Posted by:
anybody
(
)
Date: December 24, 2023 11:40AM
A: The same way the Buddha's mother Maya did...which is probably where the story came from in the first place.
Christianity really started not in Judea where the real Jesus of Nazareth was born, lived, and died, but instead in what is now Syria and Turkey ‐‐ which was at the time the western terminus of the Silk Road. Knowledge of Buddhism and Buddhist ideas came along with the trade. The Jesus religious movement was spread by Romanized Jews and others looking for something new and a lot of other things were mixed in along the way. That's how I see it.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(mother_of_the_Buddha)
According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha-to-be was residing as a bodhisattva in the Tuṣita heaven, and decided to take the shape of a white elephant to be reborn on Earth for the last time. Māyā gave birth to Siddharta c. 563 BCE. The pregnancy lasted ten lunar months. Following custom, the Queen returned to her own home for the birth. On the way, she stepped down from her palanquin to have a walk under the Sal tree (Shorea robusta), often confused with the Ashoka tree (Saraca asoca), in the beautiful flower garden of Lumbini Park, Lumbini Zone, Nepal. Maya Devi was delighted by the park and gave birth standing while holding onto a sal branch. Legend has it that Prince Siddhārtha emerged from her right side. It was the eighth day of April. Some accounts say she gave him his first bath in the Puskarini pond in Lumbini Zone. But legend has it that devas caused it to rain to wash the newborn baby. He was later named Siddhārtha, "He who has accomplished his goals" or "The accomplished goal".
Scholars generally agree that most Buddhist literature holds that Maya died seven days after the birth of Buddha, and was then reborn in the Tusita Heaven.[citation needed] Seven years after the Buddha's enlightenment, she came down to visit Tavatimsa Heaven, where the Buddha later preached the Abhidharma to her.[5] Her sister Prajāpatī (Pāli: Pajāpatī or Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī) became the child's foster mother.
After Siddhartha had attained Enlightenment and become the Buddha, he visited his mother in heaven for three months to pay respects and to teach the Dharma.
Some parallels have been drawn with the birth story of the Buddha and Jesus.[6] Z. P. Thundy has surveyed the similarities and differences between the birth stories of Buddha by Maya and Jesus by Mary and notes that while there may have been similarities, there are also differences, e.g. that Mary outlives Jesus after raising him, but Maya dies soon after the birth of Buddha, as all mothers of Buddhas do in the Buddhist tradition.[6] Thundy does not assert that there is any historical evidence that the Christian birth stories of Jesus were derived from the Buddhist traditions, but suggests that "maybe it is time that Christian scholars looked in the Buddhist tradition for the sources of the idea".[6]
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