ABSTRACT
In olden days, when the life of man was of unlimited duration, lived King Utposhadha. On the crown of his head grew a very soft tumour, somewhat resembling a cushion of cotton or wool, without doing him any harm. When it had become quite ripe and had broken, there came forth from it a boy, shapely and handsome and gracious, perfect in every limb and joint, with a skin the colour of gold, a head like a canopy, long arms, a broad forehead, interlacing eyebrows, and a body provided with the thirty-two signs of a Mahāpurusha. 2 Immediately after his birth he was taken into the apartments of the women; and when King Utposhadha's eighty thousand wives saw him, milk began to flow from their breasts, and each of the women cried out, “Let him suck me! let him suck me!” 3 Wherefore he received the name of Māndhātar. 4 Some of them thought that, as he came into life out of the crown of a head, he ought to 2receive the name of Mūrdhaja (crown-born); consequently the name Māndhātar is known to some, and that of Mūrdhaja to others.
