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Siddhartha Gautama's actual existance
Joshua
Veteran
Hey, I'm very drawn towards the philosophies of Buddhism and I know that it doesn't change the truth of the dharma but I've begun to really speculate any actual historical beginning of Gautama's teachings. Rather I've come to see it as something which probably evolved from some earlier proto-shramana tradition and was for an unknown reason attributed to a single man, Gautama, much like Taoism was to Lao Tzu. I came to this conclusion by the Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_of_Gautama_Buddha which correlates heavily with the controversies about solar messiahs (made especially popular recently by the likes of Zeitgeist) as well as my own personal speculation such as Gautama's having specifically cited gods from the deva realm as only those whom he would have been familiar with like Brahma which reeks of a cultural tradition and not an eternal truth. Maybe he's real, however, with myths attached? Any opinions?
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Comments
Good, as so you should be:)
I agree, especially with the fact it doesn't change the dharma.
There you go, you say "probably" and instantly corrupt your view of the possibility. What grounds, other than your ungrounded opinions do you have to say "probably" rather than "possibly"?
Again, why do you think this when you admit the reason would be unknown?
What is more "probable" to you:
1)That Gautama discovered and taught dharma and the miracles were added later for whatever reason
or
2) That the entire personality was a fabrication.
I hope you say this after trying very hard to debunk the stuff in Zeitgeist part one on this:)
Someone discovered and taught the dharma. Whoever it was was a supreme genius of philosophy, morality, personality, spirituality and psychology, and perhaps a whole lot else.
Doubt it all, but make sure you doubt your doubts as hard:)
namaste
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but at any rate a Companion Guide to Zeitgeist Part 1 by Acharya S was released and it's at least convincing enough for me to consider it a possible fact.
By the way I'm very appreciative of your swift responses.
Litteral, I guess:)
Gawd no, not being sarcastic, its hard enough to communicate rightly on here without adding sarcasm to the mix!
Welcome to the forum!:)
namaste
It is irrelevant as all history is, probably especially so in this case as we can never know. Still, like history is, it's interesting to think and talk on.
Its Buddhism history not Dharma.
Yup.
Dazza
However, I'm also interested in how religious movements get started, and what the process of myth-building looks like. It's clear that later Buddhists did indeed feel that miraculous occurances, like a wonderous birth narrative, were necessary to "sell" the dharma to the Indian populace. Just when did this begin to happen? And what was the historical core around which these myths formed? Most importantly, did there have to be any core at all, or is the earthly life of Gautama simply a retroactive historicization of the mythical Tathagata? Certainly the way that even the Pali canon tends to switch back and forth between the Buddha as a flesh-and-blood man and the Buddha as a heavenly, transcendent being does suggest that the latter could have preceeded the former.
The issue is also important for the study of early Christianity, because the Christ Myth theory posits that this is exactly what happened in the formation of Christianity: the Judaicized Logos got mashed together with a devotion to a coming, victorious Joshua/Yeshua/Jesus to form Paul's "Christ-Jesus." As the Christ cult moved on, assumptions about the earthly adventures of this heavenly redeemer became part of the myth, so that by the late second century we begin to see Gospels that look like biographies.
Would anybody say it's ever accurate to call oneself a dharmist rather than a buddhist?
YIKES!! I would have to disagree there. We all have to live in the middle of a river called "history", so I hardly think it's irrelevant. As someone famous once said, "Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it." I surely hope that's true.
From a dharma perspective it might be "irrelevant" since it's all illusion, but on a worldly level it's not. As long as I keep coming back here (until I get it right and move on), I'd say it's still relevant. And that could be a loooooooong time.
Historically, I don't think that's unusual:p
As for miracles, that seems to be something humans do. We embellish. We do it today with politicians and celebrities. Some of it may have even began as hyperbole which as it spread came to be thought of as fact by many.
It does seem to be quite fashionable these days to be cynical that any of these things were true though. I think it makes us feel better about our own flaws if we can get "dirt" on heros. I guess for me since it is utterly irrelevant to the truth of the teaching, I just dont care.
There are at least two schools of thought on this:
He was influenced by Hindu ideas during his life.
His teachings were influenced by Hindu ideas after his death.
What do you think?
namaste
Or that he was born where he was born because it was in a culture where they were closer to the truth than other cultures.
to make this trust completed what we have to do is understand the Buddha's shortest Teaching to Bahiya,
'seeing is just seeing' (there is no thing to be seen or there is no one is seeing)
'hearing is just hearing'
'feeling of taste/smell/touch is just feeling'
'knowing (thought) is just knowing'
why do not we try to grasp this and see the truth in it?
if we can grasp this all problems will be solved
I agree. It's so simple yet so many people don't see it.
1. He being educated in the Vedas, was thus influenced by them
2. His teaching, especially once adopted by Asoka would have influenced Hinduism.
3. Hinduism being the dominant religion and a fairly adaptive one, almost certainly influenced Buddhist thought after the Buddha died.
Easier said than done
I hadn't read that before, thank you for sharing:)
namaste
Time and space, not being linear and both being mental projections, mean that all experiences that you can remember of any sort are both real and unreal, and you cannot make a definite claim either way without reinforcing the duality of mind.
Gautama is no less real then you, or the computer you type on, or the chair that you are seated upon, and he is no more real either. At some point, all of samsara is not truely "real", and yet nothing in samsara is more real than any other part of samsara.