Historicity of the Buddha

Textual analysis and comparative discussion on early Buddhist sects and scriptures.
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bodom
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by bodom »

If you want to find Buddha look within your own mind. Other than this you wont find him, and I really doubt anyone will be able to help you further than just providing obscure dates and locations that have already been debated endlessly by scholars.

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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DNS
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by DNS »

barryevans wrote: So specifically:
Asoka’s edicts—the ones that are accepted (Major Pillar, Major Rock) don’t mention “Buddha” at all. (The two mentions in the Minor Pillars are obviously not Asokan—totally different style—and the Bairat rock edict again is very dubious, with a totally different style, and undated.) The many references to the dhamma mean nothing, since that word is used in Hinduism all the time. So to me this is weird, that Asoka is pretty well accepted as a follower of Buddha, but that he doesn’t acknowledge him in all his accepted edicts.
Dhamma is a specifically Vibhajjavada / Theravada term. The Sanskrit Dharma can refer to Hindu Dharma, Jain Dharma, Mahayana Dharma, etc.

Choosing to look at only the Ashoka edicts that match your view is probably an example of the cherry picking logical fallacy.

There are Ashoka edicts that mention Buddha and mention Dhamma in terms of what the Buddha taught. But I doubt I can convince you, based on your posts.

Ven. Dhammika notes in his book on the edicts that the edicts mirror specific Buddhist teachings in the Pali Canon, including Digha Nikaya, Discourse No. 31, Anguttara Nikaya, II:282
I guess I thought I'd just have to google, "Historical Buddha" and the information would jump out at me! But even his birth-death dates, for instance, is all over the place. Kim says, “the Buddha lived c. 480 - 400 BCE according to recent (sound, historical) research.” (can you pls. reference, Kim?). On the other hand, “In Sri Lanka, 483 BC is accepted as the date of his nirvana while in Burma 544 BC is accepted. In Tibet it is believed to be 835 BC, while in China, 11th century BC is the accepted date. Buddha was an Indian and the Indian Puranic tradition believes that the nirvana took place in 1793 or 1807 BC.”
Different dates for many historical figures is not un-common. There are many different dates given for Jesus, Muhammad, and many other figures. That does not mean they didn't really exist, just that there was not the complete written record we have today with newspapers, internet, books, etc. for accuracy. I have no doubt that Jesus existed, but that doesn't mean that I believe he was some kind of son of a god. (Not saying that you feel one way or another on that or about Buddha.) In the same way, the Buddha definitely existed in my opinion, based on all of the evidence, and his teachings allow us to come and see if they make sense and work.
I was hoping for something more concrete about historical Buddha. Any takers?
I'm not offended, but somehow I don't think any amount of evidence will convince you. It appears you have already made up your mind before even posting. Best to just follow the good advice provided by bodom. :smile:
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Monkey Mind
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by Monkey Mind »

barryevans wrote: I once heard a theory, for instance, that the Buddha was a Greek invention—has anyone else heard that? (And I don’t just mean the “Alexandrian” curls in his hair!)
In the early days, Buddha was not represented with statuary, it was not the custom. When the Greeks encountered the Buddhists, they could not conceive of a "religious" leader who was as revered as the Buddha was who did not have statuary. So the Greeks created Buddha statues, and modeled the Buddha in the image of Apollo. So the Greeks did not invent the Buddha, but they invented a certain Buddha image.

And P.S. the Greek historians did keep historical records of their first encounters with the Buddhists, so this is might be the type of evidence you are looking for.

And PSS- I am glad you asked the question over here. I don't think the crowd over at the other site was prepared to give you any real answers.

In the interest of citing sources: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX2f6QHkU-I
"As I am, so are others;
as others are, so am I."
Having thus identified self and others,
harm no one nor have them harmed.

Sutta Nipāta 3.710
Bankei
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by Bankei »

There is an old article out there arguing that Asoka wasn't a Buddhist. He just patronised all of the common sects around at that time,. I think the article may have been authoried by AL Basham.

