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Historical evidence for Gautama Buddha

shanyinshanyin 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?

Comments

  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    Good question, I think we may need to look into some scholarly archeological papers for evidence like that.

    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.
  • cazcaz Veteran United Kingdom Veteran
    shanyin said:

    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?

    Does it matter ?
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    I found this by Ven K Sri Dhammananda .. not archaeological but he makes a good point - http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/17.htm
    caz said:

    shanyin said:

    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?

    Does it matter ?
    to me.. nope.. even if they proved he never existed, the dhamma itself is most important in my eyes.

    Bunks
  • cazcaz Veteran United Kingdom Veteran
    Jayantha said:

    I found this by Ven K Sri Dhammananda .. not archaeological but he makes a good point - http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/17.htm

    caz said:

    shanyin said:

    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?

    Does it matter ?
    to me.. nope.. even if they proved he never existed, the dhamma itself is most important in my eyes.

    :) Precisely, If I remember correctly the Ashokan pillars are a form of proof.
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    edited March 2013
    here is another article by Thannisaro Bhikkhu talking about some archeological evidence and the authenticity of the Pali scriptures(which btw archaeologists are fairly sure Pali was not the language of the Buddha).

    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
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    edited March 2013
    http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/print.php?id=1177

    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.
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    caz said:



    Does it matter ?

    Yes.

    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.

    MaryAnne
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited March 2013
    Jayantha said:

    http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/print.php?id=1177

    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.

    Well, the Buddha's family compound (his father's palace) is located in Nepal. Its ruins can be visited today. But being from the Brahmin class, he would have been Aryan, like the Iranians.

    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?

  • GlowGlow Veteran
    edited March 2013
    Dakini said:

    Well, the Buddha's family compound (his father's palace) is located in Nepal. Its ruins can be visited today. But being from the Brahmin class, he would have been Aryan, like the Iranians.

    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?

    I recently found some interesting information about this in Rupert Gethin's Sayings of the Buddha (Gethin is president of the Pali Text Society): there is actually nothing in the Pali canon about the Buddha being of the Brahmin class. In fact, the famous story of a prince who was sheltered from worldly suffering and later turned to spirituality after witnessed an old man, a leper, a corpse, and an ascetic is actually the story of a previous Buddha (a Buddha from another era) called Vipassi[n] -- not Siddhartha Gautama! (You can read our Buddha (Gautama) telling the story of Vipassi[n] in the Mahapadana Sutta.)

    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.
  • BhikkhuJayasaraBhikkhuJayasara Bhikkhu Veteran
    edited March 2013
    I read that the Buddha was of the WARRIOR class, not Brahmin, Chatiyas or something it's called in pali.
  • GlowGlow Veteran
    edited March 2013
    Jayantha said:

    I read that the Buddha was of the WARRIOR class, not Brahmin, Chatiyas or something it's called in pali.

    Yes, you're right. Although, apparently that was Vipassi who was a warrior, not Siddartha (whose history we aren't really told anything about in the suttas beyond his spiritual history with two former teachers). The sutta does, however, list some other Buddhas from other eras that were Brahmins.

    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.
  • TheEccentricTheEccentric Hampshire, UK Veteran
    edited March 2013
    They have found where was born, grew up, attained enlightenment and have a tree descended from the original Bodhi tree he attain it under, there are many different bone fragments from him kept in stupas across Asia.
    caz
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran

    They have found where was born, grew up, attained enlightenment and have a tree descended from the original Bodhi tree he attain it under, there are many different bone fragments from him kept in stupas across Asia.

    Actually, that last point weakens the argument. In Thailand alone I have been to dozens and dozens and dozens of temples that claim to have fragments of Buddha's body, including breast bone, brain, hair, etc. And that's not at all logical.

    Additionally, the fact that someone claims that a tree is the original Bodhi tree, or a cutting thereof, is certainly no proof of anything.

    BhikkhuJayasara
  • Become a bodhisattva! Then you can see samboghakaya. In person.
    cazDandelion
  • chelachela Veteran
    Do you exist, did you ever exist? The Buddha is in you. That's all that matters.
    lobsterblu3ree
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    Is Buddha emptiness? What form of emptiness?

