The gestation of the Buddha was in many ways miraculous. He entered the womb of his mother by a voluntary act, resigning his abode in heaven for the purpose. At the time of his descent upon earth Mâyâ Devi dreamt that a white elephant of singular beauty had entered into her, a dream which portended the future greatness of the child (R. T. R. P., vol. ii. p. 61). During the time of his remaining in the womb, his body, which was visible both to his mother and to others, had a resplendent and glorious appearance.[24] "Mâyâ the queen, during the time that Bodhisattva remained in the womb of his mother, did not feel her body heavy, but on the contrary light, at ease and in comfort, and felt no pain in her entrails. She was nowise tormented by the desires of passion, nor by disgust, nor by trouble, and had no irresolution against desire, no irresolution against the thought of evil or of vice. She suffered the sensation neither of cold, nor of heat, nor of hunger, nor of thirst, nor of trouble, nor of passion, nor of fatigue: she saw nothing of which the form, the sound, the smell, the taste and the touch did not seem to her agreeable. She had no bad dreams. The tricks of women, their inconstancy, their jealousy, the defects of women and their weaknesses, she did not share" (Ibid., vol. ii. p. 77). And although it is never expressly stated that the Buddha's nominal father had no part in his production, it is remarkable that at the time of her conceiving, Mâyâ was living in a place apart from him, having craved permission to retire for a season, to practice fasting and penance. During this time she had told the king that she would be "completely delivered from thoughts of stealing, desire and pride," and that she would not "yield to one illicit desire" (R. T. R. P., vol. ii. pp. 54, 55). Some sects of Buddhists are more explicit, and maintain that Bodhisattvas do not pass through the earlier stages of fœtal development; namely, those of _Kalalam_, mixing up, the period of the first week, when the future body is like milk: _arbudam_, the period of the second week, where a form rises like something inflated; peci, thickening: and _ghana_, hardening, the periods of the third and fourth weeks (Wassiljew, p. 260). But all this does not exclude the coöperation of a human father. Passing to another great religion, we find that even the sober philosopher Confucius did not enter the world, if we may believe Chinese traditions, without premonitory symptoms of his greatness. It is said that one day as his mother was ascending a hill, "the leaves of the trees and plants all erected themselves and bent downwards on her return. That night she dreamt the Black _Te_ appeared, and said to her, 'You shall have a son, a sage, and you must bring him forth in a hollow mulberry tree.'" In another dream she received a prophecy of the importance of her coming progeny (C. C., vol. i. p. 59—Proleg.). Another account states that "various