The Buddha Myth--A Skeptic's Guide

THE THESIS

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Religion can never reform mankind
because religion is slavery.

Seated Buddha (Flickr photo),
Pakistan or Afghanistan, ancient region of Gandhara.

A myth is an idea that, while widely believed, is false. The religious myth is the most powerful device ever created and serves to manipulate and control society.

Certain Buddhologists have always doubted that Gautama Buddha was a historical person; there just isn't enough historical evidence to substantiate the claim. Since it's not possible to prove a negative, such as that Buddha never existed, skeptics are willing to concede that he could have been made up from a composite of several ascetics that perhaps flourished in Northwest India around mid-first millennium BCE. From archaeological and other evidence, it's likely that the religion was based on an Indo-Scythian who lived sometime in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE in the Greater Gandhara region, not in the Nepal Terai as is generally believed. The Indian name for Scythians is Saka (or Sakya); hence Buddha is also known as Sakamuni (or Sakyamuni), the sage of the Sakas. When the center of power of the Mauryan empire shifted east, the story of the Buddha—which had been transmitted orally for centuries—was written down and relocated to the Indo-Gangetic plains. But the Sakyans still retained the memory of the sage as one of their own. That is why we find that more—and earlier—sculpture and architecture made in the service of Buddhism has been found in Greater Gandhara than in any other part of ancient South Asia, and the earliest anthropomorphic images of the Buddha show distinctly Aryan features. And that is why the Sakas were most ardent in spreading Buddhism along the silk road into Central Asia, eventually to invigorate the air of China and Japan.

Map of Gandhara, (compiled and drawn by John C. Huntington, 1989, The Ohio State University), showing high density of Buddhist sites. Click to enlarge.

Only in Gandhara (Afghanistan) is it possible to make startling discoveries even today like Mes Aynak, a sprawling, approximately 1,600-year-old (not 2,600-year-old) Buddhist monastery.

Buddha statues at Mes Aynak, Afghanistan.

It could never happen in Nepal or North India in a thousand years because these lands were never the real homeland of Buddhism.

E. Senart was a late 19th century Buddhologist who leaned towards the idea that Buddha was a mythological creation, but for practical purposes he's willing to give Buddha the benefit of the doubt and concede he may have been historical. Here's a quote from his essay, E. Senart, Essai sur la légende de Buddha, 2e édit. 1882, pp. xi-xii.

"Either the historical data are the primary nucleus and as it were the central source, the legendary elements representing an ulterior action, in part accessory, without necessary cohesion; or, inversely, the mythological traits form a whole connected by a higher and anterior unity with the personage on whom they are here grafted, the historical data, if there are really any, being associated with them only in virtue of a secondary adaptation. It is at the first point of view that the inquiry has stood up to the present time. There has been drawn the practical conclusion that it suffices to suppress all the incredible details, what is left being taken for accredited history. I seek to show that for this first point of view we ought decidedly to substitute the second.

"A sect has a founder, Buddhism like every other. I do not pretend to demonstrate that Sakyamuni never existed. The question is perfectly distinct from the object of this treatise, It follows, certainly, from the foregoing researches that hitherto the sacred personage has been given too much historical consistence, that the tissue of fables grouped around his name has been too facilely transformed, by arbitrary piecings, into a species of more or less unplausible history. Skepticism acquires from our analyses, in some regards, a greater precision: still, it does not follow that we should indefinitely extend its limits. In this epic and dogmatic biography, indeed, there remain very few elements which sustain a close examination; but to say this is not to say that among them there has not entered some authentic reminiscence. The distinction is certainly very difficult. Where we are not in a position to show for a tradition its exact counterpart in other cycles, a decision is an extremely delicate process. All that is suspicious ought not necessarily to be eliminated: it is right that whatever is rigorously admissible ought to be retained. There is no alleged deity—not Vishnu, or Krishna, or Heracles—for whom we might not construct a sufficiently reasonable biography by proceeding as has hitherto been done in regard to the legend of Buddha.

A clip from The God Who Wasn't There. Shows Jesus Christ was a myth and how religions can be founded on a lies.

"Under these reserves, I willingly recognize that there remain a certain number of elements which we have no absolute reason for thinking apocryphal: they may represent real historical reminiscences: to that, for my part, I have no objection. It is possible that the founder of Buddhism may have come from a tribe of Sakyas, though the pretended history of that race is certainly quite fictitious. It is possible that he may have come of a royal line, that he may have been born in a city called Kapilavastu, though this name arouses grave suspicions, opening the door to either mythological or allegorical interpretations, and the existence of such a town is very feebly certified. The name Gotama is certainly historic and well-known, but it is a borrowed name which tells us little. Much trouble has been taken to explain how this strictly Brahmanic patronymic might have passed to a family of Kshatriyas, [the warrior caste] . Apart from Buddha, it is above all closely associated with his supposed aunt, the legendary Prajápati... . I do not speak of his genealogy: it has certainly no value, being borrowed whole from epic heroes, in particular from Rama. On the other hand, it may well be that the teacher of the Buddhists entered on his religious career at the age of thirty-nine ..... ."

Dr. Ranajit Pal has pointed out that many famous cities in modern India had older counterparts in Iran-Baluchistan, which were parts of ancient Greater India, and that Sir William Jones' contention that Patna in eastern India was Megasthenes' Palibothra, (Pataliputra), was a fatal error that has no archaeological basis. Dr. Pal claims that Jones' view that the crucial state of Magadha was Bihar is also baseless. The first epigraphic mention of Magadha is an Asokan edict in faraway Bairat, and there is no evidence for an ancient Magadha in Bihar. Magan, in west-Baluchistan, must have been the early Magadha, he says.

...

Fatal errors indeed because they misled Sir Alexander Cunningham into mislocating Buddhist sites. The best circumstantial evidence I have for this is found in the introduction to the Vatsyayana Kamasutra, a third century CE textbook on erotic love written in Sanskrit, translated and introduced by Wendy Doniger:

...

"Its detailed knowledge of Northwestern India, and its pejorative attitude to other parts of India, particularly the South and the East, suggest that it was written in the Northwest; on the other hand, its reference to Pataliputra alone among cities suggests that it may have been written in Pataliputra (near the present city of Patna, in Bihar, as Yashodhara (who wrote the definitive commentary on this text, in the thirteenth century) believes to be the case."

...

Does that make sense? Doniger says the Kamasutra speaks pejoratively about the South and the East, and was thus probably written in the Northwest. But the only reference to a city is of Pataliputra, which, because of Cunningham, she (and practically everyone else) believes to have been in Bihar, in the East. Doesn't it make more sense that Pataliputra was in the Northwest, as the Kamasutra and Yashodhara in the thirteenth century clearly assumed?

...

Dr. Pal has also pointed out that had the Buddhist canon been formulated at Gaya, Varanasi or Nalanda we would have had ancient manuscripts from these places. But the oldest documents come from Gandhara. This cannot be accidental, he says.

Anyway, I'm running ahead of myself; just wanted to give credit to Dr. Pal for being first with the idea that Buddha was not from the Nepal Terai, but from Seistan, or Gandhara. His website: A New Non-Jonesian History of the World.

I have drawn on the contributions made by earlier scholars and researchers in support of my conclusions; where I have done so, I have cited the sources. Of course the opinions expressed or conclusions reached here are tentative. In fact, I shall be satisfied if they are regarded as worthy of serious consideration and lead to discussion.

WHO WERE THE SCYTHIANS/SAKAS?

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"Behold, he shall come up like clouds,
And his chariots like a whirlwind.
His horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us, for we are plundered!"

Thus prophesized Jeremiah of Judea around 627 BCE, (Jeremiah, 4:13). In about 625 BCE the horsemen known to the Assyrians as Iskhuzai, and Greeks as Skythos or Skutai, (Scythian), invaded Syria and Judea and would press as far south as Egypt.

(Guive Mirfendereski).

Scythian nobleman and his wife on the Central Asian steppes. (National Geographic).

The Scythians were a nomadic Central Asian steppe people; branches of these people migrated south into Persia and India, (where they are called Sakas), and west into the Black Sea area. Herodotus was the first to write a detailed history of them; many of his observations have been proven as reliable by recent archaeological findings. Here he describes the burial of their kings under huge mounds.

Their kings are buried in the territory of the Gerrhians, at the point where, traveling upstream, the Borysthenes ceases to be navigable. On the death of one of their kings, they dig a huge square pit in the ground there, and when this is ready they take up the wax-covered corpse (which has previously had its stomach opened up, cleaned out, filled with chopped galingale, incense, celery-seeds, and aniseed, and then sewn back up again) and carry it in a wagon to another tribe. The people to whom the corpse has been brought do what the Royal Scythians have already done: they cut one of their ears, shave their heads, slash their arms, mutilate their foreheads and noses, and pierce their left hands with arrows. Then the king’s corpse is taken on its wagon to another one of the tribes within the Scythian realm, with its retinue being made up of people from the tribe to which the corpse had previously been transported. Finally, after going around all the tribes with the corpse, they come to the Gerrhians, who are the most remote of the tribes within the Scythian realm, and to the tombs. Here, they lay the corpse in his grave on a pallet. Then they stick spears into the ground on both sides of the corpse and make a roof out of the wooden planks covered with rush matting. There is still open space left within the grave, and in it they bury, after throttling them to death, one of the king’s concubines, his wine-server, cook, groom, steward, and messenger, and some horses and a proportion of his other possessions, including some golden cups. They do not put anything of silver or bronze in the grave. Then they cover the grave with a huge mound of earth, and they all eagerly compete with one another to make the mound as big as possible. (Herodotus The Histories translated by Robin Waterfield.)

The kurgans or burial-mounds that dot the Ukrainian and south Russian steppes and the forest steppes bear testimony to Herodotus’ accuracy here. Sixth- and fifth-century royal tombs were as Herodotus describes, rectangular shafts between 10 and 15 meters deep, within a raised mound above. Some later mounds are as high as a three-story building, and the base of the mound can extend to a diameter of over 100 meters.

Buddhist texts claim that Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryan empire and King Ashoka's grandfather, was related to the Buddha’s Sakya clan, others that he was related to the Nandas. If we believe the Buddhist claim that he was a Sakyan, or Indo-Scythian, this would explain, for example:

The use of animals and most often the lion on the capital of the Ashoka columns and as the Mauryan royal emblem; the Sakas introduced animal art to India.
Construction of stupas (burial mounds) all over India, derived from the steppes burial mounds.
The Buddhist wheel motif is derived from the wagons and chariots of the steppes.
The concept of the universal monarch, or chakravartin, is derived from the steppe peoples.

Modern scholars have also written extensively of them; according to A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia, by David Christian:

The diagonostic features of 'Scythic' culture were:

1. the adoption of iron metallurgy;

2. the use of akinakes, a short sword, of specific design and systematic development;

3. the customary conservative use of artistic motifs, particularly the stag and the animal combat, all of which are combined with,

4. the customary nomadic life and a patriarchal, little centralized social organization;

5. the use of improved compound bows;

6. the widespread use of bronze cauldrons;

7. the making of 'deer stones' (olenniye kamni); and perhaps, most important of all,

8. the appearance for the first time in the steppes, of complex horse harness, which suggests a qualitative improvement in techniques of riding.

As can be seen in the maps below, tribes of Scythians were moving slowly into Gandhara and Northwest India. By the first century CE, they controlled much of this area. So it seems entirely plausible that Buddha could have been a member of this powerful tribe. 515 BCE: Saka was the Persian name for the Scythians. In 515 BCE they occupied the western Asian steppes, (red circle), northwest of Greater Gandhara, (light blue circle). Buddha was born between the periods shown in this and the following map, [i.e. between 515-301 BCE], somewhere in or near the red or blue circles. Click to enlarge maps which are taken from Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, (copyright infringement not intended).
301 BCE: The bulk of the Sakas were still in the western Asian steppes, but of course, some tribes must have trickled into Greater Gandhara long before a Saka kingdom arose there. The Mauryan empire, (blue circle), had arisen in Gandhara and further east in India proper.

192 BCE: Sakas still in western Asian steppes but Mauryans fade from Gandhara at this time. 145 BCE: The Sakas are still on the west Asian steppes but begin to be pressured by the Yuezhi, (green circle); the Indo-Greek kingdom of Menander, (of Milindapanha fame) is established in Gandhara, (blue circle).74 BCE: The Sakas, driven southeast into Gandhara by the Yuezhi, (Kushans), finally establish their kingdom in Gandhara. The Indo-Greek kingdoms collapse.
44 BCE: The Sakas are still in Gandhara; eventually they are driven by other steppe peoples east into India proper.

By the first century CE the Indo-Scythians, or Sakas, controlled a large chunk of territory in North-West India and what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan.

WAS BUDDHA A SCYTHIAN?

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The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed. The Thracians make theirs have gray-eyes and red-hair. And if oxen and horses and lions had hands and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their own.

Xenophanes (circa 570-circa 478 BCE.)

Seated mustachioed Buddha.
Pakistan or Afghanistan, ancient region of Gandhara, 1st-2nd century CE.

Since the 19th century certain Buddhologists have speculated that Buddha was a member of the Scythian steppe nomads, some of whom had been encroaching since the mid-first millennium BCE into the Gandhara region, becoming sedentary in the process, eventually reaching northwest India and founding an empire there in the first century BCE.

"Even a cursory acquaintance with later Vedic texts, like the Upanisads, and that of the earliest Buddhist and Jain texts leaves the reader wondering whether they can possibly refer to the same society, even though admittedly there is a time gap of a thousand years between their composition. The Sanskrit texts evoke a mostly agrarian way of life in which states play a minor part and status is governed by lineage and ritual observance. Buddhist and Jain texts, on the other hand, portray a network of functioning states, each with an urban nucleus heavily engaged in trade and production. Here wealth as much as lineage confers status. Indeed, the Buddhist concept of ‘merit’ as something to be earned, accumulated, occasionally transferred and eventually realized seems inconceivable without a close acquaintance with the moneyed economy." This is strong circumstantial evidence for the Buddha, or the man who the story of the Buddha was based on, actually having been a Gandharan, where urbanization developed ahead of north and east India.

Another piece of circumstantial evidence is found in the Digha Nikaya [DN 1.90-95] which tells a story of Buddha's people, the Sakyas/Scythians, as being 'foreign.' They are described by Ambattha as "fierce, rough spoken, violent, wanderers (sometimes incorrectly mistranslated as menials, but refers to their medicant lifestyle; or could it be a slight on their nomadic past?). They do not respect Brahmins, nor pay homage to them." Upon visiting Kapilavatthu, hometown of the Sakyas, Ambattha explains them as those who "sat upon high seats in meeting halls, engaging in laughing, rough playing, poking each other with fists and fingers and paid no regard to [Ambattha]." In referring to Buddha, the "Scythian-sage" (Sakyamuni), he [DN 3.144] "has blue eyes." See here and here.

Relief panel with the Dipankara Jataka, (Megha and the Buddha Dipankara). Pakistan, Swat Valley, circa 2nd century CE.

The most visual circumstantial evidence, as the relief panel and Buddha image above show, is that Gandharan artists were still representing Buddha, (present and previous buddhas), as Aryans wearing Greek togas well into the Common Era.

These are some observations to support the contention that Buddha was a Saka/Scythian:

1. Buddha was of the kshatriya (warrior) caste; foreign invaders were always co-opted into this caste by the Brahmins;

2. Buddha rejected the caste system;

3. Buddhism introduced animal motifs to India derived from the steppe peoples: the stag or deer, symbol of Buddha's first sermon in the deer park; the horse--Buddha rode out of his father's palace as a renunciate on his horse Kanthaka, which was immediately taken to heaven to be reborn among the gods; the Scythian eagle and lion griffins used as motifs at Barhut and Sanchi stupas, etc;

Relief panel with the Buddha's first sermon, showing the wheel and deer symbols.
Pakistan, ancient region of Gandhara, circa 2nd century CE.

4. The cremation of bodies and the erection of burial mounds, or stupas (topes), previously unknown in India.

5. The Buddhist ideal of the chakravartin, or wheel-turning monarch, to which kings aspired, a concept borrowed from the steppe peoples who must have been quite familiar with wheels and wagons;

6. One of the 32 marks of the mahapurusha, or great man (Buddha was one), was that he had blue eyes. This would indicate that Buddha was an Iranian/Caucasian.

1. From Relics of the Buddha by John S. Strong:

"This is not the place to examine the origin of the chakravartin ideal and its influence on the legend of the Buddha. Suffice it to say that the parallelism between the Buddha's funeral and that of a chakravartin continues a theme already implied in the doctrine of the twin careers of a mahapurusa. It is sometimes argued that this association with great kingship was intended to enhance the prestige of the Buddha as a figure of great distinction. At the same time, however, it is important to see one of the more specific implications of this. Jean Przyluski, who has looked into Northwest Indian, Hellenistic, and, ultimately, Ancient Near Eastern traditions as sources of at least parts of the chakravartin mythology, has argued that we should look in the same direction for the origins of relic worship in India. [Watch "Alexander the God King."] He points out that Alexander the Great was divinized and that a dispute erupted over his body, which the Macedonians felt would bring happiness and prosperity to the land where it was kept. Even more specifically, he cites the case of King Menander, whose ashes (according to Plutarch) were divided among the cities of Northwest India, which erected mnemeia, [memorials, i.e., caityas], over each portion. For Przyluski, then, the veneration of a great being's remains was intimately linked to the nascent cult of the chakravartin and both were imported ideologies. This is important because, if it is true, the fact that Buddha's body is to be treated as though it were that of a great king may not simply be intended to "glorify" or "divinize" him. More basically, it may be related to the injunction that his relics be preserved, and that his body not be handled like those of ordinary beings or of other sannyasins, whose remains were not preserved."

2. From The Indian Saint; or, Buddha and Buddhism: A Sketch, Historical and Critical, by Charles D. B. Mills, 1874:

[Samuel] Beal [translator of Buddhist Records of the Western World from ancient Chinese], however, advances the opinion that [Buddha] was of Scythian descent. A branch or clan of this race, he thinks, may have penetrated Northern India, as another did Assyria about this time, and Buddha was born of this blood, a descendant of Chakravarttins or Wheel Kings, i.e., universal monarchs. Sakya's directions as to the funeral obsequies to be observed after his death, the cremation of the body, and the subsequent erection of mounds, or topes, in such numbers over India,--all, he deems, indicate a foreign parentage for this saint... But this of the directions is very probably a subsequent invention; it certainly comports little with his known character, and especially with the light esteem, almost the contempt, in which he is represented to have held the body. The weight of the evidence seems altogether in favor of the view that he was of the Aryan race and family of the Sakyas.

I don't agree with Mills' last part where he states that Buddha held the body in light esteem. In fact, Buddha had a very high opinion of himself and always wanted to be treated in a special way.

3. From The Indian empire: its people, history, and products By William Wilson Hunter (published 19th century),

There are indications that a branch of the Scythian hordes, who overran Asia about 625 B.C., made its way to Patala on the Indus, the site selected by Alexander in 325 B.C. as his place of arms in that delta, and long the capital of Sindh under the name of Haidarabad. One portion of these Patala Scythians seems to have moved westwards by the Persian Gulf to Assyria; another section is supposed to have found its way northeast into the Gangetic valley, and branched off into the Sakyas of Kapilavastu, among whom the Buddha was born.

During the two hundred years before the Christian era, the Scythic movements come a little more clearly into sight, and in the first century after Christ those movements culminate in a great Indian sovereignty. About 126 B.C., the Tartar tribe of Su are said to have conquered the Greek dynasty of Bactria, and the Graeco-Bactrian settlements in the Punjab were overthrown by the Tue-Chi, [Yuezhi].

The football-field-size burial mound that Scythians made with sandstone from nearby cliffs which were the forerunner of Buddhist stupas. Above is Arzhan-2 in Tuva's Valley of the Tsars. (National Geographic, copyright infringement unintended). Archaeologists found undisturbed wooden vault with two skeletons and 44 pounds of gold (2). They also found rare remnants of clothing (3), a horse grave (4), but nothing at (1) where kings were usually buried.

