Such are the wonders that took place at the time Phralaong entered his mother's womb. When this great event happened, four chiefs of Nats, from the seat of Tsadoomarit,[21] armed with swords, kept an uninterrupted watch round the palace, to avert any accident that might prove hurtful to the mother or her blessed fruit. From 10,000 worlds, four Nats from the same seat were actively engaged in driving away all Bilous[22] and other monsters, and forcing them to flee and hide themselves at the extremity of the earth. Maia, free from every disordered propensity, spent her time with her handmaids in the interior of her apartments. Her soul enjoyed, in a perfect calm, the sweetest happiness; fatigue and weariness never affected her unimpaired health. In his mother's womb, Phralaong appeared like the white thread passed through the purest and finest pearls; the womb itself resembled an elegant Dzedi.[23][C] [C] _Remark of the Burmese Translator._--It is to be borne in mind that mothers of Buddhas having had the singular privilege of giving birth to a child of so exalted a dignity, it would not be convenient or becoming that other mortals should receive life in the same womb; they therefore always die seven days after their delivery and migrate to the abode of Nats, called Toocita. It is usual with other mothers to be delivered, lying in an horizontal position, and sometimes before or after the tenth month. But with the mother of a Buddha the case is not the same; the time of her confinement invariably happens at the beginning of the tenth month, and she is always delivered in an erect and vertical position. With the solicitous care and vigilant attention with which one carries about a thabeit[24] full of oil, the great Maia watched all her movements, and during ten months unremittingly laboured for the safe preservation of the precious fruit of her womb. FOOTNOTES