When did the Buddha get surrounded by lots of animals? I remember an image of the Buddha being surrounded by animals. I think the story is that they all flocked around after his enlightenment though I could be wrong. Does anyone know what the story is that goes with this picture and where if anywhere it is in the Buddhist texts. Also if someone can point me to a particularly good picture I would be grateful.

My motivation for asking this is I'm due to run a family afternoon in my local centre and my idea is to get the children making clay animals (with googly eyes) that we can then arrange arround a Buddha to recreate this scene. Then we will all eat some cake!

Many Thanks
An image (a painting) of the Buddha with many animals is the subject of the children's story, The Cat Who Went to Heaven.

Some of the animal vignettes in this are each taken from a traditional story (e.g. Buddha and swan, and e.g. Buddha and Banyan deer).

The painting is of the following scene:


  When he was eighty, he knew he was near
  death, and he saw the skies open and all the Hindu gods of the heavens, and
  of the trees, and the mountains, with his disciples, and the animals of the
  earth came to bid him farewell.


I don't know whether that scene is from any traditional story (I don't think it's a Pali sutta).