(Usually when one performs deeds of merit, even nowadays, one has to pour water on the ground to make the Earth Goddess one's witness and also to give merit to the dead.) The Buddha then changed his attitude from meditation to that of subduing Mara by placing his right hand on his right knee calling the Earth Goddess up from the ground. She wrung from her hair the water accumulated from the deeds of merit that the Buddha had performed in his previous lives and this drowned the whole of Mara's army. The Buddha then continued his meditation unit lie arrived at the Supreme Enlightenment.
Sometimes this scene is explained as an allegory of personification of the thought of the Buddha. During this period the Buddha "as undergoing a mental struggle as to whether he should go back to worldly pleasure or continue his meditation until he arrived at the Supreme Enlightenment. Once he had decided to continue his meditation, he put his right hand on his right knee as a sign of his determination not to get up from his seat until his great desire had been accomplished.
7. Bronze lion door-guardians. There are altogether twelve, in six pairs. It had been believed that the pair guarding the main central door of the ordination hall on the east, which can be entered only by the Chief of State, was brought from Cambodia by command of King Rama I and the rest were copied in that reign. However, Professor Boisselier, the renowned French expert on Khmer Art, examined the central pair of lion-guardians and concluded that the design on their chest is Thai in style rather than Khmer. They probably were cast by Thai artisans copying Khmer lions. On both sides of the main staircase in front of the Royal Pantheon on the east sit two stone lion-guardians. Though they have been very much restored, one can perceive that they belong to the Khmer Bayon style (about the early thirteenth century A.D.). Therefore it might be that this pair of stone lions was brought from Cambodia during the reign of King Rama I and the bronze ones were cast in that reign to copy them.