Two centuries later, we touch solid ground in the dynasty whose chief representative, Kanishka, held the Fourth Buddhist Council, circa 40 A.D., and became the royal founder of Northern Buddhism. [Historicity of Fourth Council now doubted.] But long anterior to the alleged Tue-Chi settlements in the Punjab, tribes of Scythic origin had found their way into India, and had left traces of non-Aryan origin upon Indian civilization. The sovereignty of Kanishka in the first century A.D. was not an isolated effort, but the ripened fruit of a series of ethnical movements.

Coin of Kanishka, Pakistan, region of ancient Gandhara, circa 130 CE. Reverse, Hindu deity; Kanishka also struck coins with Buddha on the reverse, (below), where Boddo is clearly stamped.

Certain scholars believe that even before the time of the Buddha, there are relics of Scythic origin in the religion of India. It has been suggested that the Asvamedha, or Great Horse Sacrifice, in some of its developments at any rate, was based upon Scythic ideas. 'It was in effect,' writes Mr. Edward Thomas, 'a martial challenge, which consisted in letting the victim who was to crown the imperial triumph at the year's end, go free to wander at will over the face of the earth; its sponsor being bound to follow its hoofs, and to conquer or conciliate' the chiefs through whose territories it passed. Such a prototype seems to him to shadow forth the life of the Central Asian communities of the horseman class, 'among whom a captured steed had so frequently to be traced from camp to camp, and surrendered or fought for at last.' The curious connection between the Horse Sacrifice and the Man Sacrifice of the pre-Buddhistic religion of India has often been noticed. That connection has been explained from the Indian point of view, by the substitution theory of a horse for a human victim.

Workers unearth the remains of 14 sacrificed horses; a measure of wealth on Earth and in the hereafter, horses were the mainstays in many Scythian graves. This herd is modest--Scythian graves elsewhere have been found with hundreds of horses. (National Geographic).

Whatever significance may attach to this rite, it is certain that with the advent of Buddhism, Scythic influences made themselves felt in India. Indeed, it has been attempted to establish a Scythic origin for Buddha himself. One of his earliest appearances in the literature of the Christian Church is as Buddha the Scythian. It is argued that by no mere accident did the Fathers trace the Manichaean doctrine to Scythianus, whose disciple, Terebinthus, took the name Buddha. As already stated, the form of abjuration of the Manichaean heresy mentions [Buddha and the Scythian or Sakya], seemingly, says Weber, a separation of Buddha Sakya-muni into two. The Indian Buddhists of the Southern school would dwell lightly on, or pass over altogether, a non-Aryan origin for the founder of their faith. We have seen how the legend of Buddha in their hands assimilated itself into the old epic type of the Aryan hero. But a Scythic origin would be congenial to the Northern school of Buddhism: to the school which was consolidated by the Scythic monarch Kanishka, and which supplied a religion during more than ten centuries to Scythic tribes of Central Asia.

4. From Earth to Heaven The Royal Animal-Shaped Weights of the Burmese Empire by Donald and Joan Gear:

The invasions of the Greeks, Sakas, Parthians and Kushans into the Bactria and north India regions between the 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE led to one of the most creative periods in the history of India’s art. Another important influence was that of the Romans from about the 1st century BCE to the 4th century CE.

In Ordos, bronzes with animal decoration continued until about the 5th or 6th century CE. This region is sometimes referred to as the last stand of animal art. At some time before the 2nd century BCE the Yueh-chieh [Yuezhi] in present day Kansu, not far from Ordos then at its peak of abundant production, must have contacted the Sakas of near Lake Balkash and acquired knowledge of its stag art, which, in modified form, could have been transmitted south through Szechwan to the semi-nomadic tribes of Yunnan. The Yueh-chieh subsequently drove out the Sakas (about 160 BCE) who then moved into northwest India, (Gandhara), while the Yueh-chieh became the Kushans at the west end of the Tarim basin.

The Saka retained some of their animal art but the Yueh-chieh abandoned theirs. The region from the Black Sea to Mongolia, including Central Asia, from before the 8th century BCE was occupied by nomadic steppe tribes many culturally and probably ethnically related to the East Iranians (i.e. they were Indo-Aryans). Many belonged to the Saka group. Those occupying the region north of the Black Sea were named Scythians by the 8th century BCE Greeks, those west of the Altai mountains were called Saka by the pre-6th century BCE Persians and those east of the mountains, for convenience today, are called Saka-Siberian. On the northwest borders of China and in the Tarim basin region before the 2nd century BCE were the Yueh-chieh, also probably an Indo-Aryan people related to the Sakas. They were driven along with the Sakas by the Hsiung-Nu, a Turki people. The Indo-Aryans of about 2000 BCE and the Saka group are the most important of the steppe nomads to this work.

Firstly, this is because the Indo-Aryan peoples of 2000 BCE brought to India in the Vedic religion basic concepts held by the steppe nomads which, together with Indian animism, led to Hinduism and Buddhism. Secondly, it is because tribes of, or related to the Saka group repeatedly invaded India from 2000 BCE onwards, so spreading their culture from the kingdoms and republics they established in India and thus leading to the flowering of stone architectural animal art in India from about the 2nd century BCE.

The Saka influence on animal art appears to have flowed round both sides of the Tibet plateau and converged on southeast Asia. This flow of art and people may have led to the foundation of the first Burmese kingdom, Tagaung. The Yueh-chieh were driven away from their homeland by the Hsiung-Nu about the 2nd century BCE; part of the tribe moved south towards Burma and part moved west to the northern marches of India, changing their name to Kushan as they did so. There, for about five centuries, they became a great influence on the development of Mahayanist Buddhism and overland trade from the Persian to the Chinese borders.

During their migration they drove a part of the Sakas before them and these settled in west India before temporarily extending their sway to the east of India south of the Kushans. The persistence of the word ‘Saka’ in various forms in India and Burma is noteworthy. Sakka is another name of Indra, the Indo-Aryan and Hindu god. Saka is the name of the group of tribes of which the Scythians were one. The Sakas, ‘people of the stag,’ are associated with the animal symbols of the chakravartin, (universal ‘wheel-turning’ sovereign). Gautama Buddha was the Sakyamuni, the sage of the Sakyas.

Lion capital of the pillar erected by Asoka at Sarnath. Mauryan, circa 250 BCE. Chunar sandstone, Height 2.5m. (Archaeological Museum, Sarnath).

The lion is among the figurines created by the people of the Indus valley civilizations about 2000 BCE, though it does not become a frequently used motif, at least in durable material, until it was adopted by the Buddhists about the 3rd century BCE when it looks distinctly west Asian or perhaps Persian. The adoption of the lion motif instead of the tiger may have been because the Buddhists needed a royal symbol without the ferocious or steppe nomad association of the tiger, the emblem of the warrior caste into which Gautama Buddha was born. The stone-shafted pillars of India, usually referred to as Asokan pillars, can be separated into two age groups: pre-3rd century BCE and later. The early pillars bear, or bore, on their tops copper gilt images of the lion, the bull, and the elephant. Of these the lion image is by far the most frequent. It is also the youngest, replacing the bull and elephant images. It occurs in the region formerly occupied by the republican, warlike Licchavis and later by the Nandas. In style the images show the influence of the Anatolian Hittites (20th century-8th century BCE), as do those of the south Chinese lions of the 2nd century BCE—6th century CE. The Indian lion representation gradually changed its form, partly because most of the sculptors probably had never seen a lion, which was rare in India compared with west Asia and which today exists only in west India, and partly because it was intended to represent the broadcasting of a spiritual image. By the 11th century CE its shape had become unrealistic, humanoid, and subsequently became increasingly so.

Left: Gold stag headdress pin; the deer became an important Buddhist icon.

Stags appear to be particularly important in the art and myths of Central Asia, the steppes and Siberia from 1500 BCE and earlier. The stag was especially used by the Altaian Saka people. It was one of the three main animals represented in their art, the others being the horse and the tiger. In the Indus valley civilizations of about 2000 BCE stag-horns were emplaced on composite creations. Portrayals show that Agni was horned. Agni was one of the chief gods of the Aryan invasion from the steppes of about 1000 BCE. Stag representations are not found again until the last two centuries BCE but then seem to be replaced mainly by ruminants with unbranched horns or does.

The two thousand five hundred-year-old Pazyryk rug, found in 1949 on the steppes of Mongolia in a Scythian prince’s tomb, already displays all the symbols later to be associated with Buddhism: the lotus blossoms, solar symbols, stags, horses, and eagle and lion griffins.

Except in the Upper Punjab, the deer was not worshipped in India. The Punjabi worship was derived from the Sakas, ‘the people of the stag,’ from near Lake Balkash, who ruled various parts of northern India from about the 1st century BCE to the 4th century CE. The horned lion or lion-griffin reached the Indus valley about 2000 BCE. The griffin was utilized by Alexander the Great and he may have introduced or reintroduced it to India about 325 BCE. Certainly two griffins of about 3rd century BCE occur at Patna. Lion-griffins and eagle griffins were employed in the sculpting on the Indian Buddhist temples of the 2nd to 1st century BCE, the motifs possibly having been introduced by the Scythians (Saka) invaders. The griffin and the lion-griffin motifs were distributed by the steppe nomads on the artifacts manufactured in western Asia, just as they transmitted artifacts and motifs from the Orient.

The Scythians of east Asia adapted these motifs to their own requirements before the 7th century BCE. It is likely that the lion-griffin had reached the Altai, Siberia and China well before 1000 BCE. The Scythians preferred combat scenes with griffins as the aggressors and they themselves became especially associated with the griffin by the western world, which in fact made the association Scythia-griffin-gold because at that time, the Altai and adjacent regions produced much of the world’s gold. Lion-griffin figurines were present in Bactria in the 4th century BCE at a time when colonies of Greeks were working for the Scythians. In the 3rd-1st century lion-griffins were being made at Pazyryk in the Altai.

The Neolithic religions of the Eurasian agriculturalists appear to have been characterized by a belief in earth gods, i.e. those of the earth as a whole, of the soil and of the underworld. This belief is expressed most obviously in the forms of earth mounds, sometimes capped by stones, megaliths, dolmens, menhirs, small stone pyramids and other structures. Such occur in Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Assam, Orissa, Southeast Asia, etc. Later the belief was expressed in the form of pillars in India, Yunnan and Vietnam, as stupas in much of the same region and, in Southeast Asia, as temples intended to represent mountains, e.g. many Khmer temples. The natural, or man-made, elevations seems to have been regarded as a substitute for the body of the local earth god (and later for the tribe itself symbolized through the ancestors of the rulers) within which was concentrated the power of the deity, a capping stone often serving to concentrate the power still more effectively. Celestial gods formed part of the cosmology but were less important than the earth gods. A link between the two kinds of god was often made by the use of a pillar or tree on or near the mound, but the elevation itself, especially if high, may have served as the link. Horse sacrifices, practiced by the Mongols, Turko-Tartars, Indo-European peoples and others, were always offered to the god of the sun and sky. The horse, especially a white one, symbolized the sun. In the Altai it was the function of the shaman, in a trance, to accompany the soul of a sacrificed horse on its celestial journey and also to offer horseflesh to the ancestors. Horse sacrifices and horse burials formed part of the burial rites of these peoples throughout the entire region, the best known being those of the Indo-Aryan Scythians, Sakas and other invaders of India. These rites and sun worship continued among the Mongols until after the 14th century CE, while Tartar chiefs continued to present thousands of white horses to the Chinese emperor until after the 18th century CE. In ancient India and elsewhere, long hair on shamans, such as the Ari favored, symbolized the snakes that appeared on the costumes and in the beliefs of the Central Asian shamans. The snake played an important role in Central Asian and Siberian mythology and on the shaman’s costume. The Indo-Aryans of about 1500 BCE, the Scythians of pre-8th century BCE and the Sakas of the same stock about 2nd century BCE all invaded India. They drank intoxicants like the Ari and took narcotics (soma, haoma) to attain ecstasy. The Sakas had ancestor cults. In Hindu-Buddhist cosmogony there are 33 gods who reside on the summit of Mount Meru, among whom Indra (Sakka) is king. In Central Asia the people of the Altai mountains have a belief in 33 heavens. In the 7th century BCE Saka-Siberian burial site of Tuva, just east of the Altai mountains, the chief’s tomb comprises a large central mound surrounded by a stone wall 44 meters away. The annulus so-formed is separated into sections by 32 radial spokes built of stones bearing incised depictions of horses. This is a temple of the sun. The number of 32 appears also as that of the number of bodily marks of the chakravartin. There seems to be good reason to think that the 32 fiefdoms of the chakravartin are derived from the solar cult of the Indo-Aryans and reached Burma through the Sakas.

The Aryan invasion of Persia and India of about 2000 BCE introduced the Vedic religion. The descendants of the Aryans and the Saka/Scythians (sun and snake worshippers) became allies perhaps before 700 BCE, the Sakas becoming known as ‘the serpent’ or naga race, while the naga itself became one of the most important associates of the Brahmanic, Hindu and Buddhist pantheons. According to the Indian Puranas, Gautama Buddha originated from the solar race of Iskshvahu and at the commencement of his ascetic life, he was protected by the naga king. Tombs of Gautama’s own Sakya tribe, excavated in the 19th century, each contained an effigy of a naga.

Naga king and his consort--Cave Temples, Ajanta, Maharashtra.

This is one of the several pieces of evidence linking Gautama Buddha with the steppe nomads. Vedism and indigenous animism merged to form Hinduism about the middle of the 1st millennium BCE, about the same time as Buddhism emerged. In the section entitled ‘Trade’ the voyages of the allied Sakas and Indo-Aryans as traders are mentioned and it is these which may have given rise to some of the Hindu legends, such as the ‘Churning of the Oceans,’ and the association of the naga with water. Beginning not later than the 2nd century BCE and increasing during the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, Buddhism spread to Central Asia under the dominant influence of the fervently Buddhist and-commercially-conscious Kushans, (the former Yueh-chieh), whose empire stretched from north India to Bactria and from the Parthian empire of Persia on the west to that of the Chinese Han empire on the east. Eastern Persia and much of Afghanistan also adopted Buddhism, parts remaining until after the Moslem invasion. In the shaman’s ecstatic techniques throughout central and north Asia, the number seven plays an important role, one which is due ultimately to influences from Babylon. On his costume, a Yurak shaman may have seven balls representing the seven celestial maidens. There are also the common beliefs in seven or nine each of celestial and infernal levels, though rarely, up to 33 occur. In his rites the Altaic shaman climbs a tree or a post notched with seven or nine steps to symbolize his ascent to the most powerful one. The seven steps are similar to the Buddha’s seven steps mentioned below, a concept derived from Buddhism’s parent, Brahmanism. In legend Buddha could walk immediately after his birth. He took seven steps in the direction of each of the cardinal points and claimed possession of the world. Seven days after Guatama Buddha’s birth his mother died. After Buddha’s enlightenment he meditated for three periods each of seven days. After these he was wrapped in seven coils of the serpent king, Mucalinda, and endured continuous rain for seven days. Seven also symbolizes the horse, one of the seven treasures of the chakravartin.

WAS BUDDHA HISTORICAL?

2009-08-13T18:46:00.005-07:00

On these grounds, then, it is here submitted that the traditional figure of the Buddha, in its most plausibly rationalized form, is as unhistoric as the figure of the Gospel Jesus has been separately shown to be. Each figure simply stands for the mythopœic action of the religious mind in a period in which Primary-God-making had given way to Secondary-God-making, and in particular to the craving for a Teaching God who should originate religious and moral ideas as the other Gods had been held to originate agriculture, art, medicine, normal law, and civilisation.

John M. Robertson.

Most Buddhologists concede that Gautama Buddha was a historical person, someone of flesh and blood who trod this earth, in the Ganges Plain in North India in the fifth-fourth century BCE. Unfortunately, there is no rock-solid evidence to corroborate this view; as in all matters regarding religion, we have to take it on faith. Do Buddhologists, when examining the historicity of Buddha, use the same exacting standards a historian would bring to examining the historicity of Alexander the Great, for example? If we compare Buddha with Alexander, who flourished at roughly the same time, we have so much more evidence for the latter, who founded several cities bearing his name (including Alexandria, Egypt); fought numerous battles and wars but was defeated only once, by his own troops; conquered a huge empire; contemporary historians wrote about him; contemporary coins exist which bear his image; his generals divided up his empire among themselves and claimed to be his heirs; and so forth.

In the case of Buddha, we have none of these things. Even his supposed bodily relics, when held up to scrutiny, turn out to be non-human bones or teeth. The towns and cities supposedly associated with events in his life were determined by European scholars in the nineteenth century, with the help of travelogues left by Chinese pilgrims who had traveled in India more than a millenium before. Then we have stories written down many centuries after he was supposed to have flourished by disciples who were penning myths that had been handed down orally for centuries. The claim is made that Buddha was a prince, but historians say he couldn't have been because his father wasn't a king, the country he ruled being a republic; so obviously later disciples, or the people who were promoting Buddhism, embellished the story. Thus when Buddha comes to renunciate the household life, his sacrifice is seen as not merely the giving up of house and home, but the renunciation of palace and kingdom, and forfeiting the certainty of becoming a chakravartin king, or great wheel-turning monarch. Thus the greater the sacrifice, the greater the merit gained.

If we strip away all the myths and legends of the Buddha, we're left with the minimalist Buddha: an ascetic who meditated under a tree and came up with the four noble truths. Everything else he was supposed to have said were probably put into his mouth by later disciples who were intent in founding a religion. It has been said that the Buddha didn't make the Buddhists but that the Buddhists made Buddha.

The basic methodological principle that certain Buddhologists follow in trying to retrieve the historical Buddha from a thick overlay of mythology, to paraphrase Hermann Detering, who was writing about St. Paul, is simple: everything that somehow seems miraculous or imaginary is deemed unhistorical; and everything, on the contrary, that proceeds in a rational and natural way is historical. This method, however, has fatal similarity with a man who, at any cost, wanted to hold on to a historical kernel in the story about Little Red Riding Hood and, to this end, removed all the mythic components (the wolf who speaks, red riding hood and grandmother in the stomach of the wolf) in order to hold fast to the historical existence of a little girl named Red Ridinghood who visited her grandmother in the forest sometime long ago and met a wolf on her way.

From Pagan Christs John M. Robertson.

There is in fact no single detail in the legend that has any claim to critical acceptance; and the position of the latest conservatives, as Oldenberg, is finally only a general petitio principii. India, admits that candid scholar, always was, as it is, "a land of types," wherein the lack of freedom stunts the free growth of individuality; and in the portraits of the Buddha and all his leading disciples we have simply the same type repeated. Yet, he contends, "a figure such as his certainly has not been fundamentally misconceived." Critical logic will not permit such an a priori reinstatement of a conception in which every element has given way before analysis. It is but an unconscious resort to the old fallacy of meeting the indictment of a spurious document with the formula, "Who else could have written it?"

We recur to the old issue—the thesis that "every sect must have had a founder." Such was the unhesitating assumption of Minayeff, who did so much to bring historic clearness into early Buddhist history. "It is beyond doubt that at the origin of great historic movements always and everywhere appear important and historic personalities. It was so, certainly, in the history of Buddhism, and its development unquestionably commenced in the work of the founder." Here we have something more than the proposition of M. Senart—we have a doctrine which would ascribe to definite founders the cults of Heracles and Dionysos and Aphroditê, the worship of fire, and the institution of human sacrifice. Dismissing such a generalisation as the extravagance of a scholar without sociology, we bring the issue to a point in the formula of M. Senart. Plainly that is significant in the sense only that someone must have begun the formation of any given group. It is clearly not true in the sense that every sect originates in the new teaching of a remarkable personage. And we have seen reason to infer that there was a group of heretical or deviating Brahmanists, for whom "a Buddha" was "an enlightened one," one of many, before the quasi-historical Buddha had even so far emerged into personality as the slain Jesus of the Pauline epistles. Brahmanic doctrine, Brahmanic asceticism and vows, and Brahmanic mendicancy—these are the foundations of the Order: the personal giver of that rule and teaching, the Teaching God, comes later, even as the Jesus who institutes the Holy Supper comes after the eucharist is an established rite. Every critical scholar, without exception, admits that a vast amount of doctrine ascribed to Buddha was concocted long after his alleged period. It cannot then be proved that any part of the doctrine is not a fictitious ascription; and there is not a single tenable test whereby any can be discriminated as genuine. In the words of Kuenen, "we are not free to explain Buddhism from the person of the founder." Nor is there any more psychological difficulty in supposing the whole to be doctrinal myth than in conceiving how the later Brahmanists could put their discourses in the mouth of Krishna.

