Buddhacarita by Ven Asvaghosa - Ancient Buddhist Texts

Buddha-carita, or Life of Buddha - 11
13. Duty, wealth, and pleasure under his guidance assumed mutually
each other’s object, but not the outward dress; yet as if they still vied
together they shone all the brighter in the glorious career of their
triumphant success.
14. He, the monarch of the Śākyas, of native pre-eminence, but whose
actual pre-eminence was brought about by his numberless councillors
of exalted wisdom, shone forth all the more gloriously, like the moon
amidst the stars shining with a light like its own.
15. To him there was a queen, named Māyā, as if free from all deceit
(māyā) – an effulgence proceeding from his effulgence, like the
splendour of the sun when it is free from all the influence of
darkness, a chief queen in the united assembly of all queens.
16. Like a mother to her subjects, intent on their welfare, – devoted to
all worthy of reverence like devotion itself, – shining on her lord’s
family like the goddess of prosperity, – she was the most eminent of
goddesses to the whole world.
17. Verily the life of women is always darkness, yet when it
encountered her, it shone brilliantly; thus the night does not retain its
gloom, when it meets with the radiant crescent of the moon.
18. ‘This people, being hard to be roused to wonder in their souls,
cannot be influenced by me if I come to them as beyond their senses,’
- so saying, Duty abandoned her own subtile nature and made her
form visible.