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is there any historical evidence that buddha existed out of pali canon?
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sometimes i wonder what if buddha was just a fictional figure that was mixed with various myths and people' ideas. you may say " is it really matter? or what matter is his dhamma". for me it is really matter cuz if the person like buddha didn't exist, how would monks or sanghas life become cuz they are wasting whole life within a fictional role model to become like him. i am not posting this for against buddhism, actually i am a buddhist, but i think sometimes a person should challenge his or her belief.
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Let this be a challenge to you. Consider the possibility that the person we call the Buddha never existed. At all. Ever. This is possible because there really isn't much in the way of historical evidence, contemporary with the time the Buddha is supposed to have existed, that he ever existed.
Apply that to your own beliefs and decide for yourself if you're wasting your time
Personally, I don't care if the Buddha existed or not.
Regardless of the real/unreal status of a belief, the belief itself has consequences.
Karma or the law of cause and effect is unavoidable regardless of what we believe or don't believe.
If one believes in an external deity and liberation in heaven after death then this belief has implications on how we relate to reality in the present.
Just as if we believe making a lot of money will bring us happiness or lasting security, the energy, time, attention and confirmation bias/reality tunnel become the conditions for the cause/effect to manifest in our reality.
Buddhism as a whole isn't about taking up new beliefs. Rather it is about questioning the assumption we hold as reality. Ignorance isn't not knowing but rather the assumption that we know.
So the question is always to question the answers we are comfortable with.
In fact the ability to question brings up the inherent insecurity of all we assume.
Have fun!
The Pali suttas were memorized-- their style has evidence of memorization (relatively short, lots of repetitions, numbered lists and other mnemonic devices). If the pali canon is based on misrepresentations from Ananda, from reinterprestations of Mahakasyapa, or wholesale re-interpetation by Buddhaghosa-- it doesn't matter much to me, what matters is that the various forms are distinguishable and can stand on their own merits.
Buddhism is still Buddhism no matter how the bibliography is written. This compares with say, Christianity. If we had video evidence of ancient middle eastern frauds writing nonsense for sale and laughing while they did it, this would create a serious problem for people who are looking for the authentic word of God. For a Buddhist like myself, even if it was written by a fraudster, what matters is, does the system they preached work?
these archaelogical sites were first discovered by British colonial officers in the 19th century.
Evidence Of Buddha's Birth Date Uncovered By Archaeologists At Temple In Nepal.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/buddha-birth-date-nepal_n_4340089.html
I also say this... EVEN if Buddha and Jesus, and Abraham, and Muhammad and every other religious figurehead was made up.. the message and the teaching are what matters. This is ESPECIALLY true in Buddhism where we are ALL capable of doing exactly what the Buddha did, so if he existed or not really doesn't matter, the teachings of dhamma and how they work for us on our journey towards Libertarian, or even just to live a happy life here and now, that is what matters.
If one were to analyze other religious texts, such as the Bible or the Mahabharata, for example, there's evidence of layers of authorship (even in places where there's traditionally said to be only one author), and you can literally trace the evolution of these texts via changes in style, grammar, and content. The core of the Pali Canon, on the other hand, which forms the basis of Theravada Buddhism and is generally considered by scholars to be the closest thing we have to what the Buddha actually taught, shows evidence of originating from a single source through its consistency of content. As Prof. Richard Gombrich puts it, "I find (as Buddhists have always found) that the central part of the Canon... presents such originality, intelligence, grandeur and - most relevantly - coherence, that it is hard to see it as a composite works" (Theravada Buddhism, p. 20).
And it may just be wishful thinking on my part, but I believe this is mainly due to the fact that the Buddha (or whomever these teachings originated from that we label as such) was a superbly gifted teacher, and that, despite evidence of later additions and modifications, much of what was taught seems to have been faithfully passed down by devotees and practitioners throughout the centuries via a combination of memorization, recitation, and written texts scrutinized at various councils.
