Mother's Day provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of mothers in different religions and cultures. As a Buddhist and gender scholar, I know how complicated the attitude towards my mother is.

Siddhartha Gautama of Historical Buddha taught that family relations are obstacles to the Enlightenment. According to the Buddha, attachment to the family can cause pain because the family relationship ends and cannot provide lasting satisfaction. The main goal of Buddhism is to break the cycle of rebirth, which is characterized by suffering.

But a family tie is still important to the Buddha - his relationship with his mother. Even after the Buddha left his home, he continued to pay tribute to his two mothers, Maya and his foster mothers (called Mahaprajapati Gautami in Sanskrit) and Mahapajapati Gotami, used in Pali-language early ancient Indian Buddhist scriptures. These women play a key role in the Buddha’s life story and they continue to inspire Buddhists today. Mahaprajapati specifically inspired women to be the first Buddhist nun.

Many Buddhist scriptures describe reproduction and pregnancy in a negative way as they continue the cycle of rebirth. But Buddhist scriptures also express love and gratitude to the mother, especially the two mother figures of the Buddha.

Maya, biological mother

Maya and Mahapurajapati are sisters, both married to the Buddha's father Suddhodana, who ruled the Kapilavastu region on the Indian-Nepal border. The Mayan name refers to "illusion", which refers to the Hindu and Buddhist concepts that the material world obscures the true nature of reality.

Miracles related to the Mayans appear in the stories of conception, pregnancy and delivery of the future Buddha Siddhartha. Siddhartha is the Buddha in the current world cycle, but in the Buddhist tradition, there are other Buddhas in the past and more Buddhas will be there in the future. Everyone goes through many rebirths before they get the Buddha, and each of the final rebirth follows the same pattern. According to Buddhist texts, the upcoming Buddhas await the right birth, they choose their own parents and are not conceived through sexual intercourse.

Early Buddhist texts claim that Siddhartha chose Maya as her mother because of her purity and entered the right side in the form of an elephant while she was sleeping. According to some Buddhist scriptures, the future Buddha never really touched her womb during the Mayan pregnancy, which was considered impure in early Indian Buddhism. When Siddhartha was born, he was said to appear on the right side of Maya, holding the branches.

Maya died seven days after her son was born, which meant she did not live to see him become an enlightened Buddha. As a Buddha, Siddhartha encouraged his followers to leave their family life and cut family relationships, he also never forgot his biological mother.

Thanks to her good karma, the Mayans were reborn as God, but in Buddhism, God did not move forward spiritually like the Buddha. The Buddha used his spiritual power to go to heaven, where he preached to Maya and encouraged her to make progress on the Buddhist path.

A Chinese article claims that the Mayans spontaneously breasts when they hear their son’s words, indicating that even after her death, the bond between mother and son remained strong.

Mahaprajapati, foster mother

After Maya's death, Siddhartha's aunt Mahaprajapati became his foster mother. She cared for the young Siddhartha and was just born her own son Nanda.

As Siddhartha prepares to leave home and follow the spiritual road, the chariot driver tries to convince him to stay, reminding Siddhartha how Mahaprajapati takes care of him and telling Siddhartha that he should be grateful for her mother's kindness.

Siddhartha left her home anyway, which caused Mahaprajapati to collapse. According to Mahavastu, the earliest Sanskrit biography of the Buddha, her "due to tears and sadness, her eyes were covered by scales and she became blind." Until Siddhartha returned to the Buddha, her vision was restored.

Around the same time the Buddha returned to his kingdom of Capilavastu, his father Suddhodana died, making Mahaprajapati a widow. The rules of Buddhist monks and nuns (called Vinaya) report that Mahaprajapati approaches the Buddha and asks whether women like her and women whose husbands become monks can leave their homes to join the Buddha's monastery orders.

The Buddha finally agreed to the request, but warned that including women as nuns, would shorten the lifespan of Buddhist teachings in the world from 1,000 to 500 years. Mahaprajapati became the first Buddhist nun, inspiring the Enlightenment before he died at the age of 120.

Buddhist scholars do not necessarily regard this event as true, but rather as a reflection of a mixed attitude to becoming a nun in the early Buddhist community. These mixed attitudes can still be seen today - for example, reluctance to restore order to the nuns of Southeast Asia that disappeared hundreds of years ago.

In Buddhism, it must be composed of 10 fully appointed monks and fully appointed nuns. In China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, the nun’s orders remained where the Dashan Buddha Buddhism was practiced. However, the monastery leaders of Southeast Asia who practice Theravada Buddhism decided that Mahayana Nuns could not order Theravada Nuns to leave countries such as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar without the nuns who had exactly the rules.

The legacy of Buddha's mother

Maya and Mahaprajapati are both loving mothers throughout the Buddha's life, but Mahaprajapati still has more inspiration for Buddhist women.

South Asian Buddhist scholar Reiko Ohnuma believes that Maya is remembered in the Buddhist tradition as an idealized image of a passive mother. Shortly after the birth of the Buddha in the future, her death is a reminder that life is impermanent and characterized by suffering.

By contrast, Mahaprajapati lives a fulfilling life and plays an active role in cultivating future Buddhas and advocating women to join the monastery community. Early Buddhists may not fully support the inclusion of women in Buddhist monastery communities, but the nun’s order was determined.

Mahaprajapati makes this opportunity possible thanks to her unique position as the foster mother of the Buddha.