The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c39.s3.119

v2.c39.s3.119

¹ This connexion of birth and the year may conceivably be due to the old view—apparently Indo-European—of the year of ten months of gestation, which may be found in the Rigveda as in ancient Rome. Buddhist tradition insists on ten months precisely as the period of his stay in the womb (Windisch, *Buddha's Geburt*, pp. 120 ff.); Hopkins (*JAOS.* xxiv. 19, 392) thinks references to the year are only periods within which, which would prove nothing for a ten months' year. His view that the month is twenty-seven or twenty-eight days in the popular reckoning is counter to the fact that birth is placed in the tenth month, not at the end, so that his month is too short. Probably the thirty-day month is all that is meant. Buddha is clearly a miraculous child.