    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 . . . . :)
  • TheEccentricTheEccentric Hampshire, UK Veteran
    vinlyn said:

    They have found where was born, grew up, attained enlightenment and have a tree descended from the original Bodhi tree he attain it under, there are many different bone fragments from him kept in stupas across Asia.

    Actually, that last point weakens the argument. In Thailand alone I have been to dozens and dozens and dozens of temples that claim to have fragments of Buddha's body, including breast bone, brain, hair, etc. And that's not at all logical.

    Additionally, the fact that someone claims that a tree is the original Bodhi tree, or a cutting thereof, is certainly no proof of anything.

    Well anywho they have found kapilavastu, where he grew up sob he 100% did exist.
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    @TheEccentric, I don't question whether or not Buddha existed. I think it's clear that he did.

    I questioned what you called "proof".
  • TheEccentricTheEccentric Hampshire, UK Veteran
    vinlyn said:

    @TheEccentric, I don't question whether or not Buddha existed. I think it's clear that he did.

    I questioned what you called "proof".

    vinlyn said:

    @TheEccentric, I don't question whether or not Buddha existed. I think it's clear that he did.

    I questioned what you called "proof".

    OK


  • ToshTosh Veteran
    Dakini said:

    Who are all the statues portraying, then?

    The Greek god Apollo. Serious.
    The earliest Buddha images resembled the Greek god Apollo. (Figure on the left: Buddha image, Gandhara, 2-3 century) It has been suggested by the scholars that the earliest Buddha images in Gandhara were created by the local Greeks who carried their classic artistic conception and Indianized it by transforming it into the figure of the Greek-featured Buddha, dressed in a toga and seated in the yoga pose. The Gandhara style represented a union of classical, Indian, and Iranian elements continued in Afghanistan and the neighboring regions throughout most of the first millennium until the end of the 8th century.
    http://www.silk-road.com/artl/buddhism.shtml
  • chelachela Veteran
    @Tosh, yes, I have either read or heard of the image of Buddha being Romanized. This seems obvious when you look at a typical statue of Buddha. It shouldn't be surprising since typical depictions of Jesus are also Romanized.
  • That's an interesting question. Anyone who claims there is historical evidence for a young Prince named Siddhartha who came from what is now Nepal and who ended up founding a religion now called Buddhism is probably playing games with the definition of evidence. There is nothing contemporary that alludes to this remarkable person, but that is to be expected in what was really a backwater land with small kingdoms subject to repeated invasions.

    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.
    vinlynInvincible_summerlobsterBhanteLucky
  • shanyin said:

    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?

    I don't really know what you mean by historical evidence but I do know, in India, there are many places where Buddha has been and bears his footprints- and these footprints are not literal footprints of course but there are ruins and relics in places like Lumbini, Bohdgaya, Versali, Sarasvatthi etc that has to do with Buddha, not to mention that there are bodily relics from him too. When the British were ruling India, they heard of Buddha but was not really sure of whether he existed until ruins and ruins of things related to him were unearthed. What historical evidence are you talking about, a photograph like a photograph of Hitler, or maybe a painting like that of Jesus Christ or what?
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    footiam said:

    shanyin said:

    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?

    I don't really know what you mean by historical evidence but I do know, in India, there are many places where Buddha has been and bears his footprints- and these footprints are not literal footprints of course but there are ruins and relics in places like Lumbini, Bohdgaya, Versali, Sarasvatthi etc that has to do with Buddha, not to mention that there are bodily relics from him too. When the British were ruling India, they heard of Buddha but was not really sure of whether he existed until ruins and ruins of things related to him were unearthed. What historical evidence are you talking about, a photograph like a photograph of Hitler, or maybe a painting like that of Jesus Christ or what?
    @Footiam, Buddha footprints are found all over Asia, including places where there is no record of any type of Buddha being. So that is not evidence at all, except that faithful people can believe what they want. It's similar to the Mormon's belief that Jesus was in North America.

    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 rediscovery of Buddhist remains started in the nineteenth century during British rule. The British were curious to find the history of the country over which they ruled, and many British archaeologists and antiquarians were interested in this task.

