Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Historical evidence for Gautama Buddha
shanyin
Novice YoginSault Ontario Veteran
I wanted to make this thread after someone claimed in another that there is historical evidence of Siddhartha Gautama's existence around 2 500 years ago. This is something I've heard many times and even heard people say there are very confident that he existed.
What exactly is this evidence?
What exactly is this evidence?
0
Comments
I have no doubts that the Buddha was a real person, same thing with Jesus, whom I know there is claimed to be some evidence by the jewish scholar Josephus who lived at the time. I'd be interested in finding out more of the history of the Sakyan peoples.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/authenticity.html
I'm trying to google search some archaeological stuff.. can't find any. There seems to be much more archaeological work being done on the bible then the buddha :P
this is actually quite interesting.. some scholars claiming the Buddha was born in what is now present day Iran, at the time was part of india. and it was a German scientist in the 1800s that said Lumbini.
Now comes the earth-moving discovery by the Indian researcher, Ranajit Pal. He claims that Buddhism arose, not in North India, but in what is now Iran, that part of Iran which was formerly a part of India (so called India within Iran). See "Zoroaster and Gotama in a Non-Jonesean Framework" (http://www.ranajitpal.com/zoroaster.html):
whether its true or not, interesting none the less. also this whole search to find the "historical buddha" seems pretty fruitless for us non scholars/archaeologists.
On the one hand you're right. The wisdom of the Dhamma is the wisdom of the Dhamma.
But there's also an historical evolution of Buddhist thought that is brought into question if every time a Buddhist says, "Buddha said..." is not true.
If he hadn't existed, what would have generated all the fuss, the monks' community, etc.? Who are all the statues portraying, then? What would have been the motive to create all those, if such a person never existed?
We really don't know very much about who the historical Buddha was, but it seems likely there was such aperson. Gethin makes a case similar to yours in that the level of adoration and fuss, both in the scriptures and in the iconography, seem to point to there being a very strong and charismatic personality at the center of Buddhism's origins.
I guess somewhere along the line, people affixed the Vipassi story to Siddhartha because it was more interesting or served as a more useful vehicle to convey Buddhist ideas.
Additionally, the fact that someone claims that a tree is the original Bodhi tree, or a cutting thereof, is certainly no proof of anything.
Do we exist as Buddhas? What might that entail?
Are the four noble truths and the eightfold path a compilation by comittee?
Is enlightenment and Nirvana possible?
Answers and questions to the usual opinion making process . . . .
I questioned what you called "proof".
By "historical proof" a historian usually means external confirmation. Did some other culture like Chinese travelers write about a monk with a group of disciples called Buddhists wandering India at that time with enough detail to recognize them? No, nothing we've found at any rate. We do have detailed oral traditions that were later written down from the monks themselves, and here all we can prove is that by about 300 BCE a religion exists that claimed to be founded by this man. We have no reason to doubt the story but nothing you can call proof, either, and it's impossible to know for certain exactly which details are accurate and which details are embellished.
I can't remember reading anything in the historical evidence that contradicts the official accounts. That's not the same as proof for, though.
Many Buddhists, including monks, also explain the MANY relics of Buddha (bones and teeth and hair and heart) as being magic that these body parts can replicate themselves.
I personally have no doubt that Siddhartha existed, but Buddha footprints and body relics are of no evidential significance at all.
The early antiquarians were attracted by the wealth of Ancient Indian literature, by enigmatic inscriptions and coin hoards and were filled with a romantic appreciation of the grandeur of ancient monuments. Little attention was however paid to actual measurements and documentation. Yet these ‘closet archaeologists', as Sir Alexander Cunningham. later called them, set the stage for future studies.
From the beginning of the 19th century onwards, meticulous descriptions of sites and antiquities began to be made. J. Babington, Colonel Colin Mackenzie, James Todd, Francis Buchanan and William Erskine were among others in this quest for documenting India's past. More dramatically, Ventura, an Italian-French general of the ruler Ranjit Singh, inspired by Belzoni's ‘tomb-robbing'of Egyptian pyramids, broke into the stupa to ‘excavate' Manikyala, in northwest India.
Those clever Nepalese! They anticipated Johannes Gutenberg by two thousand years!
OOPS! Maybe not.
:thumbup:
You're wrong from another perspective. Let me give you some other examples, some of which may seem silly, but still prove a point. What happened to Manti Teo's reputation and status as an icon when we found out there was no girl friend and that he had been fooled? What happens to politicians who have affairs?
But, if you want to think what you think, that's fine with me.
Buddhism seems to have a somewhat positive reputation among many people who aren't Buddhist. Say to them tomorrow, "But there was no Buddha," and that whole respect will crumble.
In fact, have reputable historians prove that there was no Siddhartha who became enlightened under the bodhi tree, that there was no Siddhartha who passed into nirvanna, and you've lost much of the body of belief that is Buddhism.
But, if you can't see it, then you can't see it.
As far as the reputation of Buddhism among non-Buddhists goes I can't say that I've encountered many non-Buddhists who have even the most rudimentary understanding of what Buddhism actually is. Usually it's "oh, those are the guys with the orange robs and the shaved heads who are all like peaceful and stuff right? Yeah, I guess that's kinda cool".