Question

When Buddha was birthed was it an imaculate conception?

Answer 1

while ago I started chipping away at a blog entry on the claim that the virgin birth of Jesus is just a copy cat tale used by the early Christian church, borrowing this fictional element of the life of Christ from countless other myths. The view, although not well attested in scholarly literature, gained some popularity with online sceptics with the release of the sensationalist but error-ridden documentary Zeitgeist. You will not find this claim in serious scholarly critiques of religious belief, but the sad fact is, sceptics with an online platform and lots of anger to spend  often gain influence among a credulous audience that simply doesn’t know any better. I’ve decided not to put it all into one blog entry. Every now and then I’ll blog on one of the figures that the virgin birth Jesus was supposedly copied from.

(For that reason, please do not waste your time replying by saying “sure, THAT connection might not be correct, but what about this OTHER myth that Jesus was copied from?” Like I said, I’ll do them one at a time.)

Answer 2

In Buddhist tradition Maya died soon after the birth of Buddha, generally said to be seven days afterwards, and came to life again in a Hindu-Buddhist heaven, a pattern that is said to be followed in the births of all Buddhas.