The recent attempts to establish the historicity of Gotama Buddha by excavated tomb-remains —a kind of evidence which obviously could prove nothing as to the achievements or teaching of the person interred—have broken down on their merits. Dr. Fleet's claim to date an inscribed vase before Asoka's time on the strength of its letter-forms is peremptorily rejected; and Professor Davids’ theory that the remains found under one stupa are those of Buddha has to compete with the theory of Dr. Fleet that they are those of massacred Buddhana Sakiya = "kinsmen of Buddha," which in turn is rejected by M. Barth as an impossible interpretation. On such lines there can be no establishment of any relevant historic facts; and we are left to the decision that "No extant inscription, either in the north or south, can be referred with confidence to a date earlier than that of Asoka.

Professor Kern, coming to conclusions substantially identical with those of M. Senart, posits for us finally an ancient Order of monks, absorbing an ancient popular religion, and developing for people of the middle and lower classes the ideals of a spiritual life current in the schools of the Brahmans and the ascetics. "It is very possible," he goes on, "that the Order had been founded—whatever be the precise sense which we attach to that word—by a single man peculiarly gifted, even as, for example, it is possible that Freemasonry may have been so founded. We may even, by an effort of imagination, adorn this founder with all sorts of good qualities; but we have no right to say that the amiability of the Buddha of the legend has any other origin than the antique belief according to which the Buddha, in his quality of cherishing sun, is manno miltisto" —the kindest of men, in the words applied by an old German prayer-chant to the deity.

This is the warranted attitude of scientific criticism; and the mere "may-be" as to the possible Founder is exclusive of any Evemeristic solution. M. Senart's necessary founder, and Professor Kern's possible founder, are wholly remote from the Buddha alike of the Buddhist and of the rationalising scholar, bent on saving a personality out of a myth. On the face of the case, there is a presumption that, while there may easily have been, "about 500 BCE, a man who by his wisdom and his devotion to the spiritual interests of his kind made such an impression that contemporaries compared him to a pre-existing ideal of wisdom and goodness, and that posterity completely identified him with this ideal," the Order was not founded by any such person. No Buddha made the Buddhists—the Buddhists made the Buddha.

An obviously sufficient conceptual nucleus for "the" Buddha lay in the admittedly general Brahmanic notion of "Buddhas." There is even a tradition that at the time when Sakyamuni came many men ran through the world saying "I am Buddha! I am Buddha!" This may be either a Buddhist way of putting aside the claims of other Buddhas or a simple avowal of their commonness. But a real Buddha would be a much less likely "founder" than one found solely in tradition. Any fabulous Buddha as such could figure for any group as its founder to begin with: to him would be ascribed the common ethical code and rules of the group: the clothing of the phantom with the mythic history of Vishnu-Purusha or Krishna, the "Bhagavat" of earlier creeds, followed as a matter of course, on the usual lines. M. Senart "holds it for established that the legend as a whole was fixed as early as the time of Asoka." Some of the latest surveys of the problem end in an inference that the oldest elements in the legend consist of fragments of an ancient poem or poems embedded in the Pitakas. The quasi-biographical colour further given to mythical details is on all fours with that of the legends of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and Jesus, all late products of secondary mythology, in periods which systematically reduced God-legends to the biographic level. As we have seen, the fabrication of narrative-frames for the teachings ascribed to the Buddha was early an established Buddhist exercise. And this accumulation of quasi-biographical detail, as we have also seen, goes on long after the whole cycle of prior supernaturalist myth has been embodied. It is after Jesus has been deified that he is provided with a mother and a putative father and brothers; and it is in the latest gospel of all that we have some of the most circumstantial details of his life and deportment. There is even a case for the thesis that some of the characteristics of the Buddha are derived from sculptures which followed Greek models.

On these grounds, then, it is here submitted that the traditional figure of the Buddha, in its most plausibly rationalized form, is as unhistoric as the figure of the Gospel Jesus has been separately shown to be. Each figure simply stands for the mythopœic action of the religious mind in a period in which Primary-God-making had given way to Secondary-God-making, and in particular to the craving for a Teaching God who should originate religious and moral ideas as the other Gods had been held to originate agriculture, art, medicine, normal law, and civilisation. And if by many the thought be still found disenchanting, they might do well to reflect that there is a side to the conception that is not devoid of comfort. Buddhism, like Christianity, is from the point of view of its traditional origins a "failure." Buddhism, indeed, notably in the case of Burmah, has done more to mould the life of a whole people towards its ostensibly highest ethic than Christianity ever did; but Buddhism, being at best a gospel of monasticism, quietism, and mechanical routine, collapsed utterly in India, the land of its rise; and its normal practice savors little of moral or intellectual superiority to any of the creeds around it. Brahmanism, which seems to have ultimately wrought its overthrow, set up in its place a revived and developed popular polytheism, on the plane of the most ignorant demotic life. Christianity, in turn, professedly the religion of peace and love, is as a system utterly without influence in suppressing war, or inter-racial malignity, or even social division. The vital curative forces as against those evils are visibly independent of Christianity. And here emerges the element of comfort.

On our Naturalistic view of the rise of the religions of the Secondary or Teaching Gods, it is sheer human aspiration that has shaped all the Christs and all their doctrines; and one of the very causes of the total miscarriage is just that persistence in crediting the human aspiration to Gods and Demigods, and representing as superhuman oracles the words of human reason. Unobtrusive men took that course hoping for the best, seeking a short cut to moral influence; but they erred grievously. So to disguise and denaturalise wise thoughts and humane principles was to keep undeveloped the very reasoning faculty which could best appreciate them. Men taught to bow ethically to a Divine Teacher are not taught ethically to think: any aspiration so evoked in them is factitious, vestural, verbal, or at best emotionally superinduced, not reached by authentic thought and experience. When, haply, the nameless thinkers who in all ages have realised and distilled the wisdom or unwisdom given out as divine are recognized in their work for what they were, and their successors succeed in persuading the many to realise for themselves the humanness of all doctrine, the nations may perchance become capable of working out for themselves better gospels than the best of those which turned to naught in their hands while they held them as revelations from the skies.

This is a quote, which could equally well apply to Buddha, from the final two paragraphs of The Historicized Jesus? by Robert M. Price:

Traditionally, Christ-Myth theorists have argued that one finds a purely mythic conception of Jesus in the epistles and that the life of Jesus the historical teacher and healer as we read it in the gospels is a later historicization. This may indeed be so, but it is important to recognize the obvious: The gospel story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last. In the gospels the degree of historicization is actually quite minimal, mainly consisting of the addition of the layer derived from contemporary messiahs and prophets, as outlined above. One does not need to repair to the epistles to find a mythic Jesus. The gospel story itself is already pure legend. What can we say of a supposed historical figure whose life story conforms virtually in every detail to the Mythic Hero Archetype, with nothing, no "secular" or mundane information, left over? As Dundes is careful to point out, it doesn't prove there was no historical Jesus, for it is not implausible that a genuine, historical individual might become so lionized, even so deified, that his life and career would be completely assimilated to the Mythic Hero Archetype. But if that happened, we could no longer be sure there had ever been a real person at the root of the whole thing. The stained glass would have become just too thick to peer through.

Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue. We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle. Or they are so intricately woven into the history of the time that it is impossible to make sense of that history without them. But is this the case with Jesus? I fear it is not. The apparent links with Roman and Herodian figures is too loose, too doubtful for reasons I have already tried to explain. Thus it seems to me that Jesus must be categorized with other legendary founder figures including the Buddha, Krishna, and Lao-tzu. There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure."

BUDDHA AS A BUSINESSMAN

2009-08-13T18:46:00.001-07:00

This is an interesting talk by Professor Gregory Schopen, chair of the UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and an authority on ancient Indian Buddhism, who has been separating Buddhist fact from fiction for the past 30 years. In this UCLA Faculty Research Lecture, Schopen explores the Buddha as an astute businessman, economist and lawyer. Watch it here:

As a skeptic who doubts a historical Buddha ever walked this earth, I applaud Schopen for pointing out that Buddha, or at least the religion he was supposed to have founded, was extremely concerned with profane as well as sacred matters.

This is really not surprising because a monastery was often big business in the community, usually built by kings and nobles and endowed by them with much wealth. Therein lay the seed of their own destruction, for when royal support was withdrawn, for whatever reason, the monastic system was not able to sustain itself and finally collapsed. After the invasion of Gandhara by the White Huns, thousands of monasteries in that once Buddhist land became derelict, as attested to by Xuanzang.

But in the Indo-Gangetic plain, matters hadn't come to a head yet, the Muslim invasion being several centuries over the horizon. Hwui Li, Xuanzang's disciple who visited India in the 7th century CE, gives a vivid picture of the Buddhist university at Nalanda. He says, “The Sangharamas [monasteries] of India are counted by myriads… . The priests belonging to the convent, or strangers (residing therein) always reach the number of 10,000… .

Watch this video (Seven Wonders of India: Nalanda University) to get some idea of the immensity of Nalanda in its heyday.

"The king of the country respects and honors the priests, and has remitted the revenues of about 100 villages for the endowment of the convent. Two hundred householders in the villages, day by day, contribute several hundred piculs (133 1/8 lbs.) of ordinary rice, and several hundred catties (160 lbs.) in weight of butter and milk. Hence the students here, being so abundantly supplied, do not require to ask for the four requisites (clothes, food, bedding, medicine). This is the source of the perfection of their studies, to which they have arrived."

Another Chinese traveler, I-tsing, who also visited India in the 7th century CE, gives a detailed account of the arrangement of affairs of a deceased monk. He describes that it was the duty of other monks to see whether the deceased had left any debts or whether he had left any will or if anybody had nursed him during his illness. When they found anything like this, they, according to the law, distributed the deceased’s property.

The Chinese traveler refers to a list of things which are distributable and which are not distributable. He says, “Land, houses, shops, bed-gear, wooden-seats, and iron or copper implements are not distributable; earthen utensils i.e., bowls, smaller bowls, lundikas (pitchers) for drinking and for cleansing water, oil-pots and water-basins are distributable, the rest are not.

Wooden and bamboo implements, leather bedding, shaving things, male and female servants; food, corn, lands and houses are all to be made the property of the priests assembling from every quarter. Among these, things which are movable are to be kept in storehouses and to be used by the assembly. Lands, houses, villages, gardens, buildings, which are immovable, become also the property of the assembly.

If there remain clothes or anything wearable, whether cloaks, bathing-shirts, dyed or un-dyed, or waterproofs, pots, slippers, or shoes, they are to be distributed on the spot to the priests then assembled… . Quadrupeds, elephants, horses, mules, asses for riding are to be offered to the Royal Household. Bulls and sheep should not be distributed, but belong to the whole assembly.

Such goods as helmets, coats of arms, etc., are also to be sent to the Royal Household… . Paints of good quality such as yellow, vermillion, azure, blue, green are sent to the temple to be used for coloring images and the ornaments around… , medical substances are to be divided into two portions, one being devoted to pious objects (Dhammika), the other to the priests’ own use (Sanghika). The former portion is spent in copying the scriptures and in building or decorating the ‘Lion Seat.’ The other portion is distributed to the priests who are present… .

The scriptures and… their commentaries should not be parted with, but be kept in a library to be read by the members of the order. Non-Buddhistic books are to be sold and (the money acquired) should be distributed among priests then resident… . Gold, silver, wrought or unwrought goods, shells, and coins are divided into three portions, for the Buddha, for Religion (Dharma) and for the priesthood (Sangha). The portion for the Buddha is spent in repairing the temple, stupas that contain holy hair or nails, and other ruins. The portion belonging to Religion is used for copying the scriptures and building or decorating the ‘Lion Seat.’ Another portion belonging to the Assembly is distributed to the resident priests.” [From Buddhism in India as described by the Chinese Pilgrims AD 399-689 Kanai Lal Hazra.]

From this we can infer that Buddhist monks then, as now--though they may have renounced the household life--were not above acquiring a good deal of property in their life time. Some things never change. So it is quite obvious that the Buddhist Sangha (Clergy) had to be quite savvy about money matters or, as Schopen puts it, 'Buddha was a businessman.'

BUDDHISM IN THE GLOBAL AGE OF TECHNOLOGY

2009-08-13T18:45:00.006-07:00

An interesting talk by a distinguished scholar of Buddhism, Lewis Lancaster, who founded the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative to use the latest computer technology to map the spread of various strands of Buddhism from the distant past to the present. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion & Society".

This map indicates trading routes used around the 1st century CE centered on the Silk Road. The routes remain largely valid for the period 500 BCE to 500 CE. Map source.

Professor Lancaster claims in the above video that Buddhism became the first international religion, transcending language and culture, because it was so "portable." Christianity borrowed the concept of relics and monasteries from Buddhism, he claims.

As can be seen in the map above (click to enlarge), Buddhism having originated in Gandhara (red circle), straddling the Silk Road, would explain the rapid rise of Buddhism along towns and cities along the Silk Road. If it had originated in North India (blue circle), off the beaten track as it were, it wouldn't have spread so rapidly.

VIDEOS RE BUDDHISM (VARIOUS SOURCES)

2009-08-13T18:45:00.005-07:00

1. This video explains Buddha's Enlightenment, but it also goes on to state that Buddha expressly forbade images of himself to be made. Now where do they get this? In the entire corpus of Buddhist literature, scholars have been able to find only a single, indirect reference to a proscription against the creation of Buddha images, and that is limited to the context of a single Buddhist sect, (See John C. Huntington, "The Origin of the Buddha Image: Early Image Traditions and the Concept of Buddhadarsanapunya.") The video takes us to Ajanta to show that images of Buddha were absent in the early paintings and sculptures , and only two centuries later was this rule broken and Buddha images began to be made, in the ancient Gandhara region, due to Greek influence. Some buddhologists believe that if the Buddha is not shown simply indicates that the Buddha was not present at the time depicted in the painting or sculpture, such as pilgrimage sites after the death of the Buddha. And the Buddhist symbols the pilgrims are worshipping, such as his footprint, the Wheel of Dharma, a stupa, or whatever, is actually the focus of the sacred site. See here, and video #5 below for a traditional view of aniconism.

When the Buddha died, according to legend his relics were divided into eight portions and placed in stupas. If his relics could be worshipped, what would be the point in prohibiting his image from being worshipped too? After all, the purpose of dividing up and distributing the relics was to propagate the faith. Any site which gained those relics automatically became a sacred site. If buddha images could also help propagate the faith, well and good.

According to Sally Hovey Wriggins in Xuanzang, A Buddhist Pilgrim on the Silk Road, "Accurate likenesses exist in only three replicas which the Buddha was said to have granted in his lifetime--the sandalwood image made for King Udayana, the golden image made for King Prasenajit, and the shadow."

If this is correct, the Buddha himself had no objection to having images made. Indeed, I cannot see what objection Buddha would have had to creating images in his likeness, if it would help his followers to remember him by and propagate the faith.

The video also claims that a century after Buddha's death, missionaries spread Buddhism westwards to Gandhara where hundreds of monasteries were established. Some cults and religions, such as early Christianity after Constantine and the cargo cults of New Guinea, may have grown rapidly, but as I've argued elsewhere, this could hardly have happened to a religion like Buddhism in a mere century or two after the death of its founder. But after Ashoka, Buddhism being a scripture religion with a strong appeal to emotional devotees and rational intellectuals alike, a religion driven by powerful expansionist forces in human shape: zealous missionaries, talented scholars surrounded by devoted pupils, and ingenious translators, did make quite rapid headway in gaining converts.

2. The video above, taken from the BBC series "In the footsteps of Alexander the Great," shows scenes from Gandhara, such as the Swat Valley.

3. The video above shows the Bamiyan buddhas, in the Greater Gandhara region, being destroyed, and rebuilt.

4. Alexander-the God King, (parts 4 & 5), above and below, claim that the divinity of Alexander the Great set the example for the divinity of Jesus and Buddha (Part 4 begins at 6:45 minutes).

5. Aniconism in Early Buddhist Art, above, (Open Source Buddhist Research Institute - Madison), gives a traditional view of aniconism, which refers to the art in which portrayals of the Buddha in human form did not occur.

6. The Jataka Tales, above, (Open Source Buddhist Research Institute - Madison), gives a traditional explanation for the sources of the Buddha's birth stories.

7. Nalanda: A History Through Architecture (above) shows just how vast the Buddhist university at Nalanda was before it was destroyed by Muslim invaders in the twelfth century CE. You can watch another video on Nalanda here.

8. Gandhara Art and Archaeology (above).

9. Ancient Buddhist Kingdom, Bamiyan Valley (above).

10. Sanchi Stupa (above).

11. Bharhut Stupa (above).

12.Sarnath (above).

THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES

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What can we say of a supposed historical figure whose life story conforms virtually in every detail to the Mythic Hero Archetype, with nothing, no "secular" or mundane information, left over?... Thus it seems to me that Jesus must be categorized with other legendary founder figures including the Buddha, Krishna, and Lao-tzu. There may have been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of being sure."

Robert. M. Price.

The story of the Buddha’s renunciation, the homeless life, and enlightenment, is the standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero and represents an embellishment of the formula represented in the rites of passage: separation—initiation—return.

According to Joseph Campbell, this may be named the nuclear unit of the monomyth, or the hero’s journey, and takes the following form: A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces are here encountered and a decisive victory is won; the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

At heart, despite its infinite variety, the hero's story is always a journey. A hero leaves his comfortable, ordinary surroundings to venture into a challenging, unfamiliar world. It may be an outward journey to an actual place: a labyrinth, forest or cave, a strange city or country, a new locale that becomes the arena for his conflict with antagonistic, challenging forces.

But there are as many stories that take the hero on an inward journey, one of the mind, the heart, the spirit. In any good story the hero grows and changes, making a journey from one way of being to the next: from despair to hope, weakness to strength, folly to wisdom, love to hate, and back again.

The stages of the Hero's Journey can be traced in all kinds of stories, not just those that feature "heroic" physical action and adventure. The protagonist of every story is the hero of a journey, even if the path leads only into his own mind or into the realm of relationships.

Consider these twelve stages as a map of the Hero's Journey, one of many ways to get from here to there, but one of the most flexible, durable and dependable:

THE STAGES OF THE HERO'S JOURNEY as exemplified by the story of the Buddha.

Ordinary World; for the first 29 years of his life Buddha lived in his father’s palace. (Jesus lived in obscurity for 29 years of his life before he began his ministry. See Christian-Buddhist link.)
Call to Adventure; he meets a sick man, an old man, and a corpse which cause him to be dissatisfied with the Ordinary World and determines to go in search of salvation.
Refusal of the Call; Buddha of course is too great a person to be deterred once his mind is made up, even though he has to give up his wife and child.
Meeting with the Mentor; he meets a mendicant and decides he wants to follow his example in leading an ascetic mendicant life.
Crossing the First Threshold; the young prince sets forth secretly from his father’s palace.
Tests, Allies, Enemies; for years he wanders through the forest meeting and learning from other ascetics, studying meditation, practicing austerities, searching for salvation.
Approach to the Inmost Cave; he fasts almost to the point of death but decides that extreme asceticism is not the correct way to salvation. He is given a sign telling him that he will soon achieve enlightenment.
Ordeal; Buddha is approached by the god of love and death who tempts him to give up his quest. The god brings his daughters to tempt the Buddha with lascivious thoughts and gestures. But the Buddha cannot be diverted from his aim.
Reward (Seizing the Sword); Having won that preliminary victory before sunset, the Buddha acquired in the first watch of the night knowledge of his previous existences, in the second watch the divine eye of omniscient vision, and in the last watch understanding of the chain of causation.
Resurrection; achieves enlightenment.
The Road Back; Buddha decides not to remain in the Special World but to return to the Ordinary World to teach others how to achieve enlightenment.
Return with the Elixir; the dhamma preached by the Buddha is the elixir which will benefit all mankind.

