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6. Temptation and Enlightenment
One day Sujata, a villager’s daughter, fed him a rich rice milk—a "meal so wondrous...that our Lord felt strength and life return as though the nights of watching and the days of fast had passed in dream." (Arnold 1930, 96) And then he set out alone for the Bo tree, where he vowed to remain until fully illumined. At that point, Mara, the Evil One, attempted to prevent his enlightenment and confronted him with temptations much in the same manner that Satan tested Jesus during his fasting in the wilderness.
Unmoved, he sat under the Bo tree while Mara continued her attack—first in the form of desire, parading voluptuous goddesses and dancing girls before him, then in the guise of death, assailing him with hurricanes, torrential rains, flaming rocks, boiling mud, fierce soldiers and beasts—and finally darkness. Yet still, Gautama remained unmoved.
As a last resort, the temptress challenged his right to be doing what he was doing. Siddhartha then tapped the earth,* and the earth thundered her answer: "I bear you witness!" All the hosts of the Lord and the elemental beings responded and acclaimed his right to pursue the enlightenment of the Buddha—whereupon Mara fled.
Having defeated Mara, Gautama spent the rest of the night in deep meditation under the tree, realizing the Four Noble Truths. Thus, he attained Enlightenment, or the Awakening, during the night of the full-moon day of the month of May, about the year 528 BC. His being was transformed, and he became the Buddha.