was now in possession of Bodhi, or that complete and perfect knowledge which constitutes a Buddha. He was thus fit to teach the law of salvation, but the Lalitavistra represents him as still doubting for a moment whether he should engage in a task which he feared would be thankless and unavailing. Men, he thought, would be incapable of receiving so sublime a doctrine, and he would incur fatigue and make exertions in vain. Silence and solitude recommended themselves at this moment to his spirit. But from a resolution so disastrous he was turned aside by the intercession of the god Brahma. 10. He proceeded accordingly to "turn the Wheel of the Law," or to preach to others, during the forty-five remaining years of his long life, the truths he had arrived at himself. The current lives speak, in their exaggerated manner, of his magnificent receptions by the kings whose countries he visited, and of the thousands of converts whom he made by his preaching, or who, in technical language, obtained Nirvâna through him. His father and other members of his family were among his followers. But among the first-fruits of his teaching were the five Brahmins who had abandoned him when he had relaxed in his ascetic habits. These, on first perceiving him, spoke of him with contempt as a glutton and a luxurious fellow spoilt by softness. But his personal presence filled them with admiration, and they at once acknowledged his perfect wisdom. During this time the two orders of monks and nuns, with their strict regulations enforcing continence and temperance, were founded. Gautama's aunt and nurse, Prajapati, was the first abbess; the Buddha, who had intended to exclude women from his order, having consented to admit them at her request. Rahula, his son, received the tonsure. 11. After he had firmly established his law in the hearts of many devoted disciples, the Buddha "entered Nirvâna" at the age of eighty, at Kusinagara. That his death was deeply mourned by the friends who had hung upon his lips, and drawn their knowledge of religious truth from him, need not be related.