Who among the folio wing was Buddha’s foster mother?

Mahapajapati Gotami was the foster mother of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. She was the younger sister of Queen Maya, the Buddha's biological mother. Following Queen Maya's death just seven days after giving birth, Mahapajapati Gotami took on the responsibility of raising the infant prince, even nursing him herself while entrusting her own biological son, Nanda, to a wet nurse. Beyond her maternal role, she is historically significant as the first woman to be ordained into the Buddhist Sangha, becoming the first bhikkhuni (nun) [2]. She led five hundred women in seeking ordination, eventually establishing the female monastic order. While Queen Maya is the birth mother and Gajalakshmi is a goddess often associated with her in iconography, Mahapajapati Gotami is explicitly identified in Buddhist tradition and literature as the foster mother who nurtured the future Buddha [3].

Sources

1. [2] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART I, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 4: Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings > 6. Followers of the Buddha > p. 92
2. [1] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART I, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 4: Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings > Paintings from the past > p. 102
3. [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah%C4%81praj%C4%81pat%C4%AB_Gautam%C4%AB