Part 4: Birth of Ānanda

In the southern half of Bharata in Jambūdvīpa there is a city Cakrapura, the ornament of the earth. Its king was Mahaśiras, by whom, like another lokapāla, the important heads of kings had been made to bow. Of him, whose conduct was remarkable, the crest-jewel of kings, the intelligence was adorned with discernment like his Śrī with power. There is no art which was not apparent in him, like the species of lives in the ocean, Svayambhūramaṇa.^[1] While he was ruling the earth, there were no reports of thieves; only he himself stole the minds of the noble. Causing joy in the one and fear in the other, he did not leave the heart of the noble nor of the wicked.

His wife was named Vaijayantī, surpassing even Apsarases in beauty; and his second wife was Lakṣmīvatī, like Lakṣmī.

The god, King Sudarśana, fell from Sahasrāra and descended into the womb of the chief-queen Vaijayantī. Queen Vaijayantī, delighted by the four dreams indicating the birth of a Bala, conceived the best of embryos. When the time was completed, she bore a son, spotless as a full moon, twenty-nine bows tall, named Ānanda.