Yesterday I watched the movie the Life of Brian again. It is such a great movie, funny etc, but you can see from it out religions really start. 'The life of Gotama' would make a good movie too!
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SDC
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by SDC »

bodom wrote:If you want to find Buddha look within your own mind. Other than this you wont find him, and I really doubt anyone will be able to help you further than just providing obscure dates and locations that have already been debated endlessly by scholars.

:anjali:
:thumbsup: Well said.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Kim OHara
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by Kim OHara »

barryevans wrote:Thanks everyone for your responses, much appreciated. I meant no offense asking the question—I think some responders may have thought I did.

I guess I thought I'd just have to google, "Historical Buddha" and the information would jump out at me! But even his birth-death dates, for instance, is all over the place. Kim says, “the Buddha lived c. 480 - 400 BCE according to recent (sound, historical) research.” (can you pls. reference, Kim?). On the other hand, “In Sri Lanka, 483 BC is accepted as the date of his nirvana while in Burma 544 BC is accepted. In Tibet it is believed to be 835 BC, while in China, 11th century BC is the accepted date. Buddha was an Indian and the Indian Puranic tradition believes that the nirvana took place in 1793 or 1807 BC.” (Bharateeya Historiography, http://www.hindubooks.org/hist_ssathe/b ... /page4.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).

Kim writes, “You compare Buddhism to 'every other religion [you] know about' but I doubt that those include Taoism, Hinduism or Mithraism...Can you cite contemporary written evidence of their origin?” I think it’s pretty well accepted that at least some of the Vedas are Bronze Age, 1000 BCE at least (and we certainly have very old statuary). Mitra (one of the members of Zoroaster’s trinity) is mentioned 1400 BCE in the extant Mitanni treaty. Don’t know much about Taoism—Wikipedia sez, “Laozi received imperial recognition as a divinity in the mid second century B.C.E.”

I was hoping for something more concrete about historical Buddha. Any takers?

gassho, barry
Hi, Barry,
Returning after some time without checking this thread ... sorry ... I'll answer as well as I can.
The dates I gave are those I ended up with when I was looking into Buddhist history two or three years ago, and I don't appear to have kept details of my sources (more accurately, I suspect I've still got them but I can't find them at the moment :thinking: ) but I did a quick google search and found a summary of the kind of research I was looking at.
If you download http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.t ... -Dates.pdf you'll have an overview plus references for as much further scholarly reading as you're likely to want.
For a rather sceptical contrarian view, go to http://www.umass.edu/wsp/lectures/buddha.html. I don't think his reasoning is particularly convincing, but do note that he doesn't for a moment doubt the existence of the historical Buddha and doesn't want to change the dates by more than a century (that's about 4% of the time since the Buddha was around - hardly a huge difference!).

BTW, you haven't cited dated contemporary documentary evidence for the other religions I mentioned. :stirthepot:

I'm all in favour of knowing what is factual and what isn't, but I do acknowledge that there are real limits to accuracy and certainty in all our knowledge. At some point we have to say we do (or don't) accept that X is historical truth. The evidence for the historical Buddha is strong enough for me.
:namaste:
Kim
Bankei
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by Bankei »

If you are interested in the dates of the Buddha check out 3 huge volumes of the proceedings of a conference on this very topic: When Did The Buddha Live? : The Controversy on the Dating of the Historical Buddha--Selected Papers Based on a Symposium held under the Auspices of the Academy of Sciences in Gottingen/edited by Heinz Bechert, 1995.
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Bankei
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oceanmen
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by oceanmen »

in simple english, and this is but a subjective opinion that may be right or wrong

perhaps every enlightened person in history (buddha/prophet)
went through an experience that can not be transmitted to the masses

why? because it is
1.too complex and
2.it was his experience not anyone else

these people have put a simple step by step approach for the masses,
to practice and discover the truth of the dhammas, and of course there have been inflitrations,
in every culture, to match the local traditions, hence the diffrent varitions,
but with true and honest intention i think it is possible to rediscover the truth of all dhamma that we all have in common

metta
:namaste:
Paññāsikhara
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by Paññāsikhara »

barryevans wrote: ...