(Sources: The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, and The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogel).

Sakyamuni Buddha Beneath the Bodhi Tree. Bowornnivet Temple, Bangkok.

The Buddha’s enlightenment is the most important single moment in Oriental mythology, a counterpart of the Crucifixion of the West. The Buddha beneath the Tree of Enlightenment (the Bo Tree) and Christ on the Holy Rood (the Tree of Redemption) are analogous figures, incorporating an archetypal World Savior, World Tree motif, which is of immemorial antiquity. Many other variants of the theme will be found… The Immovable Spot and Mount Calvary are images of the World Navel, or the World Axis. The calling of the Earth to witness is represented in traditional Buddhist art by images of the Buddha, sitting in the classic Buddha posture, with the right hand resting on the right knee and its fingers lightly touching the ground.

The point is that Buddhahood, Enlightenment, cannot be communicated, but only the way to Enlightenment. This doctrine of the incommunicability of the Truth which is beyond names and forms is basic to the great Oriental, as well as to the Platonic, traditions. Whereas the truths of science are communicable, being demonstrable hypotheses rationally founded on observable facts, ritual, mythology, and metaphysics are but guides to the brink of a transcendent illumination, the final step to which must be taken by each in his own silent experience. Hence one of the Sanskrit terms for sage is muni, “the silent one.” Sakyamuni (one of the titles of Gautama Buddha) means “the silent one or sage (muni) of the Sakya clan.” Though he is the founder of a widely taught world religion, the ultimate core of his doctrine remains concealed, necessarily, in silence. (The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell.)

Below is one version of the Buddha's legend, adapted from The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Little of it can be taken to be historical and before the modern period Buddhists were content to read it quite literally. For a Thai version, see here.

The traditional legend of the great renunciation of the Buddha is a representation of the difficulties of the hero-task, and of its sublime import when it is profoundly conceived and solemnly undertaken. The young prince Siddhartha Gautama set forth secretly from his father’s palace on his steed Kanthaka, passed miraculously through the guarded gate, rode through the night attended by the torches of four times sixty thousand divinities, lightly hurdled a majestic river eleven hundred and twenty-eight cubits wide, and then with a single sword-stroke sheared his own royal locks—whereupon the remaining hair, two finger-breadths in length, curled to the right and lay close to his head. Assuming the garments of a monk, he moved as a mendicant through the world, and during these years of apparently aimless wandering acquired and transcended the eight stages of meditation. He retired to a hermitage, bent his powers six more years to the great struggle, carried austerity to the uttermost, and collapsed in seeming death, but presently recovered. Then he returned to the less rigorous life of the ascetic wanderer.
One day he sat beneath a tree, contemplating the eastern quarter of the world, and the tree was illuminated with his radiance. A young girl named Sujata came and presented milk-rice to him in a golden bowl, and when he tossed the empty bowl into a river it floated upstream. This was the signal that the moment of his triumph was at hand. He arose and proceeded along a road which the gods had decked and which was eleven hundred and twenty-eight cubits wide. The snakes and birds and the divinities of the woods and fields did him homage with flowers and celestial perfumes, heavenly choirs poured forth music, the ten thousand worlds were filled with perfumes, garlands, harmonies, and shouts of acclaim; for he was on his way to the great Tree of Enlightenment, the Bodhi Tree, under which he was to redeem the universe. He placed himself, with a firm resolve, beneath the Bodhi Tree, on the Immovable Spot, and straightway was approached by Kama-Mara, the god of love and death.

The dangerous god appeared mounted on an elephant and carrying weapons in his thousand hands. He was surrounded by his army, which extended twelve leagues before him, twelve to the right, twelve to the left, and in the rear as far as to the confines of the world; it was nine leagues high. The protecting deities of the universe took flight, but the Future Buddha remained unmoved beneath the Tree. And the god then assailed him, seeking to break his concentration.

Whirlwind, rocks, thunder and flame, smoking weapons with keen edges, burning coals, hot ashes, boiling mud, blistering sands and fourfold darkness, the Antagonist hurled against the Savior, but the missiles were all transformed into celestial flowers and ointments by the power of Gautama’s ten perfections. Kama-Mara then deployed his daughters, Desire, Pining, and Lust, surrounded by voluptuous attendants, but the mind of the Great Being was not distracted. The god finally challenged his right to be sitting on the Immovable Spot, flung his razor-sharp discus angrily, and bid the towering host of the army to let fly at him with mountain crags. But the Future Buddha only moved his hand to touch the ground with his fingertips, and thus bid the goddess Earth bear witness to his right to be sitting where he was. She did so with a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand roars, so that the elephant of the Antagonist fell upon its knees in obeisance to the Future Buddha. The army was immediately dispersed, and the gods of all the worlds scattered garlands.

Having won that preliminary victory before sunset, the conqueror acquired in the first watch of the night knowledge of his previous existences, in the second watch the divine eye of omniscient vision, and in the last watch understanding of the chain of causation. He experienced perfect enlightenment at the break of day.

Then for seven days Gautama—now the Buddha, the Enlightened—sat motionless in bliss; for seven days he stood apart and regarded the spot on which he had received enlightenment; for seven days he paced between the place of the sitting and the place of the standing; for seven days he abode in a pavilion furnished by the gods and reviewed the whole doctrine of causality and release; for seven days he sat beneath the tree where the girl Sujata had brought him the sweetness of nirvana; he removed to another tree and a great storm raged for seven days, but the King of Serpents emerged from the roots and protected the Buddha with his expanded hood; finally, the Buddha sat for seven days beneath a fourth tree enjoying still the sweetness of liberation. Then he doubted whether his message could be communicated, and he thought to retain the wisdom for himself; but the god Brahma descended from the zenith to implore that he should become the teacher of gods and men. The Buddha was thus persuaded to proclaim the path. And he went back into the cities of men where he moved among the citizens of the world, bestowing the inestimable boon of the knowledge of the Way.

SOURCES FOR THE LIFE OF THE BUDDHA

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Mendicant monks--Sukhodaya (Sukhothai).

Sukhodaya, Thailand.

The Canonical Pali literature is divided into three main divisions called pitakas (baskets), and the Buddhist scriptures are consequently called the Tripitakas (Three Baskets).

"All the books in the Tripitakas that contain [supposedly] historical matter and discourses are composed in the form of anthologies. Consequently a consecutive chronological account of the Buddha's life has to be pieced together from material scattered all over the Vinaya and Sutta Pitakas. Those books do contain a picture complete in itself and contrasting in its simplicity with the ornate and florid later versions (the Sanskrit Lalitavistara, for example, or the less known introduction to the Pali Birth Stories in Buddhaghosa's Jataka Commentary). Compared with these, the account it provides of the period up to the Enlightenment seems as lean and polished as a rapier, a candle flame or an uncarved ivory tusk." From The Life of Buddha, Bhikkhu Nanamoli.

"The Buddhist Pali Cannon is widely used for this period in spite of its imprecise chronology although some attempts have been made at a chronological stratification. Among the Buddhist texts, sections of the Digha, Majjhima, Sanyutta and Anguttara Nikayas are early. The Vinaya Pitaka and the Jatakas are later, some parts of which possibly date to the Mauryan period. The Jataka literature is more difficult to date as the verses in it are believed to be of an early origin." From History & Beyond, Romila Thapar.

Hence the stories of the jatakas couldn't have been spoken by the Buddha; the verses were 'borrowed' from the Brahmins. See here for sources of the Jataka.

Buddhist literature may be divided into 1) The Pali Canon (Tripitaka); 2) The Post-Canonical Works; and 3) The Sanskrit Canon (not shown).

The primary sources may broadly be divided into three different categories, namely:

1. CANONICAL PALI LITERATURE (4th century to 1st century BCE) The first pitaka is the Vinaya Pitaka (Discipline Basket), a large part of which is dry and technical reading; but there is interspersed much narrative of events of the life of the Buddha. The Buddha is himself supposed to have laid down all these rules as occasion suggested their necessity, and the object of these stories is to explain the circumstances under which he did so. Skeptics, of course, believe that the monastic disciplines were laid down first and then stories purporting to be of the life of Buddha were worked into the narrative to lend it sanctity.

a. Tripitakas.

i. Vinaya Pitaka.
......1. Sutta Vibhanga.
............a. Parajika.
............b. Pacittiya.
......2. Khandhakas.
............a. Mahavagga.
............b. Cullavagga.
......3. Parivara.
......4. Patimokha.

The second of the three Pitakas, or Baskets, is called the Sutta Pitaka (Sermon Basket). It consists of a great number of sermons and discourses in prose and verse, delivered by the Buddha or some one of his disciples, and is extremely interesting to anyone studying the philosophy and folklore of Buddhism.

ii. Sutta Pitaka.
......1. Digha Nikaya.
............a. Mahaparinibbana Suttanta (& 33 other suttas.)
......2. Majjhima Nikaya.
............a. Three books each of 50 suttas.
......3. Samyutta Nikaya.
............a. Several samyuttas or groups.
......4. Anguttara Nikaya.
............a. 11 Nipatas.
......5. Khuddaka Nikaya.
............a. Khuddakapatha.
............b. Dhammapada.
............c. Udana.
............d. Itivuttaka.
............e. Sutta Nipata.
............f. Vimanavatthu.
............g. Petavatthu.
............h. Theragatha.
............i. Therigatha.
............j. Jatakas : a collection of Buddhist folklore about previous incarnations of the Buddha, both in human and animal form.
............i. Consists of gathas, or stanzas, and is divided into 22 sections (nipatas) which are arranged in a number of stanzas. The first contains 150 jatakas, the second 100 jatakas, and the third 50 jatakas. Composed in North India (Madhyadesa) by the end of the 2nd century BCE.
............k. Mahaniddessa.
............l. Cullanidessa.
...........m. Patisambhidamagga.
............n. Apadana.
............o. Buddhavamsa.
............p. Cariyapitaka.

The works composing the third Pitaka are, of all the Buddhist scriptures, the dreariest and most forbidding reading, and this is saying a great deal. However, like the Sahara desert, they are to be respected for their immensity. The title of this Pitaka is Abhidhamma Pitaka (Metaphysical Basket).

iii. Abhidhamma Pitaka.
......1. Dhammasangani.
......2. Vibhanga.
......3. Kathavatthu.
......4. Puggalapannatti.
......5. Dhatukatha.
......6. Yamaka.
......7. Patthana.

2. POST-CANONICAL PALI LITERATURE comprises mainly the extra canonical works, Pali commentaries and Pali chronicles written during the period extending from the beginning of the Christian era to the close of the 4th century CE or the beginning of the 5th century CE.

Menander, Bactrian Greek philosopher-king of Northwest India, 115-90 BCE.

a. The most important extra canonical work popularly known as Milindapanha is based on the conversation between the Bactrian Greek King Menander or Milinda (circa 2nd century BCE, with his capital at Sagala, modern Sialkot) and Nagasena. Menander probably lived in the second century BCE, and the Milindapanha was probably composed about the beginning of our era. The Milindapanha is, strictly speaking, a North Buddhist work, but is considered orthodox by the South Buddhists (Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand).

Three of the most celebrated Buddhist scholiasts to whom several Pali commentaries are ascribed are Buddhadatta, Buddhaghosa, and Dhammapala. All of them went to Sri Lanka (Simhadesa) from different parts of India to compose commentaries in Pali. Buddhadatta and Buddhaghosa were contemporaries, circa 5th century CE. Writings include Samanta Pasadika, Sumangalavilasini, Papancasudani, Manorathapurani, Khuddakapatha, Sutta Nipata, Dhammapada Atthakatha, Katthavathu, Atthasalini, Jataka Atthakatha; Paramatthadipani, Digha Nikaya Atthakatha, Majjhima Nikaya Atthakatha, Samyutta Nikaya Atthakatha, Anguttara Nikaya Atthakatha, Jataka Atthakatha, Abhidhamma Atthakatha, etc.

b. There are two important Pali chronicles, Dipavamsa is the oldest known Pali chronicle of Sri Lanka which deals with the history up to the time of Mahasena (325-352 CE), which can be ascribed to the 4th century CE. The other chronicle is the Mahavamsa, composed by Mahasama (5th century CE) which deals with the history of Sri Lanka up to the time of Mahasena.

Psalms of the Sisters.

3. SANSKRIT BUDDHIST TEXTS

Xuanzang traveled to India in the 7th century CE to collect Buddhist manuscripts which he took back to China and translated.

a. Important Sanskrit Buddhist texts include Mahavastu, Divyavadana, Boddhisattvadana-Kalpalata, Mahavastu Avadana and Lalitavistara.

DATING THE BUDDHA (448--368 BCE)

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This skeptic of course doesn't believe in a historical Buddha; but if there had been, when would he have lived? Most scholars now believe that Buddha lived much later than the traditional date adhered to in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, which places his death at 544--543 BCE.

This revision was brought about by a major Buddhist symposium, convened by Heinz Bechert at the University of Göttingen in 1988, which brought together scholars from around the world to examine the issue from every position, discipline, and language imaginable. The symposium offered dates for the Buddha’s death ranging from 483 BCE down to 368 BCE; most participants suggested that the Buddha died within a couple of decades on either side of 400 BCE.

Taking the most recent date proposed for his death, 368 BCE, (favored by Bechert) and since he supposedly lived eighty years, he would have been born in 448. While on the surface this new dating for the Buddha’s death doesn’t seem earthshaking, either for Indian history or Buddhist studies, yet it is. Virtually everything we know about the earliest Indian Buddhism, and especially its sectarian movement, is once again called into question.

Prior to the Göttingen symposium, there were four basic dating schemas for computation of the Buddha’s historical dates: (1) the long chronology; (2) the “corrected” long chronology; (3) the short chronology; and (4) the “dotted record.” Each one has problems; I won’t go into the details of all of them, just the first one. For more information, see here.

The long chronology, adopted in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia relatively recently, suggests the date of the Buddha’s death is 544--543 BCE, derived exclusively from Theravadin sources such as the Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa, and Samantapasadika. This date is accepted by virtually no modern scholars of Buddhism, the reason being that the chronology places Buddha’s death 218 years before the consecration of King Asoka, but assumes the date of his coronation to be 326 BCE.

But according to Richard Gombrich, “Asoka’s dates are approximately established by the synchronism between his 13th major rock edict, which is dated by scholars in the 13th year after his consecration, and the five monarchs of the Hellenistic world named therein as reigning at the time. The date of the edict must be 255 [BCE], give or take a year; Asoka’s consecration is accordingly dated 268 [BCE].” In other words, there is a slippage of sixty years in the long chronology which cannot be accounted for.

Can we say anything with certainty based on the symposium? No; we’re as much in the dark as we were about the years the Buddha lived, which is all grist for the mill for skeptics like myself. If scholars can’t agree on a supposedly historical figure’s birth date, and vary by centuries in their estimate, then this is a problem. Moreover, although all the texts examined agree that a first council was held in Rajagraha during the first rainy season following the Buddha’s death, many scholars suppose that this event may have been fictitious, invented upon the occasion of the second council so as to lend authenticity to the sequence of events following the Buddha’s death. Think about it, India fourth century BCE; how are they going to contact all the delegates and get them to come to one place on time? India then was a sparsely populated country with poor communications; most of the mendicant monks must have been in jungle retreats, etc. It’s hard enough to bring 500 monks together in the 21st century.

Second, all the texts do affirm that a second council was held in Vaisali, 100 years following the first council, and virtually all scholars acknowledge the historicity of this event. I’m not so sure; in Buddhism fact and fiction are so intertwined that it would be like trying to separate flour and sugar that’s been kneaded together to make dough. Or, as H. H. Wilson wrote, it is “not impossible, after all, that Sakya Muni is an unreal being, and that all that is related of him is as much a fiction as is that of his preceding migrations.”

THE BIRTH OF THE BUDDHA

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The Scripture of the Savior of the World,
Lord Buddha--Prince Siddartha styled on earth
In Earth and Heavens and Hells Incomparable,
All-honoured, Wisest, Best, most Pitiful;
The Teacher of Nirvana and the Law.

Then came he to be born again for men.

Below the highest sphere four Regents sit
Who rule our world, and under them are zones
Nearer, but high, where saintliest spirits dead
Wait thrice ten thousand years, then live again;
And on Lord Buddha, waiting in that sky,
Came for our sakes the five sure signs of birth
So that the Devas knew the signs, and said
"Buddha will go again to help the World."
"Yea!" spake He, "now I go to help the World.
This last of many times; for birth and death
End hence for me and those who learn my Law.
I will go down among the Sakyas,
Under the southward snows of Himalay,
Where pious people live and a just King."

From Light of Asia, Edwin Arnold.

Buddha's mother Maya gave birth to him under a sal tree, (Shorea robusta).

Buddha spent the first twenty-nine years of his life at Kapilavastu, the capital city of a republic in the Middle Land, (Madhyadesa), according to the Buddhist scriptures. This is a town nestled on the plain between the Himalayan foothills and the Ganges River. (This blog's thesis is, however, that Buddha was of Gandhara.) Buddha’s father Suddhodana was not a king but a raja, and obviously Buddha couldn’t have been born a prince, though later tradition made him one. The legend was embellished by the Sinhalese in their Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa chronicles, written fourth to sixth centuries CE, to record the history of their island and royal dynasties. It was important to associate Buddha with kings, including Asoka, to bolster their own kings' legitimacy.

Buddha died between two sal trees.

Importantly, the Buddha was born into the kshatriya class rather than the brahman class; he was in fact to rebel against the Brahmins and their belief in gods and sacrifice as a means of personal salvation, a rebellion which already had faint stirrings in the Upanishads. Although he was not born into a brahman family, it was from the start clear that Buddha would be an extraordinary human being, a man destined for greatness.

The nobles of the conquering Indo-Aryan tribes who invaded ancient India (after the Vedic period), such as the Sakas, were co-opted into the caste system as kshatriyas. Hence the story of the Buddha stresses that he was a kshatriya and not a brahman.

First, the Buddha’s conception was immaculate, a detail not dwelled upon in later Buddhist texts, but which, at the very least, marks the young Siddhartha as a particularly special person, one who is also not tainted by the impurity associated with sexual activity in Indian and ancient thought. According to the early Buddhist tradition, the Buddha’s mother, Maya, dreamed that a white elephant—a standard symbol in Indian literature for royal power—entered her womb and implanted a fetus there. She then discovered that she was, in fact, pregnant. Upon learning of his wife’s unusual pregnancy, Suddhodana didn’t think this particularly strange; compare the story of Mary and Joseph in the Gospels. Nothing daunted, Suddhodana summoned his sages to interpret the significance of his wife’s puzzling dream. They duly predicted that the child would be a boy, and that he would be destined for greatness—either he would inherit his father’s kingdom and become a great ruler (Chakravartin, a ‘wheel-turning’ monarch) or he would leave his home and family and become a great religious leader (a buddha, or an ‘enlightened one.’)

Relief Panel with the Dream of Queen Maya (Buddha's Conception),
Pakistan, ancient region of Gandhara.

Kapilavastu was Buddha’s hometown but he was not born there. (Compare Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem.) According to the Nidanakatha, the introductory narrative to the Jatakas (birth-stories of Buddha’s previous lives), Maya, Buddha’s mother, who was forty at the time, set out shortly before she was due to give birth to stay with her parents in Devadaha, in order to have the child there, supported by her mother Yasodhara. The journey in bumpy ox-cart over hot and dusty roads brought the birth on prematurely before she reached her destination, at the village of Lumbini, with no protection but that provided by sal trees (Shorea robusta), and without medical assistance, Siddhartha, the future Buddha, was born in May, 448 BCE. Legend has it that Maya gave birth to the child standing and holding on to a branch of a sal tree, and the child emerged from her side, apparently because the birth canal was considered unclean for the future Buddha to pass through; but it may also be connected to a pan-Indian tradition that asserts that the trauma of vaginal birth is what wipes out memory of previous lives. In this context, since the Buddha is aware of his previous existences, he obviously could not have been born vaginally.

