The Sunday Mail
SO far we have searched and established that miraculous conception among the Hebrews was presented to protect or hide some truths.
Through the theological effort of comparative religious studies, we have noticed that it is mythical in Zoroastrian-based Mithraism of the Roman Empire and Vedic Hinduism of India.
This week, we are still in India, the birth place of Buddhism. This religion is today largely found in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, China, Japan, Korea, Tibet and Mongolia.
Buddhism is best characterised as an “internalist” religion and its named after the Sanskrit word,‘Buddh’ which means “light” a metaphor of “to awake, become aware, notice, know or understand.“Bodhi” means “awakening” or “enlightenment.”
‘Buddha’ refers to a person and it means “the enlightened or awakened one.” It is a title generally reserved for Siddhartha Gautama (550-483 BCE) by his followers.
Siddhartha was born a prince in the Lumbini Garden at Kapilavastu, into a warrior class under the caste system of Northern India. His parents were King Suddhodana and Mâyâ-Devi. His father was a king of the Sakya clan of the Kshatriya, or warrior caste (hence his later epithet Sakyamuni, the sage of the Sakyas) in the Himalayan foothills in what is now Southern Nepal.
He left his privileged life at the age 29 to search for a higher truth. He later achieved enlightenment to become the Buddha. It was under the Bo (from the Sanskrit Bodhi: “wisdom”, “enlightened”) tree or the ficusreligiosa, that Prince Siddhartha became enlightened and conceived the Eightfold Noble Path by which human beings can free themselves from the suffering of poverty, poor relationships, disease and death.
His followers founded Buddhism around his teachings and he is considered the 9th Avatar or incarnation and enfleshment of Vishnu of Hinduism. Therefore, he is considered to have went through a “birth of purification” to reform Hinduism, a religion that had been degenerated by the Brahamanic priestly class.
He taught through conversations and stories and were summarised into “sutras” or threads to prompt memory.
Rabbi Yahoshua the Nazarene is also presented as the incarnation of the Divine whose mission was to reform Judaism that had also been degenerated by the priestly class.
In all schools of Buddhism, adherents are taught that the ‘Three Jewels/Treasures’ are: Buddha(representative of Enlightenment), Dharma(the moral teachings and righteousness) and the Sangha (the community of those who have attained enlightenment or simply a fraternity of the enlightened).
The stories relating to Buddha Siddhatha’s life and death are similar to those recorded concerning Krishna.
He was said to have been born of Maya, the veiling power, which hides the truth of consciousness. As a principle, Maya (illusion) creates perceptive ignorance of separateness and diversity of objects in this world. It makes people believe that they are different from all other beings; while at the same time making us identify with our bodies.
Conception of Buddha
Siddhatha’s incarnation was said to have been accomplished by the descent of Vishnu into the womb of Maya. “The most Excellent of all Bodhisattvas fell directly from his place among the residents of Tushita heaven, and streaking through the three worlds, suddenly took the form of a huge six-tusked elephant as white as Himalaya, and entered Maya’s womb.”- Buddha Karita 1:18.
King Suddhodana was informed by a white elephant that a mighty teacher of men would be born miraculously in the womb of his wife, Mâyâ-Devi, the Queen of Heaven. “By the consent of the king,” says the “LalitaVistara,” “the queen was permitted to lead the life of a virgin…” The womb in which a Buddha-elect was reposed was like the sanctuary of a temple. On that account, the womb of Maya-Devi was sacred. The king also had nothing to do with the paternity of the child.
In Luke 1:27-32, where angel Gabriel is sent “to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.
The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured!… You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…”
The theory of the perpetual virginity of the mother of non-historical but mythical Greek “Iesous the Christos” (English “Jesus the Christ”), can be considered to based on the story of Buddha and a passage from Ezekiel 44:2, “Then said the Lord unto me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it; because the Lord, the divine of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore shall it be shut.”
Next, let us search for miraculous conception in ancient Egypt.
Resources: various texts from www.sacred-texts.com/bud/index.htm. For feedback contact him at [email protected]. A gallery of his previous articles are found at www.sundaymail.co.zw///?author=266
