The Woman Who Raised the Buddha: The Extraordinary Life of Mahaprajapati

Nautilus Book Award Winner

The first full biography of Mahaprajapati Gautami, the woman who raised the Buddha—examining her life through stories and canonical records.

Mahaprajapati was the only mother the Buddha ever knew. His birth mother, Maya, died shortly after childbirth, and her sister Mahaprajapati took the infant to her breast, nurturing and raising him into adulthood. While there is a lot of ambiguity overall in the Buddha's biography, this detail remains consistent across all Buddh...