"The attending spirits, who surrounded the Virgin Maya and the infant Saviour, singing praises of 'the Blessed One,' said: 'All joy be to you, Queen Maya, rejoice and be glad, for the child you have borne is holy.' Then the Rishis and Devas who dwelt on earth exclaimed with great joy: 'This day Buddha is born for the good of men, to dispel the darkness of their ignorance.' Then the four heavenly kings took up the strain and said: 'Now because Bôdhisatwa is born, to give joy and bring peace to the world, therefore is there this brightness.' Then the gods of the thirty-three heavens took up the burden of the strain, and the Yama Devas and the Tûsita Devas, and so forth, through all the heavens of the Kama, Rupa, and Arupa worlds, even up to the Akanishta heavens, all the Devas joined in this song, and said: '_To-day Bôdhisatwa is born on earth, to give joy and peace to men and Devas, to shed light in the dark places, and to give sight to the blind._"[148:1] Even the sober philosopher _Confucius_ did not enter the world, if we may believe Chinese tradition, without premonitory symptoms of his greatness.[148:2] Sir John Francis Davis, speaking of Confucius, says: "Various prodigies, _as in other instances_, were the forerunners of the birth of this extraordinary person. On the eve of his appearance upon earth, _celestial music_ sounded in the ears of his mother; and when he was born, this inscription appeared on his breast: 'The maker of a rule for setting the World.'"[148:3] In the case of _Osiris_, the Egyptian Saviour, at his birth, a voice was heard proclaiming that: "The Ruler of all the Earth is born."[148:4] In Plutarch's "_Isis_" occurs the following: "At the birth of Osiris, there was heard a voice that the Lord of all the Earth was coming in being; and some say that a woman named Pamgle, as she was going to carry water to the temple of Ammon, in the city of Thebes, heard that voice, which commanded her to proclaim it with a loud voice, that the great beneficent god Osiris was born."[148:5] Wonderful demonstrations of delight also attended the birth of the heavenly-born _Apollonius_. According to Flavius Philostratus, who wrote the life of this remarkable man, a flock of swans surrounded his mother, and clapping their wings, as is their custom, they sang in unison, while the air was fanned by gentle breezes. When the god _Apollo_ was born of the virgin Latona in the Island of Delos, there was joy among the undying gods in Olympus, and the Earth laughed beneath the smile of Heaven.[148:6] At the time of the birth of "_Hercules the Saviour_," his father Zeus, the god of gods, spake from heaven and said: "This day shall a child be born of the race of Perseus, who shall be the mightiest of the sons of men."[149:1]