Whatever its origins, though, I, like Prof. Gombrich, "believe that the Buddha [or whomever got the wheel spinning] was an intellectual genius and had some extraordinarily interesting things to say." I'd go even further than this and venture to say that many of the teachings passed down to us are as relevant now as they were 2,500 years ago, offering tools and guidance in the search for a happiness that's not dependent upon outer conditions or favourable circumstances, for true peace of mind. And while I can't say for sure that this path leads to such a lofty goal, I can say that it's helped me immensely thus far, making me a much better and happier person in the process.
That way, you KNOW what's on your plate.
Here we have people questioning whether Buddha (as in Siddhartha) ever actually existed...and there is a reasonable amount of evidence for the vast majority of historians that he did.
And, in other discussions, some of those same posters talk about the 28 Buddhas that preceded Siddhartha...for which there is no real evidence that satisfies historians (and in fact, considering human evolution would be virtually impossible).
The one thing I agree with in this thread is that ultimately it doesn't matter whether Buddha existed or not. It only matters if the teaching is valid.
Now its time for us to do our part and show some caring. We can help keep his teachings alive by practicing it.
As for more prosaic examples of modern day Bodhisattvas, the teachers, we seem to care intently when our hopes were dashed (and it turns out that celebrity Buddhist teacher of the moment is mundanely human and can't keep themselves out of scandal)
Anyhow, good point, we collectively were incredibly lucky that *some* Buddha or Bodhisatva (or a whole committee of them) existed 2500 years ago and someone cared enough to keep track of what they taught.
It is up to us whether the Buddha lives. It is up to us to care for the three jewels: sangha, dharma, Buddha. It would be crazy not to.
I don't think any scholar or historian would argue that a man who became known as the Buddha never existed. At the same time, I doubt few would argue that the picture of him and his life we get now is entirely accurate. The Buddha of the Sutras is filtered through the eyes of people who worshiped him, considered him perfect and whose every word and action must shine with Enlightenment. There is little room for a normal human being in that story.
And we can't say that the closer we get to Buddha's own lifetime, the more accurate the picture. Those who surrounded him were just as biased. Look at the adoring devoted disciples that surround our modern gurus and see if you trust them for an accurate picture. Soon after Buddha's death, when Ananda was put on trial, one charge was that he accidentally stepped on the Buddha's robe...while repairing it. Say what? And another charge was that Ananda didn't use his influence on the Buddha to have their founder use his vast powers to heal himself and continue living. So even the people who sat at the Buddha's feet hardly could be counted on to be impartial witnesses of the man's life.
So someone was born, lived and died who became known as the Buddha and impressed his followers enough to be worshiped and revered and transformed their lives.
No, I'm only kidding. You're actually a very thoughtful poster...even when we are in disagreement. I just couldn't resist.
The most that reading the Pali canon can do is demonstrate that who ever compiled the canon existed.
More conservative commentators find a common source for some of its contents.
Other commentators claim that much of the Canon dates from about 500 hundred years after the agreed dates for the Buddha and probably were the work of Buddhaghosa and his followers.
Perhaps the emphasis has to be the authority that comes from the experiential, rather than from ancient authority.
And as far as I'm concerned if what contemporary teachers say doesn't broadly correspond to what the suttas say, then I start to ask questions.
OK, so we question the authenticity of the suttas, but how often do we question the authenticity of contemporary teachers - particularly the ones we've grown attached to?
The point I was really making that if one hasn't read the Pali Canon then it's a bit pointless debating about it. It's rather like debating the divinity of Christ without having read the New Testament.
But..theres the rub. The earliest part of the canon dates from half a millenium after the agreed dates for any historical Gautama. That's the same period as from Henry the 8th to now.
Reading the Canon may be a good idea for all sorts of reasons. But it won't answer the question posed in the OP.
Which in any case asks for evidence other than the Canon.