    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.
  • History and archeology have always fascinated me. One of the things I learned early was that this fascination with digging up the past and using science and logic to determine what actually happened generations ago is a particularly Western obsession and even then it didn't mature until after the European Enlightenment.
  • NirvanaNirvana aka BUBBA   `     `   South Carolina, USA Veteran
    edited March 2013
    DERN IT! I've had a newspaper from the Lumbini Post dated Spring of some year some 2626 years ago. It survived in a clay pot for millennia, and just yesterday I got it out and unfurled it, getting it ready to be scanned and the derned dog jumped up on the table, grabbed it in his mouth, and ran away with it. By the time I caught up with him he had torn it to shreds. Its headline read, PRINCE IS BORN IN ROYAL HOUSEHOLD: A New Era Begins.

    Those clever Nepalese! They anticipated Johannes Gutenberg by two thousand years!

    OOPS! Maybe not.
    Cinorjer
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    When you were in high school, did the dog often eat your homework?
  • vinlyn said:

    footiam said:

    shanyin said:

    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?

    I don't really know what you mean by historical evidence but I do know, in India, there are many places where Buddha has been and bears his footprints- and these footprints are not literal footprints of course but there are ruins and relics in places like Lumbini, Bohdgaya, Versali, Sarasvatthi etc that has to do with Buddha, not to mention that there are bodily relics from him too. When the British were ruling India, they heard of Buddha but was not really sure of whether he existed until ruins and ruins of things related to him were unearthed. What historical evidence are you talking about, a photograph like a photograph of Hitler, or maybe a painting like that of Jesus Christ or what?
    @Footiam, Buddha footprints are found all over Asia, including places where there is no record of any type of Buddha being. So that is not evidence at all, except that faithful people can believe what they want. It's similar to the Mormon's belief that Jesus was in North America.

    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.

    By footprints, literal footprints, that is, I meant in India you could find ruins of stupas, university even like Nalanda University etc that has Buddha's name linked to it. It is not about the footprints all over Asia, some of which are incredibly big and you would think Buddha is a giant. We always hear of Buddha's tooth and hair too but nowadays, we talk about whether the DNA would match.
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    @footiam, I'm afraid you misunderstand Buddha footprints. The giant footprints you speak of are not supposed to be the actual footprint. The actual (well, not literally actual) footprint is contained within the larger man-made footprint, usually so faint you cannot actually see the supposed footprint.
  • vinlyn said:

    @footiam, I'm afraid you misunderstand Buddha footprints. The giant footprints you speak of are not supposed to be the actual footprint. The actual (well, not literally actual) footprint is contained within the larger man-made footprint, usually so faint you cannot actually see the supposed footprint.

    Thanks, Vinlyn!
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    footiam said:

    vinlyn said:

    @footiam, I'm afraid you misunderstand Buddha footprints. The giant footprints you speak of are not supposed to be the actual footprint. The actual (well, not literally actual) footprint is contained within the larger man-made footprint, usually so faint you cannot actually see the supposed footprint.

    Thanks, Vinlyn!


    :thumbup:
  • vinlyn said:

    caz said:



    Does it matter ?

    Yes.

    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.

    I don't agree. A person might, for instance, cite Winston Smith in reference to today's political atmosphere. That Winston Smith is a fictitious character doesn't negate the applicability of the statement cited. In other words: truth is truth whether the person it's attributed to existed or not.
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    @StaticToybox, you're right in one sense -- truth is truth (sort of).


    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.
  • vinlyn said:

    @StaticToybox, you're right in one sense -- truth is truth (sort of).


    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.

    I fail to see how those are at all comparable. In one example you have liars and hypocrites. On the other you have statements that hold true even if the person from which they originate has been obscured or lost in history.

  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    I'm sorry, but if you can't see how a blow to the reputation of a religion (or other person/organization) can harm the entire reputation of the entity, then I can't help you.

    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.
  • StaticToyboxStaticToybox Veteran
    edited March 2013
    It has nothing to do with "seeing it" or not, and everything to do with understanding that the teachings of Buddhism and the veracity of those teachings do not hang on the literal existence of a person called the Buddha or Siddhartha.

    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".
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