manly strength,” “victor in battle,” “unsurpassed tamer of men,” “bull of a man” and “fearless lion.” He is seen as having lived hundreds of past lives as cakravartins and as manly gods such as Indra and in his final life as Gautama, he excelled as a lover to many women in his palace harem as well as a warrior in the martial arts of a ksatriya. Texts such as the Lalitavistara (extensive sport) dwell on the martial contests that the young bodhisattva had to complete in order to gain his wife, concluding in an archery contest in which he "picks up a bow that no one else could draw and that few could even lift. He grasps it while sitting down, lifts it easily, and shoots an arrow through every target, which utterly eclipses the performances of all the others." The depictions of his ascetic training as well as his victory over the temptations of Mara and his final awakening are also often described as a result of his manly effort in a heroic battle. The ascetic life is also connected to virility. In ancient India, the celibacy and the retaining of semen was said to bring about strength, health and physical energy. The practice of celibacy and austerity was said to accumulate a spiritual energy called tapas. Thus even as a celibate ascetic, the Buddha can fulfill the mythical archetype of the supreme man and heroic warrior. All these good qualities are associated with the idea that the Buddha has excellent karma and virtue and thus in Indian Buddhism, moral transformation was seen as being related to physical transformation. While usually overlooked in most scholarly literature, an important element of the Buddha mythology is the excellent physical characteristics of his body, which is adorned with what is termed the thirty two “physical characteristics of a great man” (mahapurusa-laksana), which are found only in Buddhas and in universal monarchs and are seen as proving their status as superior men. In parallel with the perfect physical qualities of the Buddha, some Buddhist female figures such as the Buddha's mother Maya are said to also have thirty two good qualities, thus male perfection and female perfection mirror each other. The Buddha's perfection is also associated with supranormal feats (abhiñña) such as levitation, walking on water and telepathy. His powers are superior to that of the gods, and Indian deities like Brahma are