Relief Panel with the birth of the Buddha Sakyamuni,
Pakistan, ancient region of Gandhara.

It is incomprehensible that Suddhodana would have permitted Maya to travel over dangerous and bumpy trails just when she was expecting his first child, unaccompanied by medical attendants or soldiers to protect them from robbers. It was no wonder that the birth came on prematurely, and miraculously, witnessed only by Maya’s own personal serving maids. Also the reason for the journey, so that she could have her mother by her side, seems a trifle flimsy. (Another version says that she had taken the journey for pleasure, flimsier still, seeing the condition she was in.) It wasn’t as if Maya was some spring chicken—she was forty—her mother would have been sixty or seventy and totally incapable of any physical assistance. Would it not have been wiser for Maya to have stayed at home and given birth there, with all the assistance her husband’s minions could have provided? Anyway, Maya was unable to continue her journey to Devadaha, so she and her small retinue returned to Kapilavastu, exhausted. The journey was a bad idea from the start; in the bible we see that Jesus was also born while his parents were on the road so that he could be born in Bethlehem to fulfill a supposed prophecy. Is there any connection between the two stories, one wonders? (Well, of course there is. See here.)

The miracles didn’t end there. Buddha emerges from the womb, diving out of his mother’s side, spotlessly pure. He is caught by a group of attendant devas (devine beings), often in a pure cloth or, sometimes, in a golden net. But the miraculous oddity of his birth does not end there: the baby, who is typically depicted more like a young boy than like a newborn, turns in each of the cardinal directions, determines that he is the foremost of all beings in the world, and then takes seven steps toward the east (the auspicious direction, which he will also face at the time of his enlightenment), and proclaims that he is the chief of the world. While these miraculous acts are agreed to be mythical and are intended by the Buddhist tradition to emphasize the special qualities and powers of this most exalted of all persons, it hasn’t stopped the ignorant faithful down through the ages in believing that they were real, no less than present-day Christians believe in the miracles associated with Jesus’ life and death.

Maya died seven days after giving birth, the fate reserved for the mothers of all buddhas, which would at the least prevent them ever having their wombs defiled by lesser mortals.

GANDHARA—LAND OF THE BUDDHA?

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Loriyan-Tangai. Relief of Buddha surrounded by worshippers. Lahore Museum. Notice Buddha's moustache.

Gandhara seems to have taken to Buddhism with surprising speed and vigor, based on the archaeological remains and statuary found there. The earliest datable Buddhist sites, Butkara I in the Swat Valley and the Dharmarajika complex in Taxila, near Sirkap, are dated to the early second century BCE. Even conceding that Asoka introduced Buddhism to Gandhara through his missionaries, as per legend, the country would have had to have been converted and its art and culture adapted in response to this new religion within less than two centuries. This would have required a massive evangelical effort, which seems rather improbable in the period before the Common Era, for a religion like Buddhism, where salvation is believed to be achieved through personal striving.

The video above, from the BBC series "In the footsteps of Alexander the Great," shows scenes from Gandhara, such as the Swat Valley.

From Buddhist Art of Gandhra by Sir John Marshall.

Gandhara was the ancient name of the tract of country on the west bank of the Indus river which comprises the Peshawar Valley and the modern Swat, Buner and Bajaur. It was a country with rich, well-watered valleys, clear-cut hills and a pleasant climate: a country where a Greek might well dream of being back in his homeland. Situated on the border between India and western Asia, Gandhara belonged as much and as little to the one as to the other. In the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, it formed part of the Achaemenid empire of Persia. In the fourth it was occupied for a brief period by the armies of Alexander the Great. Thereafter it was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya, but after a century of Indian rule the West again asserted itself, and for another century (roughly, the second century BCE) Greek dynasts took the place of India. Then came, early in the first century BCE, the victorious Sakas or Scythians, to be followed, after yet another century, by the Parthians and Kushans. And even then the tale of foreign conquest was not ended. For in the third century CE Gandhara again reverted to Persia, now under Sasanid sovereigns, and was again re-conquered by the Kidara Kushans in the fourth. Finally, the deathblow to its prosperity was given by the Ephthalites or White Huns, who swept over the country about 465 CE, carrying fire and sword wherever they went and destroying the Buddhist monasteries.

Gandhara (red circle).

The people of Gandhara were thoroughly cosmopolitan in their culture and their outlook. Of their physical appearance we get some idea from the old sculptures. Some of the men, with strikingly tall and dignified figures, closely resembled many present-day Pathans, and wore the same distinctive kind of baggy trousers and sleeved coat. Others were characteristically Greek; others just as characteristically Indian. And, no doubt, if we knew more about them, we should recognize other racial elements portrayed by the sculptors. The common speech of the people was an Indian Prakrit [Buddha was said to have spoken Prakrit], but the script they used for the writing of this vernacular was not, as might have been expected, the current Brahmi of Northern India but a script known as Kharoshthi—a modified form of the Aramaic of Western Asia, which had been adopted for official use throughout the Persian Empire during Achaemenid times. [Jesus was supposed to have spoken Aramaic. Link between Buddhism and Christianity?] Other languages and other script were also employed, on occasion, in Gandhara. The coins, for example, normally had Greek legends on their obverse, Kharoshthi on their reverse; but in rare cases the legends were in Brahmi. Brahmi, too, was the usual script employed in the sacred manuscripts of the Buddhists. Nevertheless it is true to say that Gandhara took its everyday speech from India and its writing from the West.

The earliest images of Buddha, such as the one above from Gandhara, clearly show him as an Indo-Aryan.

This intimate fusion of widely divergent elements was equally apparent in the religious life of the people. As each successive conqueror added his quota to the local gallery of deities and creeds, the number and variety went on growing. In the second century CE the coins of the Kushan kings Kanishka and Huvishka, whose capital was at Peshawar, exhibit a truly amazing gallery of gods and goddesses probably unparalleled elsewhere in the field of numismatics. Most numerous are the Iranian types, including among others the sun (Mioro), the moon (Mao), the wind (Oado), fire (Athsho), war (Orlagno), victory (Oanindo). The names are given in corrupt Greek. Not all these multifarious deities were all worshiped at the heart of the Kushan empire in Gandhara; for they may well have been designed as a means of popularizing the new gold currency in distant parts of the Kushan empire and even beyond its borders, where it was hoped the currency might compete with the Roman aureus. Indeed, the great predominance of Western Asiatic types on these coins suggests that the currency was intended for use in the West rather than in the East. But, however this may be, this gold coinage leaves us in no doubt that the attitude of the Kushans towards religion was as thoroughly cosmopolitan as it was towards other matters, as cosmopolitan indeed as that of the Romans or Alexandrians, and perhaps no less practical. Looking at this coinage one would never guess that in the time of Kanishka and Huvishka Gandhara and the greater part of the Kushan empire were overwhelmingly Buddhist.

The beginnings of Buddhism in Gandhara go back no further than the middle of the third century BCE when the Maurya emperor Asoka sent one of his many missions to spread the gospel of his newly adopted faith among his subjects on the Northwest Frontier. [I've argued elsewhere that there is insufficient evidence to maintain that he converted to Buddhism.] Evidence of this mission’s activities may still be seen in the fourteen Edicts of the emperor engraved on the rocks at Shabaz-Garhi in the Peshawar Valley, which set forth the Buddhist principles of religion and ethic, and such simple rules of conduct as Asoka deemed most conducive to the welfare of his people.

To Asoka was also due the outstanding importance of the stupa or funeral mound as an emblem and cultural object of worship among the Buddhists. For one of the many acts by which he sought to popularize the Sakya faith was the gift to each of the principal cities in his dominions of a portion of the body relics of the Buddha. These he obtained by opening the seven of the eight stupas in which the relics had originally been enshrined and dividing up their contents. Along with the relics he also presented each city with a stupa worthy of housing them. [On the other hand this could be stuff of myth and legend.] In making these gifts the emperor may well have recognized the value of providing the worshippers with some visible and tangible object on which to focus their thoughts and prayers. But, whatever his purpose, the effect of these relic-stupas was profound and lasting. Not only did the presence of the relics make them cult objects of worship, but in after days the stupa itself, whether it contained a relic or not, was worshiped for its own sake; so that the mere erection of a stupa large or small and in whatever material, became an act of merit, bringing its author a step nearer salvation. [Not true; in Buddhism, doing good actions can never lead to salvation. “Whoever shall do nothing but good works will receive nothing but excellent future rewards.” The aim of the disciple is not to accumulate merit, but to win insight.] This matter of the stupa cult deserves our particular attention because it was on the adornment of the stupa that the early Buddhists lavished the wealth of their sculpture, and stupas, sometimes richly decorated, figure prominently among the reliefs of Gandhara.

By the side of some of his relic-stupas Asoka also erected tall pillars of stone, crowned by lions or other symbolical animals and usually inscribed with one or more of his Edicts. These, too, came to be looked on as characteristic emblems of the Buddhist Church, and are frequently to be seen portrayed in the sculptured panels of the Early Indian and Gandhara Schools. The finest of the pillars were executed by Greek or Perso-Greek sculptors; others by local craftsmen, with or without foreign supervision.

How Buddhism fared under the Greek princes of the Northwest during the second century BCE is largely a matter of inference and surmise. For among the myriads of Buddhist monuments and antiquities that have survived until the present day there is not one that can be referred with certainty to Greek authorship in the second century before our era. Indeed, the only positive bit of information about this Greek period that we possess is the story told in the Milindapanha about King Menander (reigned circa 140--110 BCE) and his conversion to Buddhism by Nagasena. Though the story may be largely apocryphal, there is no reason for doubting its substantial truth. The Greeks were very open-minded about religious matters; and the teaching of the Sakyamuni, by its essentially ethical character, by its logical reasoning, and by the stress it laid on free will and the observance of the golden mean, was bound to make a strong appeal to the Greek intellect. [This supports my thesis that Buddhism was an invention of the philhellenic Sakas or Scythians and not the invention of a Vedic mind.] Moreover, from a political point of view Menander must have had the strongest reasons for identifying himself with the Buddhist Church in its struggle against their common enemy, the Sunga king Pushyamitra, and the violent Brahmanical reaction championed by him, which had led to the wholesale destruction of Buddhist monasteries in the Eastern Panjab.

Time Line.

518—515 BCE. Conquest of the Indus valley by Darius I. By shunting Buddha’s date forward by about a century, India’s first certain (more or less) date becomes the conquest of the Indus valley by Darius I, he whose far-flung battles included defeat at Marathon by the Athenians in 490 CE. Before this, Darius had evidently enjoyed greater success on his eastern frontier; a Persepolis inscription, dated to circa 518, lists amongst his numerous domains that of ‘Hi(n)du.’ An earlier inscription also refers to ‘Gadara,’ which looks like Gandhara, a mahajanapada or ‘state’ mentioned in both Sanskrit and Buddhist sources and located in an arc reaching from the western Panjab through the northwest frontier to Kabul and perhaps into southern Afghanistan (where ‘Kandahar’ is the same word). According to Xenophon and Herodotus, Gandhara had been conquered by Cyrus, one of Darius’ predecessors.

448/480 BCE. Birth of the Buddha (high and low range).

368/405 BCE. Death of the Buddha (high and low range).

331—327 BCE. Alexander the Great (ruled 336-323). Alexander's Indian campaign follows not long after Buddha's death. He is in Gandhara, conquers Taxila, and arrives at the Indus River.

The Indian king Porus on his war elephant, attacked by Alexander on horseback, a coin struck by Alexander to celebrate his victory in 326 BCE.

322 BCE. The rise of Chandragupta Maurya.

313—312 BCE. Chandragupta Maurya king of Magadha / Megasthenes at the court of Pataliputra, identified as modern Patna. But according to Dr. Ranajit Pal, this is incorrect. See A New Non-Jonesian History of the World.

264 BCE. Accession of Asoka. (Asoka’s stupas are difficult to identify in the archaeological record, but were likely built at important Buddhist centers in Gandhara and the Ganges Basin.)

200 BCE. The first Buddhist sites are founded in Gandhara, but no religious imagery is known from this period, (Butkara I, Swat valley and Dharmarajika, Taxila). The few Asokan rock-cut edicts that remain in Afghanistan and Pakistan do not directly address the introduction of Buddhism into Gandhara; many scholars have nonetheless considered them evidence of the beginning of Buddhism in the region. [If Asoka had introduced Buddhism to Gandhara, wouldn't he have boasted about it on his rock-cut edicts?] Not until the early second century BCE, however, was the earliest datable Buddhist site, Butkara I in the Swat Valley, founded in Greater Gandhara. The only other Buddhist site in Gandhara that can be attributed to the second century BCE is the Dharmarajika complex in Taxila, near Sirkap.

Dhamarajika, Taxila.

circa 168 BCE. King Menander (reigned circa 140--110 BCE) withdraws from the Magadha to the Panjab (until circa 145). According to Dr. Pal, Magadha is not modern Bihar; if it was it would mean that the Indo-Greeks controlled territory all the way to east India.

Menander, Bactrian Greek philospher-king of northwest India.

circa 150 BCE. The stupas of Bharhut and Sanchi / The Buddhist philosopher Nagasena / The Milindapanha.

Sanchi, Great Stupa, seen from the east, before 'restoration'.

circa 130 BCE. Invasion of Bactria by the Yuezhi tribe.

circa 90-80 BCE. Invasion of the Sakas (Indo-Scythes) / Collapse of the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms.

circa 70 BCE. The vedika of Bodh Gaya. Shrine and monastery of Bhaja.

circa 30 CE The toranas of Sanchi.

One of the four carved gateways (toranas) of the railings with which the Great Stupa at Sanchi was embellished.

circa 78 CE. The Saka era. The Kushanas extend their power in India.

1st century CE. First appearance of sculpture embellishing Buddhist sites (Gandhara).

circa 125 CE. Completion of the Ramayana and compilation of the Mahabharata. / The Begram site in Kapisa / Drafting of the Bhagavad Gita / The dramatist Asvaghosa.

circa 144—185 CE. Accession and death of king Kanishka.

Coin of Kanishka, Pakistan, ancient region of Gandhara.

A coin of Kanishka depicts, on the obverse, the king standing and facing left; he has a full beard and wears a pointed hat and heavy felt coat, a mode of dressing similar to that of Parthian kings, which marks him as coming from a land outside South Asia. Kanishka reaches out with his right hand to make a sacrifice at a low altar; in his left hand he carries a spear. Flames issue from his right shoulder, indicating his superior natural powers. The reverse of the coin shows a four-armed Shiva, a Hindu god, who is wearing a dhoti (loincloth) and holding a vajra (a weapon), and ankusa (elephant goad), a trident, and an antelope by the horns. No aspect of this coin's iconography makes reference to the Buddhist faith, which is especially significant since later Buddhist text sources refer to Kanishka as a great Buddhist king, equal only to Asoka. Kanishka did mint coins with images of Buddha on the reverse, but he also had coins produced showing a range of other South Asian (Hindu) and Near Eastern deities, associating his portrait with various gods venerated by the people of his realm and by his Near Eastern trading partners.

1st—3rd century CE. Kushan dynasty controls much of Greater Gandhara and north India, reaching the zenith of its power under kings Kanishka (ruled CE 129-155) and Huvishka (ruled 155-193).

2nd century CE. Period when many Buddhist sites are founded and when most Gandharan Buddhist native sculpture is produced.

3rd century CE. Devotional icons of the Buddha and bodhisattvas begin to be sculpted. Schist remains an important medium, but clay, stucco, and terracotta start to be widely used.

Before 200 (?) The Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna.

Before 300 (?) The sites of Nagarjunakonda and Goli.

circa 375—circa 414. The most splendid of the Ajanta caves / The philosophers Asanga and Vasubandhu / The poet and dramatist Kalidasa.

3rd—5th century CE. Period of greatest prosperity in Gandhara; new Buddhist sacred sites are founded and older ones are greatly expanded. Most Gandharan Buddhist iconic sculpture is produced during this period.

Massive rock-hewn Buddhist caitya at Mes Aynak, Ancient Gandhara.

4th—5th century CE. Devotional icons become monumental, and the iconography of Buddha images becomes more complex.

5th—6th century CE. Various Hun people take control of Gandhara. There is a gradual decline in donor patronage to Gandharan Buddhist sacred areas; as they contract, Buddhist communities re-use older sculpture.

Early Chinese pilgrims, for example, considered the relics at sites in Afghanistan and Gandhara, rather than the sacred sites of north India, the culmination of their travels through Central Asia.

TREES & FLOWERS IN BUDDHISM

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Trees are there, Lord, which glow in crimson now,

In quest of fruit they've cast aside their leaves.

But still the blossoms hang there, red as blood.

Now is the time, o Lord, to travel there.

For trees in blossom give us high delight,

That spread the sweetest fragrance all around.

The loss of leaves betokens coming fruit.

Now is the time, o Lord, for setting forth.

This is the season that is full of glee:

Not over hot is it, nor over cold.

Let Sakiyas and Koliyas behold

You when you westward cross the Rohini.

Urging Buddha to visit his hometown at Kapilavatthu; Theragatha, (Psalms of the Brethren).

The lotus--perhaps the most sacred plant connected with the Buddha.

When the Buddha was born, he immediately took seven steps in each of the four cardinal points, and each step caused a lotus to blossom for him to walk on. When Buddha gains enlightenment, he is often depicted sitting on a lotus throne. The lotus often carries the symbolic meanings of "birth" or "creation," for example in such important early canonic traditions as the Mahabharata and the Rigveda. In Buddhism as well, especially in the teachings of the Mahayana, the lotus and this symbolism continued to play a prominent role. The graceful and pure lotus is often compared to the heart unsullied by the corruption of the world. The lotus is mentioned repeatedly in Mahayana sutras and gives its symbolic power to the title of the Lotus Sutra.

The golden shower, (Cassia fistula).

India in the Buddha’s time was poorer botanically speaking; many of the beautiful flowering trees which grace the Indian scene today were brought by later European colonizers. But the orange-colored blossoms of the kadamba, (Nauclea cordifolia), the champaka, (Michelia champaka), with its scented golden yellow blossoms, the brilliant flame of the forest, (Butea frondosa), the queen’s tree, (Lagerstroemia flos-reginae), covered with pale blue candles, the golden shower, (Cassia fistula), with its magnificent cascades of yellow, the shining coral tree, (Erythrina indica), and the Asoka tree, (Saraca indica), with its balls of blossoms which turn from orange to red—all these must have already existed to delight the Indians of the fifth century BCE.

The golden shower, (Cassia fistula),

Queen’s tree, (Lagerstroemia flos-reginae).

A sal tree, (Shorea robusta). Buddha died between two sal trees; Christ died on the cross between two thieves. See Buddhism & Christianity Link.

Buddha’s mother gave birth while standing and holding onto the branch of a sal tree, (Shorea robusta); he came out of her side, and not as usual through the birth canal. Buddha was also supposed to have died lying between two sal trees, (compare Jesus crusified between two thieves), so this rather ordinary tree is twice blessed.

Then there’s the story of the Buddha, when a child, being placed under a rose apple tree, and the shadow of the tree stayed with him the whole day. His father realized that a miracle had taken place and came and worshiped him. Ancient India was known as Jam-bhu-dvipa, the Rose Apple Tree land, because it was shaped like the rose apple tree leaf; so probably connecting the story of Buddhism with Jam-bhu-dvipa was connecting the religion with India.

Rose apples.

Leaves of a rose apple tree.

Tellingly enough, in the Buddha’s account of his enlightenment he nowhere mentioned that this event occurred under another tree, let alone that it was the assattha or pipal tree, (Ficus religiosa), of later legend. Some scholars therefore consider the tree as the location of his enlightenment to be unhistorical, and suggest that pre-Buddhist tree cults have found their way into Buddhism at this point.

