ABSTRACT
The birth of Gautama Buddha is usually thought to have taken place about the year 560 b.c., at Kapilavatthu (or Kapilavastu) in Northern India, on the borders of Nepal. Buddha is said to have chosen king Suddhodana for his father, and queen Mahamaya, Maya the great, as his mother. A good deal of discussion has centred around the question whether the birth of Buddha as described in the Buddhist canon may rightly be called a ‘Virgin Birth’. Dr. E. J. Thomas points out that there is a difference between the view-point of the older and that of the later accounts. The oldest accounts of Buddha’s ancestry appear to pre-suppose nothing abnormal about his birth, and merely speak of his being well-born on his mother’s and father’s side for seven generations back. Buddhists thought of the whole of existence, from the lowest hell to the limit of existence, as made up of the three worlds of desire, form and formlessness.
