pahng prasoot (ปางประสูติ)

Thai-Rajasap. ‘Birth of the Buddha posture’. In Buddhist narrative tradition, the conception and birth of the bodhisattva are accompanied by a series of auspicious and miraculous signs that signify his extraordinary status. Upon entering the womb of Queen Maha Maya, it is said that the queen experienced profound physical and mental purity: she was free from sensual desire, untouched by bodily discomfort, and granted a visionary experience of the bodhisattva seated in meditation within her womb, radiant like a golden image enshrined in a lotus chamber. Unlike ordinary infants, he remained undefiled and did not assume a curled fetal posture. At birth, the child is described as immediately taking seven steps, with lotus flowers arising beneath his feet. Turning to the north, he raised one hand toward the sky and proclaimed the Lion’s Roar (fig.), declaring his supremacy and announcing that this would be his final birth, free from further rebirths. This episode symbolically affirms both his spiritual pre-eminence and his destiny for Enlightenment. In Buddhist iconography, this scene is represented as the infant prince walking, supported by lotuses, with his right hand pointing upward (fig.). Some depictions show him with parted lips, suggesting speech, and occasionally positioned near a branch of a sala tree (fig.), alluding to the circumstances of his birth. In the Thai artistic tradition, sculptural representations typically favour postures associated with the Buddha’s Enlightenment and narrative episodes from the bodhisattva’s life prior to Enlightenment—including the nativity—are more commonly rendered in mural painting. This preference may reflect a doctrinal and terminological distinction: before attaining Enlightenment, the bodhisattva is not yet regarded as the Buddha proper, and thus sculptural Buddha images or Buddha statues are generally reserved for post-enlightenment representations. 回