According to Alfred Foucher (1865-1962), a French scholar who identified the Buddha image as having Greek origins, the myth of the tree of enlightenment was begun in faraway Sri Lanka:

"The Singhalese commentator not only included in his list of the seven "born together" Udayin, who became the playmate of the prince, but also named the ficus religiosa as the tree under which the Boddhisattva was to attain Enlightenment. Not to be outdone, the Tibetan texts found it important to name the kings contemporary with the Master and with whom he would later come into contact: namely, Bimbisara of Magadha and Prajasena of Kosala. Finally, they did not refuse the same kindness to the familiar jinni who, thunderbolt in hand--whence his name, Vajrapani--was to constitute himself the bodyguard of the Blessed One and follow him as his shadow--in our terms his guardian angel."

In other words, various myths and legends were accreted to the story of the Buddha by disciples in various countries until with the passage of centuries they became "historical".

Heart-shaped leaf of a pipal tree under which Buddha gained enlightenment.

Note that all the Aryan tribes in Europe were great tree worshipers, according to Frazer, who devotes a chapter to it in The Golden Bough. Buddhist apologists argue that it was natural for a homeless wanderer to sit and meditate under a tree and that Buddha could have mentioned to his disciples that it was a pipal tree, so it should be taken as historical.

According to J.L. Mehta in The History of Ancient India, the people of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished in the Indus-Saraswati valleys between 2500-1500 BCE—who he regards as the precursor of present-day Indians—regarded the pipal tree as a sacred plant, worthy of veneration, as it is in Hinduism (and Buddhism) today. So again, we can see that Buddhist writers would not fail to position the Buddha under this tree when he attained enlightenment.

The tree at Bodh Gaya is said to be a descendant of the bodhi (enlightenment) tree. Asoka hundreds of years later was said to have placed the bodhi under his protection and had a stone fence, no longer existing, built round the tree. Saplings were taken to other Buddhist countries, famously to Anu-radha-pura in Sri Lanka; the debt was repaid when the ‘original’ tree was destroyed and a replacement was planted from a sapling from the Sri Lanka tree. But if the legend of the enlightenment tree being the Ficus Religiosa was started in Sri Lanka, as we saw above, could not the enlightenment tree of Bodh Gaya have been planted from a sapling from the original ficus religiosa brought over from Sri Lanka? History to conform to scripture, so to speak.

It seems fortuitous that Buddha chose the pipal tree to associate with his enlightenment; or his PR people were good at their job. With its distinctive heart-shaped leaves it became an easily recognized symbol of Buddhism. If the tree had had less distinctive leaves, not so memorable. However, notice Buddha under the tree of enlightenment in Gandharan art (below); no attempt is made to depict the leaves in the shape of the pipal tree. So could the pipal tree have been agreed upon at an even later date? Also, one wonders how people identified the original tree that Buddha sat under, supposedly in thick jungle, hundreds of years after his death before the cult of the bodhi tree arose.

The Buddha sitting under a tree, the leaves of which don't appear to be pipal leaves (Gandhara art).

Tradition says that after his enlightenment, Buddha spent seven days at the foot of the bodhi tree, and seven days under each of a number of other trees at Uruvela, which even H. W. Schuman in The Historical Buddha doesn’t give much credence to. Anyway, here are some of the other trees:

Goatherd’s banyan, (Ficus indica), where Buddha explained to a Brahmin the true nature of Brahminism;

Mucalinda tree, (Barringtonia acutangula), where a naga living in the root of the tree wrapped its body round the Buddha to protect him from the rain with its outspread hood;

Rajayatana tree, (Buchanania latifolia), where the merchants Tapussa and Bhallika gave Buddha barley gruel and honey as alms, and were promptly converted by him, to become his first lay followers.

From L. Cranmer-Byng's preface to Samuel Beal's The Life of Hieun-Tsiang (1911):

Wherever our pilgrim [Hieun-Tsiang, or Xuanzang] goes [in India] he finds traces of a worship far older than Buddhism. He does not tell us so in so many words, yet underneath the many allusions to Bodhi-trees and Nagas we may discover the traces of that primitive tree and serpent worship that still exists in remote corners of India, as, for instance, among the Naga tribes of Manipur who worship the python they have killed. In Hieun's time every lake and fountain had its Naga-raja, or serpent-king. Buddha himself, as we learn from both the Si-yu-ki and the Life, spent much time converting or subduing these ancient gods. There were nagas both good and evil... .

Nagas next to lotus blossom at a Thai temple.

The connection between Buddhism and tree-worship is even closer still. The figure of the Master is for ever reclining under the Bodhi-tree beneath whose shade he dreamed that he had the "earth for his bed, the Himalayas for his pillow, while his left arm reached to the Eastern Ocean, his right to the Western Ocean, and his feet to the great South Sea." This Bodhi-tree is the Ficus Religiosa or peepul tree, and is also known as Rarasvit or the tree of wisdom and knowledge. The leaves are heart-shaped, slender and pointed, and constantly quivering. In the Si-yu-ki it is stated of a certain Bodhi-tree that although the leaves wither not either in winter or summer, but remains shining and glistening throughout the year, yet "at every successive Nirvana-day (of the Buddhas) the leaves wither and fall, and then in a moment revives as before." The Buddha sat for seven days contemplating this tree; "he did not remove his gaze from it during this period, desiring thereby to indicate his grateful feelings towards the tree by so looking at it with fixed eyes."

How did Buddhism come to be connected in any way with tree and serpent worship? The answer is, through its connection with Brahmanism. As Buddhism was Brahmanism reformed, so Brahmanism in its turn was the progressive stage of tree and serpent worship. Siva the destroyer is also Nag Bhushan, "he who wears snakes as his ornaments."

The tree and the serpent coiled at its roots are the two essential symbols of primitive religion, whether the tree is the peepul and the serpent a Naga-raja, or the serpent be the Tiamat of the Babylonians and the tree the date-palm. There are the serpent-guarded fruits of the Hesperides; there is the serpent beneath the tree of knowledge in the garden, or rather grove, of Eden; there is Yggdrasill, the sacred ash tree of Norse mythology, with Nidhogg the great serpent winding round its roots. The first mysteries of religion were celebrated in groves, as those of Asher and Baal and the groves of the early Romans. See here also.

THE WEST'S DISCOVERY OF BUDDHISM

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Buddhism, which had flourished in India for centuries, was already a tree dying from the top by the seventh century CE when the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang traveled there in search of Buddhist scriptures. The final blows to the religion were delivered by the Muslim invaders, and by the Hindu revival at the expense of the Buddhists. By the seventeenth century it had died out so completely in India that Europeans had no idea that such a religion had ever existed in the land of its birth. The rediscovery of this dead religion, at least dead in India, began with the gradual piecing together of archaeological and scriptural evidence in India itself and comparing this with Buddhism as practiced in surrounding countries.

One of these archaeological clues was the great stupa at Sanchi right at the geographical heart of India. For more than a thousand years Sanchi was a center of worship, learning, art and trade. The panels of sculptural relief that cover the gateways portray the Buddha’s life and Buddhist history in crowded, bustling scenes.

The Great Tope of Sanchi, a water color by William Simpson painted in 1862.

The first man to attempt an account of what he called “the Ancient and Remarkable Building near Bhilsa” was Captain E. Fell. He had made the sixty-mile trek out from Bhopal in 1819 at the recommendation of a friend. He was not even sure to what religion the site belonged. The hilltop was strewn with statues. He thought he had recognized Brahma of the Hindus and Parasnath of the Jains, but the predominant figure was certainly the Buddha. If Sanchi was Buddhist though, where were the Buddha’s followers today?

The answer was almost everywhere—Ladakh, Nepal, Tibet, China, Burma, Thailand and Ceylon—except India. Buddhism encircled the subcontinent, but in India it was unknown. Stupas were thought to have been dedicated to the Hindu god, Siva, and to have been inspired by the Egyptians. “Whether Buddha was a sage or a hero,” wrote Francis Wilford, “the founder of a colony or a whole colony personified, whether… black or fair,” he was assuredly “either an Egyptian or an Ethiopian.”

This sort of speculation went on well into the nineteenth century. It was only from non-Indian sources that gradually a true and wholly unexpected picture of the origins of Buddhism emerged. William Chambers, the man who first reported on the boulder temples of Mahabalipuram, read a French account of Thailand and made the important identification of the Thai god, known as Pout or Codom, with the Ceylonese deity known as Buddha or Gautama. He also suggested that this Pout or Codom had once been worshipped in parts of India. This was borne out by Francis Buchanan, a naturalist and surveyor, who visited Burma in the late 1790s. He made a useful study of Buddhist ritual there as well as reporting that the Buddha had been an Indian from Bihar.

"East View of the Hindoo Temple at Bode-Gya, in the neighborhood of Gaya in Behar, taken by Captain Crokatt": the earliest drawing of the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh-Gaya, probably painted by James Crockett, circa 1799. [Notice that a Hindu temple is turned into a Buddhist temple to justify the claim that Bodh Gaya was the place of Buddha's Enlightenment.]

Ten years later Buchanan’s surveying actually took him to Bihar: it was not long before he found further evidence. At Bodh Gaya, the name of which was a clue in itself, he declared that the extensive ruins including the pyramidal temple, were clearly Buddhist in origin. Statues of the Buddha were scattered through the neighborhood to a radius of fifteen miles and were now objects of worship to the Hindus. Indeed the temple itself was now in the charge of Brahmins. In 1811, a man of some rank with several attendants who came from Burma had claimed that the place had once been the residence of Gautama and that the temple was built by Ashoka, king of Pataliputra. These names meant nothing to Buchanan. Neither did he realize that Bodh Gaya was venerated, not as the residence of the Buddha, but as the place of his enlightenment.

It was not till the 1820s that Buddhist studies really got off the ground. Brian Hodgson had visited Sanchi soon after Captain Fell. His curiosity was aroused and, as the lone British representative in Kathmandu, he resolved to take advantage of his unique position in a still partly Buddhist country, and began “a full and accurate investigation into this almost unknown subject.” The Nepalese monks were far from cooperative, but Hodgson soon accumulated a horde of Buddhist scriptures and then found “an old Buddha residing in the city of Patan” who was willing to divulge some of the sect’s secrets. Hodgson drew up a detailed questionnaire and, on the basis of the old man’s answers, prepared a sketch of Buddhist beliefs. But when he proceeded to compare the results of the questionnaire with the textual evidence, he almost gave up. “I began to feel my want of languages, and (to confess the truth) of patience.”

Meanwhile, far away in the western extremities of the Himalayas, another scholar, in rather different circumstances, was poring over the sacred texts of the Tibetans. Alexander Czoma de Koros had originally armed himself with a stout stick and set off to walk from his native Hungary to China. In 1822, two years and several thousand miles later, he ran into William Moorcroft, the legendary explorer of the Western Himalayas. Moorcroft had traveled in Tibet and was deeply attracted to Buddhism. He urged de Koros to take up the study of the Tibetan texts and provided him with the limited funds he needed (de Koros lived off Tibetan tea, and his only possessions were a single change of clothes). Moorcroft then headed for Afghanistan and promptly disappeared; but, thanks to the intervention of the Asiatic Society, de Koros continued to receive a frugal stipend. In the cliff-top monasteries of Ladakh and Kinnaur he sat cross-legged through the cruel Himalayan winters, and compiled the first-ever Tibetan dictionary and grammar and began to make important contributions to the elucidations of the Buddhist mysteries.

After the 1830s intense raiding of stupas began when gold coins and other treasures were discovered in some of them. As yet there was little conclusive evidence, but it was beginning to look as if the stupas and their relics were Buddhist.

"The Samaudh of Rajah Booth-Sain at Sara-Nat near Benares": a first drawing of the surviving Buddhist stupa at Sarnath, known today as the Dhamekh stupa, drawn circa 1814, copied April 1819.

In 1834, Lieutenant Alexander Cunningham, only twenty years old and just arrived in India, began to take an interest in the well-known stupa at Sarnath just outside the city of Benares. Of several mounds at Sarnath, the Dhamek stupa,with its superb bands of sculptural ornament, was much the best preserved and most inviting. After digging down 110 feet from the top of the monument, the stone gave way to brickwork made of very large bricks. “Through this the shaft was continued for a further depth of twenty-eight feet, when I reached the plain soil beneath the foundation. Lastly a gallery was run right through the brickwork of the foundation… but without yielding any result. Thus ended my opening of the great tower, after fourteen months labor and a cost of more than five hundred rupees.”

Cunningham was bitterly disappointed. All he had to show was a stone with an unknown inscription on it. But this was better than nothing and he sent a copy of the inscription to James Prinsep, an Anglo-Indian scholar and antiquary (shown at left). The letters were of the Gupta Brahmi script and the whole was identical to the one recently found on a broken pedestal in northern Bihar. Prinsep thought he could read it; but it did not make much sense, some sort of invocation apparently. By chance, Alexander Czoma de Koros happened to be down from the mountains at the time, and, in view of a possible Buddhist connection, was asked for his opinion. Instantly he recognized it as the standard Buddhist formula or confession of faith. There was therefore no question that the Dhamek stupa was a Buddhist monument of the Gupta period and that the key to understanding the purpose and sculptures of all the stupas lay in Buddhism. Not only had the Buddha been born an Indian, but his religion had evidently been widespread in India and flourished there for several centuries.

Further dramatic evidence of this would soon be provided by the translation of the Ashoka edicts by Prinsep. Cunningham later discovered a horde of Buddhist statues at Sarnath; this was not the end of Sarnath’s riches either. In 1904 the remains of yet another Ashoka pillar were found, the lion capital of Sarnath—the most celebrated piece of Indian sculpture and now the symbol of the Republic of India.

The Ashokan lion capital that now forms the national symbol of the Republic of India, with the base of the column in the foreground: recovered during F.O. Oertel's excavations at Sarnath in the Cold Weather season of
1904-5.

Until this time the only first-hand account of ancient India was that of Megasthenes by way of later Greek and Latin authors. Megasthenes was an ambassador from an Indo-Greek kingdom sent to the court of Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka’s grandfather. Now, by an equally circuitous route, a Buddhist account of India at the beginning of the fifth century CE was brought to light; and it was soon followed by another from the mid-seventh century. These were the travelogues of Fa Hsien and Xuanzang, Chinese Buddhists who had journeyed through India in search of sacred manuscripts and to visit the scenes of the Buddha’s life. The travelogues were acquired by French orientalists, translated in Paris and expounded by Prinsep’s old boss, Horace Hayman Wilson, who was now the first professor of Sanskrit at Oxford.

To Alexander Cunningham the main point was that Buddhist India had been brought to life. “It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of these travels,” he wrote, “before, all attempts to fathom the mysteries of Buddhist antiquities were but mere conjectures.” The purpose of the stupas were unknown, as was their significance, and even the names of the shrines and cities they had adorned. Now all was made clear. The eyewitness accounts explained the nature of the sites and described their location and layouts so clearly that they amounted to a map of Buddhist India and site plans of all the main shrines.

General Alexander Cunningham (center, balding, with beard) and fellow Sappers on leave in Naini Tal in October 1862 prior to starting his second archaeological season.

Sarnath, for instance, was indeed a notable spot. It was none other than the deer park where Buddha had preached his first sermon. Fa Hsien found four stupas there and two monasteries. By Xuanzang’s time it had grown considerably. There was a vast monastery, 1500 monks, lakes and gardens and, amongst the stupas, one 300 feet high. There was now the possibility of identifying so many of the mounds and ruins that littered India.

Only in 1801 does the Oxford English Dictionary record the use of the term Boudhism, changed to Buddhism in 1816 in the phrase of a contributor to the Asiatic Journal: “The name and peculiarities of Buddhism have a good deal fixed my attention.” In 1829 Edward Upham published The History and Doctrine of Budhism, the first work in English with the word, albeit lacking one d, in its title. [If, that is, we ignore this translation from the French published in 1691.] But even at the end of the nineteenth century, the referent was not always clear, and the spelling of the term was, in one famous case, intentionally altered. Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, remembered as a key figure in the Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka, distinguished between the corrupt practices of Asian Buddhists, which she called Buddhism, and a more esoteric science of enlightenment, called Budh-ism, a synonym for Theosophy.

It is only with the invention of the category of religion, with its obligatory constituents of a founder, sacred scriptures, and fixed body of doctrine, that Buddhism comes to be counted as a world religion. Even then, it was judged by many Europeans as a rival to Christianity. During the nineteenth century, monks from a variety of traditions came to speak of a single pan-Asian Buddhism in an attempt to counter the attacks of Christian missionaries and colonial officials. One of the early attempts to unite Buddhism under a single creed (and a single flag) was made not by an Asian Buddhist but by a Theosophist, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott. In 1891 he formulated a set of fourteen rather bland principles that, with some effort, he persuaded a variety of Sri Lankan, Burmese, and Japanese Buddhist leaders to endorse.

Also during the nineteenth century, Buddhism became a subject of academic inquiry in Europe and America, focused primarily on the study of texts. Since that time, scholarly knowledge of Buddhism has expanded and changed and continues to change. The date of the Buddha’s birth remains a topic of active scholarly debate; the circumstances led to the rise of the movement (or movements) known as Mahayana, the “Great Vehicle,” continue to be explored, as does the degree of its importance in India; cases of the direct plagiarism of Hindu tantric texts by Buddhists (simply substituting the word Siva with the word Buddha are being discovered; birch bark scrolls inscribed with the Buddhist texts continue to be unearthed; previously unknown works (at least in Europe and America) are being translated into English; meditation is being reconsidered, both in terms of the extent of its practice historically as well as its function as a form of private and motionless ritual; the events of the first centuries after the death of the Buddha and prior to the writing down of his teachings remain a source of active speculation and study, considering, for example, what prompted the act of writing. And scholars continue to speculate about the reasons why, apart from the obvious factors such as Muslim invasions, Buddhism seemed to disappear from India, the land of its birth, around the twelfth century. It if did not entirely disappear, what remained and why?

Sources: India Discovered, The Recovery of a Lost Civilization by John Keay; The Search for the Buddha, The Men Who Discovered India's Lost Religion by Charles Allen; The Story of Buddhism by Donald S. Lopez Jr.

The fly in the ointment to the story of the discovery of Buddhism by the West is that the location of the various sites connected with the Buddha was, as Cunningham admits, fixed with the help of Chinese travelogues written over a thousand years ago. According to Xuanzang, the last of these famous pilgrims, Buddhism in India was a religion dying at the top. All the places he visited were already in ruins. How was he able to identify these places? From what he was told by the locals living there, and they would have just been passing down local legends and myths.

BUDDHA AS A CATHOLIC SAINT

2009-08-12T02:13:00.001-07:00

The story of Barlaam and Iôasaph or Josaphat is the legend of Buddha retold in a Christian setting which was translated into Greek and Latin and other European languages and which first became popular in the Middle Ages and remained so for at least fifteen hundred years. The Introduction to the Book Baralam and Yewasef, which is the Ethiopian version of the Christian recension, translated by E. A. Wallis Budge (1857-1934) and quoted below, shows how religious ideas are borrowed and transmitted. You will also notice in the translation a definite statement to the effect that St. Thomas, one of the Twelve Apostles, preached the Gospel of Christ in India and converted the Indians to Christianity. This statement is also found in the Greek and Syriac texts which have been edited, translated and described by Bonnet, Wright and Lipsius, and in the Arabic translations which were made from Syriac or Coptic.

Barlaam and Josaphat, from Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, (13th century).

The Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph is a Christianized version of a very ancient “spiritual romance,” which was composed in India and first written down in an Indian language by Buddhist propagandists in one of the centuries that immediately preceded or followed the beginning of the Christian Era. It is written in Greek and has been commonly thought to be the work of St. John Damascene. Like the Fables of Bidpai, with which it appears to be contemporaneous, the Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph has for at least fifteen hundred years been a popular work in the West as well as in the East. More than sixty translations, versions or paraphrases of it have been enumerated. Where it has appeared it has been warmly welcomed by men of every great creed for untold generations. Its aesthetic, moral and religious teachings have won the approval of Indians, Chinese, Persians, Arabs, Syrians, Armenians, Jews, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and other Oriental peoples. And the manuscripts and versions of it in Greek, Latin, German, Italian, Slavonic, Servian, Czech, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, English, Irish, etc., testify to the esteem with which the Book was regarded among European peoples. As it stands now it is a strange mixture of parable and fable, and folklore and history, and romance, in which shrewd worldly wisdom is mingled with the highest and greatest religious truths in such a way that the perusal thereof will increase the piety of the godly, the wisdom of the wise, and the pleasure of those who seek amusement and instruction in the writings of teachers of olden time.