I guess I thought I'd just have to google, "Historical Buddha" and the information would jump out at me! But even his birth-death dates, for instance, is all over the place. ...

I was hoping for something more concrete about historical Buddha. Any takers?
If you're serious about the question, then Google, and asking random people on the internet, is not the method to use. Get some actual books and other source materials by qualified scholars of Buddhism. There is plenty out there if you really want to know answers to questions like this. Try Warder's History of Indian Buddhism, and likewise by both Nakamura and also Hirakawa, too. Here is a fairly good overview of the methodologies of working out dates for the buddha - http://www.buddhistethics.org/15/prebish-article.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
My recently moved Blog, containing some of my writings on the Buddha Dhamma, as well as a number of translations from classical Buddhist texts and modern authors, liturgy, etc.: Huifeng's Prajnacara Blog.
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retrofuturist
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings bhante,
Paññāsikhara wrote:If you're serious about the question, then Google, and asking random people on the internet, is not the method to use. Get some actual books and other source materials by qualified scholars of Buddhism. There is plenty out there if you really want to know answers to questions like this. Try Warder's History of Indian Buddhism, and likewise by both Nakamura and also Hirakawa, too. Here is a fairly good overview of the methodologies of working out dates for the buddha - http://www.buddhistethics.org/15/prebish-article.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Ah, but he'd never have gotten that useful answer but for "asking random people on the internet" 8-)

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
plwk
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by plwk »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings bhante,
Paññāsikhara wrote:If you're serious about the question, then Google, and asking random people on the internet, is not the method to use. Get some actual books and other source materials by qualified scholars of Buddhism. There is plenty out there if you really want to know answers to questions like this. Try Warder's History of Indian Buddhism, and likewise by both Nakamura and also Hirakawa, too. Here is a fairly good overview of the methodologies of working out dates for the buddha - http://www.buddhistethics.org/15/prebish-article.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Ah, but he'd never have gotten that useful answer but for "asking random people on the internet" 8-)

Metta,
Retro. :)
Hence, the blessing of having encountered Dhamma Wheel and other 'randomness' :toast:
Bankei
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by Bankei »

But what evidence could there be to prove that the person now known as the Buddha once existed?

Possibly the closest we can get are the early inscriptions of Asoka or archaeological evidence of early monastic communities or stupas.

Bankei
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Bankei
PeterB
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by PeterB »

I would suggest that the best evidence is the Suttas. If the historical Buddha did not exist, whose thoughts are they ?
Clearly they are the thoughts of an Enlightened One, unless you can explain the origin of the doctrine of Dependant Origination, or show it occuring elsewhere other than in the Suttas.
So you are left with the problem of explaining this other unknown Enlightened One who is not the Buddha...
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Kare
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by Kare »

PeterB wrote:I would suggest that the best evidence is the Suttas. If the historical Buddha did not exist, whose thoughts are they ?
Clearly they are the thoughts of an Enlightened One, unless you can explain the origin of the doctrine of Dependant Origination, or show it occuring elsewhere other than in the Suttas.
So you are left with the problem of explaining this other unknown Enlightened One who is not the Buddha...
Well said.

In a parody of German classical scholarship (which was reputed to be meticulously thorough) a professor summed up his research thus: "The works of Homer are not written by Homer, but by an unknown person with the same name." :lol:
Mettāya,
Kåre
PeterB
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Re: Historicity of the Buddha

Post by PeterB »

:smile:

There is a similar discussion in some (small ) circles about Shakespeare, Kare, to whom of course the reply is, as most of the plays bear the unmistakable imprint of the same genius, then the plays of Shakespeare must have been written by another Tudor genius calling himself Shakespeare... :tongue:
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