He attained the state of Bodhisattva on earth when in the personality called Prabhâpala. Tu#a stands for a place on this globe, not for a paradise in the invisible regions. The selection of the Sâkya family and his mother Mâyâ, as “the purest on earth,” is in accordance with the model of the nativity of every Saviour, God or deified Reformer. The tale about his entering his mother’s bosom in the shape of a white elephant is an allusion to his innate wisdom, the elephant of that colour being a symbol of every Bodhisattva. The statements that at Gautama’s birth, the newly born babe walked seven steps in four directions, that an Udumbara flower bloomed in all its rare beauty and that the Nâga kings forthwith proceeded ‘‘to baptise him ”, are all so many allegories in the phraseology of the Initiates and well-understood by every Eastern Occultist.

Udumbara (Sk.). A lotus of gigantic size, sacred to Buddha: the Nila Udumbara or “blue lotus”, regarded as a supernatural omen when ever it blossoms, for it flowers but once every three thousand years. One such, it is said, burst forth before the birth of Gautama, another, near a lake at the foot of the Himalayas, in the fourteenth century, just before the birth of Tsong-kha-pa, etc., etc. The same is said of the Udumbara tree (ficus glomerata) because it flowers at intervals of long centuries, as does also a kind of cactus, which blossoms only at extra ordinary altitudes and opens at midnight.

Arhans and Sages of the boundless Vision(4) are rare as is the blossom of the Udumbara tree. Arhans are born at midnight hour, together with the sacred plant of nine and seven stalks(5), the holy flower that opes and blooms in darkness, out of the pure dew and on the frozen bed of snow-capped heights, heights that are trodden by no sinful foot.

Maitreya Buddha (Sk.). The same as the Kalki Avatar of Vishnu (the “White Horse” Avatar),
and of Sosiosh and other Messiahs. The only difference lies in the dates of their appearances. Thus,
while Vishnu is expected to appear on his white horse at the end of the present Kali Yuga age “for the final destruction of the wicked, the renovation of creation and the restoration of purity”, Maitreya is expected earlier. Exoteric or popular teaching making slight variations on the esoteric doctrine states
that Sakyamuni (Gautama Buddha) visited him in Tu#a (a celestial abode) and commissioned him to issue thence on earth as his successor at the expiration of five thousand years after his (Buddha’s) death. This would be in less than 3,000 years hence. Esoteric philosophy teaches that the next Buddha will appear during the seventh (sub) race of this Round. The fact is that Maitreya was a follower of Buddha,
a well-known Arhat, though not his direct disciple, and that he was the founder of an esoteric philosophical school. As shown by Eitel (Sanskrit-Chinese Dict.), “statues were erected in his honour as early as B.C. 350”.

Kalki Avatar (Sk.). The “White Horse Avatar”, which will be the last manvantaric incarnation of Vishnu, according to the Brahmins; of Maitreya Buddha, agreeably to Northern Buddhists; of Sosiosh, the last hero and Saviour of the Zoroastrians, as claimed by Parsis ; and of the “Faithful and True” on the white Horse (Rev. xix.,2 ). In his future epiphany or tenth avatar, the heavens will open and Vishnu will appear “seated on a milk-white steed, with a drawn sword blazing like a comet, for the final destruction of the wicked, the renovation of ‘creation’ and the ‘restoration of purity’”. (Compare Revelation.) This will take place at the end of the Kaliyuga 427,000 years hence. The latter end of every Yuga is called “the destruction of the world”, as then the earth changes each time its outward form, submerging one set of continents and upheaving another set.