The contents of the Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph in the form in which it captivated the learned of Europe may be briefly summarized thus:

After the preaching of the Gospel of Christ in India by St. Thomas the Apostle, many monasteries were established in that country and as the result of the example and teaching of the monks who lived in them the religion of Christ spread abroad in the land, and Christianity became established there so firmly that the native rulers were alarmed at its progress, and the priests of idols urged them to take steps to arrest it. A certain district had for its king one Abenner, or Avennir, a great and powerful ruler, who loved pleasure and hunting and pageants and amusements of every kind, and who possessed almost everything that health and wealth could give a man. But he had no son, and he lamented continually that his family consisted of daughters only; day and night he longed for a son, and it seems that the priests of idols suggested to him that if he persecuted the Christians and paid special honors to their own gods, a son would be given to him. Therefore he began to persecute the Christians, and to torture them and burn them alive, and to drive them out from among this people; and the monks were obliged to forsake their monasteries, and to take refuge in the deserts and mountains where large numbers of them perished from thirst and hunger and cold and wild beasts. Whilst the persecution was at its height a son was born to Abenner, and he celebrated his appearance with extravagant rejoicings. He heaped gifts upon the priests, and greatly enriched their temples, and sacrificed to the gods thousands of cattle and sheep. He called his son “Iôasaph,” and among those who flocked to the birth ceremonies were great numbers of astrologers, diviners, soothsayers, and all kinds of men who were skilled in the art of working magic. In answer to the king’s enquiries all but one of them declared that the boy will become a very great king, a king more powerful and richer than his father. The one exception was an aged astrologer who held quite a different opinion from that of his fellows, for he foretold that the young prince would become a Christian.

When Abenner heard these words he determined to prevent the fulfillment of this prophecy. He therefore had a palace specially built for his son in a remote part of the country, and he furnished it most luxuriously, and surrounded it with high walls, and then sent Iôasaph to live there. He set his trusty servants to watch over the child, and he had him surrounded with happy children, who rejoiced in games and amusements of all kinds. No sad or sick person was allowed to enter the palace, and no one was allowed to tell the child anything that would interfere with his happiness and his guardians and teachers took care that he should have no knowledge whatsoever of the want, misery, pain, sickness, disease and death that were in the world. When Iôasaph was grown up he persisted in begging his father to allow him to go outside the palace and see the world. Abenner at length consented, and the prince with a suitable escort rode out into the city; but he was only allowed to ride through the streets that had been specially made ready to receive him. His outriders took care to clear out of his way all beggars and undesirable folk, but one day, by accident and in spite of all their care, he met a blind man, and a leper, and a dead man, and a very aged man who was infirm and helpless. His escort tried to hurry him on, but he insisted on stopping and asking them questions about these men, and he learned for the first time that there is disease in the world, and that the end of prolonged sickness and old age is death. His natural intelligence and shrewdness of mind enabled him to understand the fleeting character of all things in this world, and he was assailed by doubts and difficulties which no amusements or gay companions could drive out of his mind.

But the all-seeing Eye of God was watching him, and the Lord of the Universe decreed his salvation, and selected an agent to bring this about. This agent was a certain holy ascetic who lived in the desert of Sennaar and was called Barlaam. To him God revealed the state of Iôasaph’s mind, and Barlaam made ready to go to India and win his soul for Christ. He marched to the coast, took ship, and in due course arrived in India, where he disguised himself as a merchant, and set out for the city where Iôasaph dwelt. He found means to make acquaintance with one of the prince’s teachers in the palace, and he begged him to introduce him into his master’s presence so that he might show him a most wonderful gem, the like of which had never been seen by man. This gem could only be seen by the man who had a pure heart and pure eyes. At length the teacher was persuaded to bring Barlaam into the presence of the prince, who listened with joy to all that the hermit had to say about the gem and its wonderful beauty. Barlaam paid many visits to Iôasaph, and little by little he unfolded to him the doctrines of ascetic Christianity. By degrees the prince fell under the influence of the hermit, who reasoned with him and showed him the futility of idolatry, and answered his questions, and Barlaam made his discourse both entertaining and instructive by means of ancient parables and fables. He showed him the beauty of the life which the saints of God led as monks and anchorites in the desert, and at the same time described to him the hardships which they must perforce endure, hunger and thirst, cold and heat, the attacks of wild beasts and, what was far worse, the temptations and assaults of the Devil and his fiends. Pointing to his own ragged apparel and to the marks that scores of years of fasting and exposure had left upon his emaciated body, he warned Iôasaph that he was not at that moment capable of enduring the strenuous life of the ascetic, but urged him to cast aside idolatry and to accept Christ. In many long conversations Barlaam explained to him the doctrines of Christianity, the Trinity, the Eucharist, Christian Baptism, etc. He found Iôasaph a ready and willing convert, and having taught him the Nicene Creed, and baptized him, and lovingly admonished him as to his future life Barlaam departed to his cell in the desert of Sennaar.

When Abenner the king heard of the conversion of his son to Christianity and of his baptism, he sent out men to search for Barlaam so that he might slay him, but the holy man had left India, and they failed to find him. Abenner then took counsel with one of his friends who advised him to summon a general council, and to let representatives of the Christians and of the idolaters hold a debate on Christianity and paganism before them in public. The king and his friend persuaded a pagan called Nachor to personify Barlaam, and arranged with him to pronounce an oration in favor of the worship of idols, instead of an argument in which all the beauties of the Christian Religion would be clearly demonstrated. They hoped by this means to convince Iôasaph that Barlaam had apostatized, and expected that he would abandon the Christian Religion. On the day of the great debate Nachor stood up, but instead of extolling the power and glory of the heathen gods, he pronounced the wonderful discourse on behalf of Christianity which is now known as the famous “Apology of Aristides.” The king in his wrath would have slain Nachor, but Iôasaph had him conveyed out of the city secretly by night, and Nachor departed to the desert, where he repented and became a monk.

Barlaam and Josaphat, Catholic Saints, November 27.

Abenner was in despair at the unlooked for result of the public debate, and he sent for Theudas, or Theodas, a great magician, and asked him to show him a way by which he could crush the obstinacy of Iôasaph, and bring him back to the worship of the gods. Theudas was greatly skilled in all that appertained to magic, and myriads of fiends and devils were believed to be under his authority and to perform his will. After hearing the king’s wishes he recommended that Iôasaph’s palace should be filled with women servants, and that a number of young and beautiful girls should be made his companions by day and by night. When the king had selected the loveliest maidens in the city and dressed them in splendid apparel, he sent them to Iôasaph with instructions to seduce him physically and mentally. As soon as they had begun their ministrations to the prince Theudas summoned the evil spirits and sent them into the maidens so that they might inflame their passions and overthrow the chastity of the prince. But all their efforts to this end were in vain, and Iôasaph triumphed over them and over the devils that Theudas had sent in them and with them. Abenner’s grief at their failure was very great, and his chagrin was increased when he saw Theudas himself converted to Christianity; Theudas lost all faith in his devils and he went and burned all his books of magic.

Abenner’s next act was to divide his kingdom, and half of it he gave to his son to rule over. Iôasaphat promptly destroyed the temples, smashed the images that were in them, and built churches to which the people flocked from far and near. Under his enlightened rule his half of the kingdom flourished, whilst that of his father decayed. Abenner, seeing that he was powerless to stay the advance of the Christian faith, became a Christian and retired to a monastery where four years later he died. Iôasaph buried his father with all the pomp and ceremony that befitted his rank, and then having returned to his capital, where he was welcomed with great joy by all the people, he abdicated his kingdom, and appointed one Barachias, a man with whom he had been long on good terms, to be his successor. Free at last from the care of the kingdom, he stripped off his royal apparel, and in the garb of a mendicant monk made his escape to the desert, where he began to lead the life of an ascetic in real earnest. He fasted and prayed and suffered great tribulation, he resisted the attacks of devils in every shape and form, he fought with wild beasts and overcame them, and he conquered the Arch-Devil Satan, who attacked him under many forms. Meanwhile his wish was to find Barlaam, and he wandered about for two whole years before he found him. At length master and pupil met, and they lived together and fought the spiritual fight with great content. At length Barlaam fell sick, but before he died he urged Iôasaph to continue to live in the desert and work out his salvation. Barlaam died in the arms of Iôasaph, who buried him with great sorrow, and then lived alone for many years in that same desert. He was found dead one day by a fellow monk, who buried him side by side with Barlaam. In due course the news of his death reached King Barachias, who came to the tomb and transported the bodies of Barlaam and Iôasaph to the church which Iôasaph had founded, and miracles were wrought at their tombs.

It is easy to understand that the “spiritual romance” summarized above would become very popular among Christians of every denomination, and that it would be read with great avidity by all who were occupied with the ascetic life. The author’s main object was to exalt the life of the monk, and his work would be especially acceptable in monasteries, and would form one of the principal books chosen to be “read for edification” privately in the cells and at meal times in the refectories. But the Christian dogmas and homilies which fill so large a space in the narrative would not account for the great polarity of the Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph among the Chinese, the Persians, the Arabs and the Jews, and the reason for this must have been due to some other factor in the work. This factor is not far to seek. The universal popularity of the romance was due to the series of Fables, or Parables, or “Apologues” as they are generally called, which Barlaam quoted in the course of his conversations with Iôasaph. These are not of Christian but Indian origin, and may be enumerated thus:

Mythical Creatures.

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. A sower sows seed of which some is trodden under foot, some is eaten by the birds, some is blown away, some falls among the rocks and withers after germination, some falls among thistles and its growth is choked, and a very little falls on good earth, where it grows and brings forth fruit. The Sower is the sage, and his seed is wisdom. There is a Buddhistic parallel for this Apologue, but the details in Barlaam are taken from the New Testament (Matthew 3:3; Mark 4:3; Luke 8:5). For the Greek text see Barlaam, VI.39, and for Parallels see Jacobs, Barlaam, London, 1896, p. cxi; Sutta Nihata, translated by Fausböll, pp. 1-5; Carus, Gospel of Buddha, § 74.
THE GEM. (Barlaam, VI. 35 ff.) Barlaam, a hermit, inspired by heaven, leaves the desert of Sennaar, disguises himself as a merchant and sails to India. He tells Iôasaph’s tutor that he has a marvelous gem which he wishes to show to the prince, for the sight of it will fill him with wisdom; but the sight of it can only be borne by one whose eyes are pure. The tutor was persuaded, and brought Barlaam into the palace and obtained for him an audience of the prince.
THE TRUMPET OF DOOM. (Barlaam, VI. 41, 42.) A great king driving in his chariot meets two hermits, and leaps down and makes obeisance to them. His escort are amazed and ask the king’s brother to ask the king not to demean himself by such conduct. The brother rebukes the king for his unseemly conduct and returns to his house. When the king wanted to announce to any noble malefactor that he had condemned him to death he sent a herald to blow a special trumpet before the door of his house, and when the wretched man heard it he prepared himself for death. On the evening of the day of the rebuke the king sent his herald to blow blasts of the trumpet before his brother’s house; the brother understood and spent the night in tears and preparing for death. In the morning he appeared at the palace with his wife and children, all dressed in black, and the king received him and explained to him that he had only sent the herald with the trumpet of death to rebuke his folly in censuring him for greeting the heralds of God, the mere sight of whom warned him of his death and of the meeting to come with his Master Whom he had so greatly offended. He comforted his brother, gave him a gift and dismissed him, and then set to work to rebuke the nobles who had incited his brother to remonstrate with him. The original form of this Apologue is thought to be the legend of Asoka’s brother Vitasoka.
THE FOUR CASKETS. (Barlaam, VI. 43.) The king had four wooden caskets made. In two of them he placed the bones of dead men, and in the other two gems and precious stones; the first two caskets he covered with gold and provided with gold fastenings, and the second two he daubed over with pitch and tar and bound round with hair ropes. He then sent for the nobles who had incited his brother to rebuke him, and when they arrived he asked them to appraise the value of the caskets. They thought the caskets covered with gold were the more valuable, and those covered with tar of lesser value. The king ordered the gold caskets to be opened, and their contents presented a hideous sight and gave forth an evil smell; but when the tar-covered caskets were opened all present were amazed and delighted at the beauty of the gems contained therein. Then the king said that the dead men’s bones symbolized the wicked nobles who were arrayed in splendid apparel, and that the gems were emblems of the humble and vilely dressed men, to whom he had bowed down, and the priceless beauty of their souls.
THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE FOWLER. (Barlaam, x. 79.) A fowler caught a nightingale and took his knife to kill her, meaning to eat her. The bird said that she was too small to fill his belly, and promised to tell him three useful things if he spared her life. The fowler agreed to spare her and the bird said, 1. Never try to attain the unattainable. 2. Never regret the thing past. 3. Never believe the word that is unbelievable. When the bird was set free she told the fowler that he was a fool to let her go because she had inside her a pearl as large as the egg of an ostrich. The fowler, being filled with grief that he had set her free, tried to recapture her but failed. Thereupon the nightingale told him he was a mighty fool, for he was regretting the past, and trying to attain the unattainable, and was believing that she had inside her a pearl as large as an ostrich egg, which was bigger than her whole body.
THE STORY OF THE UNICORN. (Barlaam, XII. 112.) A man chased by a savage unicorn falls half way down a pit, and only saves himself by clinging to the branches of a shrub which was growing at the side. As he hangs there he sees two mice, one white and the other black, gnawing at the root of the branch, which they had almost gnawed through, and looking down he perceives an awful fire-breathing dragon at the bottom of the pit waiting for him to fall. From the side of the pit, quite close to him, he sees heads of four asps projecting. From the upper branches of the shrub honey drops down upon him, and in enjoying the sweetness of that honey he forgets all about the raging unicorn, which is death, the pit, which is the world, the tree, which is a man’s life being eaten away by the two mice, which are day and night, the four asps, which typify the four unstable elements of his body, and the fire-breathing dragon, which is hell. The honey, of course, typifies the fleeting pleasures of this life. For the Indian originals of this Apologue, see Mahabharata, XI.; Avadanas, vol. I. pp.12, 191 ff., etc.)
THE MAN AND HIS THREE FRIENDS. (Barlaam, XIII, 114). A man had three friends. Two of these he adored and flattered and hazarded his life for their sakes, and the third he treated with condescending arrogance. One day the man was arrested for a debt of 10,000 talents, and in his distress he applied to his friends for assistance. The first denied that he was the applicant’s friend, and telling him that he was engaged to feast with friends gave him some old clothes and dismissed him; the second friend said that he himself was also in trouble, and could not help him; the third friend received him graciously and went to the king and pleaded his cause, and saved him from his enemies. For Derivatives and Literature, see Jacobs, Barlaam, p. cxiv.
THE KING FOR A YEAR. (Barlaam, xiv. 118.) The citizens of a certain state were in the habit of electing a stranger or a foreigner who knew not their customs, to be king for one year. During that year he had absolute power, and lived in a state of great luxury. At the end of the year the citizens deposed him and banished him to some island where, having made no provision since he was ignorant of what was to befall him, he lived a life of want and died miserably. One man who was elected king discovered the custom of the citizens, and he secretly sent up to the island much gold and silver by the hands of trusty servants, and when he was banished to the island he was able to live as luxuriously as before. Moreover he had no state cares to trouble him. The kingdom is the vain world, and the citizens are the powers of the devils who rule this world. The wise counselor who informed the king of the year of the custom of the citizens was some man like Barlaam. The Indian parallel to this Apologue is given in Dhammapada, 25, p.235-8, and see Matthew vi. 19, 20. Etc.
THE PAGAN KING AND HIS BELIEVING WAZIR. (Barlaam, xvi. 135). A king and his Wazir went out into the city to see the sights and noticing a light shining through a shutter of an underground chamber they looked in. There they saw a man in rags and his wife mixing wine for him; whilst the man drank the woman sang and danced to him. The king thought the manner of life of the couple wretched and horrible, but the Wazir told him that the manner of life even of the noblest and richest seemed to God like that of the man and woman. See Kuhn, op. cit. p. 22, note.
THE RICH YOUNG MAN AND THE BEGGAR’S DAUGHTER. (Barlaam, xvi. 139.) A rich man wanted his son to marry a maiden of high rank and wealth, but the young man refused and went into exile. On his way he stopped at the house of a poor man to rest and refresh himself during the hour of noon, and saw the man’s daughter who, whilst engaged in some handicraft praised God and gave thanks to Him. In answer to a question of the young man she told him that she blessed and thanked God for small mercies, and hoped for greater ones. Moreover she had learnt to know God, and the gate of Paradise was open to her. The young man was so charmed with her that he asked her father to give her to him in marriage, but the beggar objected, saying that a rich young man could not marry a beggar’s daughter. The young man insisted that he wanted to marry her, and then the beggar said he could not let her leave him, for she was his only child. Then said the young man, I will abide here with you and live as ye live. When the beggar was convinced that the young man’s love was genuine, he gave him his daughter together with a sum of money that was larger than the young man had ever seen. Jacobs (p.cxx) quotes as a parallel King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid.
THE TAME GAZELLE. (Barlaam, xviii. 157.) A certain man had a tame gazelle, which when grown up strayed frequently in the desert. One day she found a herd of gazelle grazing, and went off with them and grazed with them all day, but returned at night. This she did until at length her owner missed her and sent out men on horseback to seek her and bring her back. They found her and brought her back, but before they returned they killed several of her wild companions, and ill-treated the others.
Apologue of Theudas. THE PRINCE WHO HAD NEVER SEEN A WOMAN. (Barlaam, xxx. 268.) A son was born to a certain king, and the physicians told his father that the boy would lose his eyesight if he saw the sun or a fire before he was twelve years old. Thereupon the king made the child to live with his attendants in a rock-hewn house full of dark chambers, and for twelve years the boy never saw the light. At the end of this period the king ordered his servants to take the prince out into the town and to show him everything—men, women, gold, silver, precious stones, gorgeous apparel, splendid chariots and horses, golden bridles and purple harness, soldiers in armor, oxen, sheep, etc. in answer to his questions the servants told the prince the names of each of these, and when he asked what women were called, they said, “Devils that lead men astray.” When the prince returned the king asked him which of the things he had seen pleased him most, and he replied, “The devils that lead men astray.” For the Indian originals Jacobs (p. cxxxi) quotes the story of Kshyasrnga in Mahabharata, iii. 9999; and Ramayana, I. ix.; etc. Among the many Derivatives may be mentioned Boccaccio, Decameron, Day IV, Introduction, and the Exempla of Odo of Cheriton in Arundel 231, vol. I. fol. 203b.

Now although the book of Barlaam and Iôasaph in the form described above existed in manuscripts written in Greek (and perhaps also in Syriac and Pehlevi), in the seventh century of our Era, and probably earlier, it did not gain the great popularity which it subsequently enjoyed until the ninth or eleventh century. This popularity was due entirely to the Latin translation, which was carried rapidly into all the countries of Europe. The first Latin translation was made by Anastasius, a papal Librarian, in the second half of the ninth century, and the second by J. Billy (born 1535, died 1581), Abbot of St. Michel in Brittany. Both have been printed in editions of the works of St. John Damascene. The popularity of the Book of Barlaam was further increased by the abridgements of it which were printed in the thirteenth century by Vincent de Beauvais in his Speculum Historiale Lib. Xv. Capp. 1-64), and Jacobus de Voragine in his Legenda Aurea. It is possible that here and there some scholar may have had doubts about the accuracy of its ascription to St. John Damascene, and many, no doubt, hesitated about accepting it as a historical work. But copies of it were multiplied, as the extant manuscripts prove, and several translations of it were made into European languages other than Latin before the end of the fifteenth century. Barlaam and Iôasaph were treated as Saints in the Legenda Aurea, and likewise in the Catalogus Sanctorum of Peter of Natalibus (died about 1370). And they were so regarded during the rest of the Middle Ages, though it seems that they were not fully canonized until the time of Gregory XIII, when that Pope sanctioned a revised edition of the Martyrologium Romanum, in a license dated 14 January 1584, or according to Cosquin in 1583. Their day was fixed as the 27th November. No one seems to have troubled to enquire who Barlaam and Iôasaph were, or when they lived. As their names had something of the sound of the old Hebrew names of Balaam and Jehosaphat, it is possible that readers of the Book of Barlaam believed them to have been natives of Palestine who were in India carrying on the work of the evangelization of India, which is said to have been begun by Thomas the Apostle.

