Maya

Queen; mother of the Buddha

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Lived -600–-600, aged 0

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44 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
-600–-600
Aged 0

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

Queen of the Shakya kingdom, she died seven days after giving birth to Siddhartha Gautama — the child who became the Buddha. Her sister raised him; Maya, reborn in a Buddhist heaven, descended on occasion to advise her son.

Biography

About

Maya was the wife of Śuddhodana, king of Shakya, and mother to the boy who would become the Buddha. On a traditional journey to her family home in Devadaha, her labor began early in the gardens of Lumbini, where she gave birth. She died days afterward — generally said to be seven. Buddhist tradition holds that she was reborn in a Buddhist heaven, a pattern said to follow the births of all Buddhas. Her sister, Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī, raised Siddhartha in her place and later became the first Buddhist nun ordained by the Buddha. Maya would descend from heaven from time to time to counsel her son.

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Maya

Maya

saidundated

Our tragic age demands poetry of courage and not whimpers about the inevitable end of all maya.

— Mulk Raj Anand, in Mulk Raj Anand: A Reader : Selections from His Fictional and Non-fictional ...(1 January 2005), p. xxi.

Maya

saidundated

Whoever is unacquainted with my law and dies in that state, must return to the earth till he becomes a perfect Samanean.

— Buddha, in “Isis Unveiled: Secrets of the Ancient Wisdom Tradition, Madame Blavatsky's ...”, p. 61.

Maya

saidundated

Believe in all things; none believe;judge not nor warp by "Facts" the thought; See clear, hear clear, tho' life may seem Mâyâ and Mirage, Dream and Naught.

— Richard Francis Burton, in The Kasidah Of Haji Abdul El-Yezdi (20 March 2014), p. 38.

Maya

saidundated