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LIFE OF MAHÁVÍRA. family, the family foundation, and the family exalter. His hands and feet will be perfect in beauty, his five senses perfect, and all his qualities, properties, and marks*, complete, of proper height, weight, and proportions, and all the limbs properly developed, and agreeable to the sight as the moon. Such shall be thy son; and when he passes from the state of childhood to that of youth, he will be perfect in all the common branches of knowledge, and as a youth will be brave, heroic, powerful, well built, capable of leading armies; in a word, a king of kings. Thou hast seen, therefore, a most propitious dream;"—and this he repeated two or three times.
When then Trišalá had heard the interpretation of the dream from King Siddhartha, laying it up in her heart, and bringing her joined hands to her forehead, she thus spoke :-“I accept of the interpretation you have given as wholly free from error and doubt, and as altogether excellent and according to my wishes.” So saying, she rose from her seat, and departed; but, on reflection, she said in her own mind, “Now, I must take care that no wicked dream follow, to destroy the virtue of this one. Dreams concerning the gods,
* That is, moles and marks on the body, which are considered of great importance.