Among the first to hear the narrative given in the Book of Barlaam when freed from its Christian additions and interpolations was Marco Polo, the great Venetian traveler, who set out on his voyage to China in 1271. In the course of his travels he visited the Island of Seilan (Ceylon), and there on the top of a very high mountain (Adam’s Peak) he saw a building which the Muslims regarded as the house or tomb of Adam, and the “Idolaters” (i.e. the Indians) believed to be the tomb of Sagamoni Borcan, who was “the best of men, a great saint in fact, according to their fashion, and the first in whose name idols were made.” The natives told him that this saint was the son, as the story goes, of a great and wealthy king. “He was such an holy temper that he would never listen to any worldly talk, nor would he consent to be king. And when the father saw that his son would not be king, nor yet take any part in any affairs, he took it sorely to heart. And first he tried to tempt him with great promises, offering to crown him king, and to surrender all authority into his hands. The son, however, would have none of his offers; so the father was in great trouble, and all the more that he had no other son but him, to whom he might bequeath the kingdom at his own death. So, after taking thought on the matter, the King caused a great palace to be built, and placed his son therein, and caused him to be waited on there by a number of maidens, the most beautiful that could anywhere be found. And he ordered them to divert themselves with the prince, night and day, and to sing and dance from before him, so as to draw his heart towards worldly enjoyments. But ‘twas all of no avail, for none of those maidens could ever tempt the king’s son to any wantonness, and he only abode the firmer in his chastity, leading a most holy life, after their manner thereof. And I assure you he was so staid a youth that he had never gone out of the palace, and thus he had never seen a dead man, nor anyone who was not hale or sound; for the father never allowed any man that was aged or infirm to come into his presence. It came to pass however one day that the young gentleman took a ride, and by the roadside he beheld a dead man. The sight dismayed him greatly, as he had never seen such a sight before. Incontinently he demanded of those who were with him what thing that was? And then they told him that it was a dead man. “How then,” quoth the king’s son, “do all men die?” “Yea, forsooth,” said they. Wherefore the young gentleman said never a word, but rode on right pensively. And after he had ridden a good way he fell in with a very aged man who could no longer walk, and had not a tooth in his head, having lost all because of his great age. And when the king’s son beheld this old man, he asked what that might mean, and wherefore the man could not walk. Those who were with him replied that it was through old age the man could walk no longer, and had lost his teeth. And so when the king’s son had thus learned about the dead man and about the aged man he turned back to his palace and said to himself that he would abide no longer in this evil world, but would go in search of Him Who dieth not, and Who had created him.

“So what did he one night but take his departure from the palace privily, and betake himself to certain lofty and pathless mountains. And there he did abide, leading a life of great hardship and sanctity, and keeping great abstinence, just as if he had been a Christian. Indeed, an he had but been so, he would have been a great saint of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so good and pure was the life he led. And when he died they found his body and brought it to his father. And when the father saw dead before him that son whom he loved better than himself, he was near going distraught with sorrow. And he caused an image in the similitude of his son to be wrought in gold and precious stones, and caused all his people to adore it. And they all declared him to be a god; and so they still say. They tell moreover that he hath died fourscore and four times. The first time he died as a man, and came to life again as an ox; and then he died as an ox and came to life again as a horse, and so on until he had died fourscore and four times; and every time he became some kind of an animal. But when he died the eighty-fourth time they say he became a god. And they do hold him for the greatest of all their gods. And they tell that the aforesaid image of him was the first idol that the Idolaters ever had; and from that have originated all the other idols. And this befell in the Island of Seilan (Ceylon) in India.

“The Idolaters came thither on pilgrimage from very long distances and with great devotion, just as Christians go to the shrine of Messer Saint James in Gallicia. And they maintain that the monument on the mountain is that of the king’s son, according to the story I have been telling you; and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish that are there were those of the same king’s son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or Sagamoni the Saint. But the Saracens (i.e. Muslims) also came thither on pilgrimage in great numbers and they say that it is the sepulcher of Adam our first father, and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish were those of Adam.

Sagamoni, or more correctly Sakya Muni, or Sakiya Muni, means “the Sakiya sage,” and Borcan, or more correctly Burkhan, means “divine,” and was used by the Mongols as a synonym of the Buddha. It is almost incredible that some member of Marco Polo’s party did not tell him that the man, the narrative of whose life (which he describes so carefully) made such a great impression upon him, was the Buddha himself.

The next person who has written on the subject was the famous Portuguese traveler Diogo do Couto, who visited Ceylon in the second half of the sixteenth century, about three hundred years after Marco Polo. He refers to Marco Polo’s visit and mentions that the natives told him that the building on Adam’s Peak was the tomb of our father Adam, and that they connected it with the son of a great king who once lived on the mountain.

He calls this son “Sogomombarcão,” who is, of course, the Sagamoni Borcan of Marco Polo. He goes on to say what he had heard, how a certain king who was married, but had no son, longed for a son, how God gave him a beautiful male child, how the astrologers declared that he would renounce the kingdom and become a hermit, how the king shut him up in a palace so that he could never see anything of the world, how he surrounded him with guardians who never let him go outside the palace gardens, how at length he allowed him to go forth with a strong escort, how on various occasions the prince met a blind man, a lame man, a paralytic, and a dead man, how when he learned that all men must die he was seized with melancholy, how a saint appeared to him in a vision and advised him to renounce the world, how he succeeded in escaping from the palace, how, disguised as a monk, he departed into the desert where he lived the life of a hermit, how at length, having wandered over several deserts, he came to Ceylon with many disciples, how he lived there for many years, how the people worshipped him like God, how, when he decided to depart from Ceylon, his disciples urged him to leave them some memorial of himself, and how, in answer to this petition, he left on a flat part of the mountain the impression of his foot, which is reverenced to this day. To this name the Gentiles in all India have built great and splendid pagodas.

Diogo do Couto then goes on to say that he asked some aged men there if their writings contained any account of Saint Josaphat who was converted by Barlaam, who is represented as the son of a great king of India, and who was brought up in the same way and of whom are told the same stories as he has been told of the life of the Buddha. When do Couto went to Salsette in the country of Bassein to see the famous Canara Pagoda (i.e. the Kanhari Caves, which he describes at length) he asked an old man there who had carried out the work. The old man told him that it was the father of Saint Josaphat, and that the Pagoda was intended to be the place where the prince was to be brought up in seclusion. As Josaphat was the son of a great king of India do Couto concludes that he may have been the Buddha, of whom such as wonders are related—“E como nós temos della, aque for a filho de hum grande Rey da India, bem póde ser, como ja dissemos, que fosse esto o Budão, de que ells contam tantas maravilhas.” Remembering the work of Thomas the Apostle in India do Couto seems to suggest that the stories told of St. Josaphat, or the Buddha, have a Christian origin.

Thus it is clear that before the end of the sixteenth century the relationship of the story of Josaphat to that of the Buddha was recognized, but it is equally clear that the recognition of this fact was not general. The popularity of the Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph in no way declined, and new translations and versions of it in European languages made it even more and more widely known. Thus the matter remained until Benfey was enabled to study the fine collection of Nepalese manuscripts, which had been brought to Paris early in the nineteenth century, when he rediscovered that the fact of the Oriental origin of the Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph, which Diogo do Couto published in 1612. In his Introduction to his work on the Pantschatantra, published in 1859, he pointed out the Buddhistic characteristics of the Apologue of the man pursued by a “Unicorn,” and in his Appendix he stated that his views had just been confirmed by two Chinese versions of the same Apologue, translated by Stanislas Julien in Les Avadanas, 3 vols. Paris, 1859 (see vol. I. pp. 132, 191). The eminent Hebraist Steinschneider had suspected that the Book of Barlaam was of Indian origin several years before, but he did not prove it. Five months after Benfey wrote his Preface (which is dated February 18, 1859) E. Laboulaye contributed two articles on Les Avadanas to the Journal des Débats (July 21 and 26), and in the second of these he mentioned the two Chinese versions of the Apologue concerning the man pursued by a Unicorn. And he went on to show that the framework of the Book of Barlaam and Josaphat is taken from the Legend of the Buddha, and finally declared that “cette histoire si caractéristique, ces rencontres si particulières, c’est le roman meme de Josaphat.” In the following year Saint-Hilaire published his work Le Bouddha et sa Religion, and the life of the Buddha which it contains is chiefly compiled from several versions of the Lalita Vistara written in various Indian dialects, Chinese, etc. in the same year (1860) Liebrecht published his famous article entitled Die Quellen des Barlaam und Josaphat (in Ebert’s Jahrbuch für Romanische und Englische Litteratur, Bd. II. Pp. 314-334), and he proved by quotations from Saint-Hilaire’s work and the recension of the German version of Barlaam and Josaphat, which he had published in 1847, the truth of the assertions made by Laboulaye and Saint-Hilaire. In 1880 M. E. Cosquin published a valuable article on the origin of the Book of Barlaam and Josaphat in the Revue des Questions Historiques (La Légende des Saints Barlaam et Josaphat, son origine), tom. XXVIII. pp. 579-600, and produced a few new facts which supported Liebrecht’s contentions. Finally must be mentioned Jacob’s excellent essay on the whole subject (Barlaam and Josaphat, London, 1896), in which the conclusions of the eminent Oriental scholars quoted above are cleverly and convincingly applied. (Baralam and Yewasef, Wallis Budge.)

THE LANGUAGE OF BUDDHISM

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Ashokan inscriptions are the earliest records of Indian writing. Two kinds of scripts were known in ancient India: Kharosthi, employed in Gandhara (Eastern Afghanistan and Northern Panjab) from the 4th century BCE to 200 CE, was borrowed from the Aramaic type of Semitic writing in use during the 5th century BCE; and Brahmi, the true national writing of India, from which all later Indian alphabets are descended, based on the oldest Northern Semitic or Phoenician type, represented on Assyrian weights and on the Moabite stone, which dates from about 890 BCE. It was introduced about 800 BCE into India by traders coming by way of Mesopotamia.

Owing to the perishability of the material on which they are written, Sanskrit manuscripts older than the 14th century CE are rare. The two ancient materials used in India were strips of birch bark and palm leaves. The employment of the former, beginning in the Northwest of India, where extensive birch forests clothe the slopes of the Himalayas, gradually spread to Central, Eastern and Western India. The oldest known Sanskrit manuscript written on birch bark, until 1994, dates from the fifth century CE and a Pali manuscript in Kharosthi is older, but the use of the material doubtless goes back to far earlier days. Thus we have the statement of Quintus Curtius that the Indians employed it for writing at the time of Alexander. In 1994 the British Library acquired a unique collection of fifty-seven fragments of Buddhist manuscripts on birch bark scrolls, written in the Kharosthi script and the Gandhari (Prakrit) language. The manuscripts date from, most likely, the first century A.D., and as such are the oldest surviving Buddhist texts, which promise to provide unprecedented insights into the early history of Buddhism in north India and in central and east Asia.

The first example of a palm leaf Sanskrit MS, belongs to the 6th century CE. It is preserved in Japan, but there is a facsimile of it in the Bodleian Library. According to Xuanzang, the use of the palm leaf was common all over India in the seventh century; but that it was known many centuries earlier is proved by the fact that an inscribed copperplate, dating from the first century CE, at the latest, imitates a palm leaf in shape.

Buddha preached his gospel in the language of the people, as opposed to that of the learned (Sanskrit), in order that all might understand him, though no one knows what that language was. Thus all the oldest Buddhist literature dating from the fourth or fifth century BCE was composed in the vernacular, originally, according to traditional Buddhologists, the dialect of Magadha, the supposed birthplace of Buddhism.

The particular form of the popular language which became the sacred idiom of Southern Buddhism is known by the name Pali. Its original home is still uncertain, but its existence as early as the third century BCE is proved beyond doubt by the numerous rock and pillar inscriptions of Ashoka. This dialect was in the third century BCE introduced into Ceylon, and became the basis of Singhalese, the modern language of the island.

The excerpt below is adapted From : Empires of the Word, A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler.

The word Sanskrit means “composed” or “synthesized”. It is a term for the language as formulated in the grammar books, contrasting it with its colloquial dialects, known as the Prakrits, the “naturals.” It also distinguishes it from an older form, sometimes called Vedic, known from its use in the Veda, “the knowledge”: these are hymns to the gods which appear to go back to the earliest days of the language as spoken in India, in the last centuries of the second millennium BC, but which are still recited unchanged in Hindu ritual today. Most of the modern languages of northern and central India are descendants of Sanskrit, developed versions of the Prakrits, much as the Romance languages developed from forms of vulgar Latin.

Later on, Sanskrit becomes very wide ranging in its content, including among its most widely known works romantic comedy, theoretical linguistics, economics, sexology (notably the Kama Sutra), lyrical verse, history and moral fables, along with a continuing production of epic poetry and religious and philosophical tracts.

A dialect of Indo-Iranian, it is first heard of in the Northwest Frontier area of Swat and the northern Panjab (now in Pakistan), spoken by peoples who have evidently come from farther north or west, and who like to call themselves arya (later a common word for “gentleman”, and always the Buddhists’ favorite word for sheer nobility of spirit). Somehow their descendents, and even more their language, spread down over the vast Indo-Gangetic plain, as well as up into the southern reaches of the Himalaya (“snow-abode”) mountains, so that by the beginning of the fifth century BCE the language was spoken in an area extending as far east as Bihar, and as far south, perhaps, as the Narmada. Sanskrit literature from the period, principally the epic poems Mahabharata (“Great Bharata”) and Ramayana (“The Coming of Rama”), is full of military exploits and conquests.

The result was the present-day situation, a northern Indian heartland, stretching from sea to sea, of languages more or less closely related to Sanskrit. This center is always known in India as Aryavarta (“abode of the Aryas”). It also gained one offshoot in Sri Lanka to the far south, creating the Simhala community there: according to tradition, this group had come from Gujarati, on the northwestern coast, in the fifth century BCE.

The Buddha had lived in the fifth century BCE, in the lower valley of the Ganges, speaking a Prakrit known as Magadhi. In the next two hundred years the faith he founded spread all over India and Sri Lanka, as well as into Burma, its scriptures largely written in a closely related Prakrit, Pali, but more and more over time, in classical Sanskrit. Besides the spread to Southeast Asia, the most influential path that Buddhism took was to Kashmir, and back to the homeland of Sanskrit itself in Panjab and Swat. [Doesn’t it make more sense that Buddhism started in Swat itself, which is the main thesis of this blog?]

Hence in the first century CE Buddhism, with its attendant scriptures, spread northward, perhaps here again trekking back up the historic route that Sanskrit speakers had used to enter India over a millennium before. But past Bactria, instead of turning left into the central Asian steppes, it turned right and, picking up the Silk Road, headed into China.

Other, closer, areas took much longer to receive the doctrine, borne as ever by its vehicles Pali and Sanskrit. Nepal had been part of the early Indian spread of Buddhism under Ashoka, in the third century BCE; but the first Indian monk invited into Tibet, Santaraksita, came in the second half of the eighth century CE, a full 1200 years after the Buddha had lived just two hundred miles to the south (admittedly, over the Himalayas) in Magadha: and the religion was firmly established in Tibet only in the eleventh century.

Panini, the original fifth-century BCE doyen of Sanskrit grammar, probably lived in the academic community of Taksasila, known to the Greeks as Taxila, near modern Rawalpindi in the extreme northwest of the subcontinent, now part of Pakistan. [This further supports my contention that Buddhism arose in this general area; at least we have evidence that the area provided a proper milieu for the religion to take hold, as opposed to North India which was at this time less urbanized.]

In every sense of the word, then, Sanskrit is a luxuriant language. Sir William Jones, Chief Justice of India and founder of the Royal Asiatic Society, memorably described it in 1786: “The Sanskrit language, whatever may be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either.”

Ashoka’s inscriptions, the earliest in a decipherably Aryan language to survive, are not in Sanskrit but Magadhi Prakrit: and this absence of Sanskrit from inscriptions, or rather its presence only for literary decoration while the guts of the message are given in Prakrit, continues for several centuries. [Perhaps the earliest Buddhist scriptures, now lost, were in Sanskrit; Ashoka's inscriptions were not the earliest and were written in the vernacular Prakrit.] It is not until two hundred years later that the first inscriptions in Sanskrit are found, farther west, in Ayodhya and Mathura (south of Delhi). There is a clear division of function between Sanskrit and Prakrit visible in these inscriptions, which contain both: Sanskrit is used for the verse, Prakrit for the prose dedications. Ultimately, Sanskrit did come to predominate, and indeed to be the exclusive language of inscriptions. But this tradition did not get fully established for another 250 years, starting in CE 150 with the rock inscriptions of a fairly minor king, Rudradaman, at Junagadh (“Greek fort”) on the western coast, in Gujarat.

RELIGIOUS

Interestingly, Magadhi had probably also been the dialect of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, though about a millennium earlier. (His contemporary, Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, lived in the area too.) Magadha was also the area of the earliest Buddhist councils, which established the outlines of this faith for later generations. And Buddhism’s most famous, and influential, early convert was King Ashoka himself, another resident of Magadha, in its chief city, Pataliputra (modern Patna in the state of Bihar on the Ganges).

This geographical coincidence might have been expected to lead Buddhism to favor Magadhi. The Buddha had advised his monks to teach in their own language. His view here seems to have involved not only a respect for the vernacular, but also a positive belief that his caste, the warrior Kshatriya, was actually superior to the priestly Brahmana with its Sanskrit associations.

But the monks did not in turn privilege the common speech of the Buddha himself and his region. Rather, they declared themselves in favor of any form of vernacular language. There are stories that this caused some unease among Brahman monks, who feared that the resulting slack grammar and pronunciation would corrupt the saying of the Buddha. However, in time a particular Prakrit did come to predominate: it was called Pali (“canonical”) and was a mixed Prakrit. Despite the claims of the Buddhist tradition (which also claimed that this language had been spoken by the Buddha), Pali was not predominantly Magadhi, but included many distinctively Western elements, reminiscent of Sauraseni: it must have arisen as a kind of Buddhist Aryan creole, by a process of compromise among monks speaking various Prakrits. [Buddhists can't have it both ways: if Buddha spoke Pali, and Pali had many distinctly Western elements, then he probably lived farther west than Magadhi.]

THE GREEKS

The Greeks knew little about India until Alexander’s campaigns brought them to its borders in 327 BCE. Thereafter there were diplomatic exchanges between some of the great Indian rulers of the north and the Greek dynasts who controlled the east of what had been the Persian empire, the Seleucids. From 302 to 288 Megasthenes served as Seleucid ambassador to King Chandragupta Maurya to Pataliputra (Patna), which he introduced to the Greek world as Palibothra. He left a discursive study of Indian ways, the Indika, which, taken together with some reports of Onesicritus and Nearchus, naval officers who had written memoirs of their service with Alexander, stood as the core of Greek knowledge of India until the end of the ancient world.

Megasthenes does cope more explicitly with the more intellectual aspects of religions practiced in the Maurya empire of his time, distinguishing Brahmans (brakhmanai or bragmanai) and Sramans (sarmanai) as different kinds of philosophers. Sramana is indeed a Sanskrit word sometimes used specifically for Buddhist monks, but there is no explicit mention of Buddhism, which would have been some two hundred years old at the time (having been founded in exactly the same region where Megasthenes was resident). [It seems odd that if Megasthenes had lived at the center of Buddhism that he should not have mentioned Buddha specifically.]

The commentary tends to be focused at a fairly superficial level, for example the presence of gumnosophistai, or naked sages, and the fact that male and female students were on a par as disciples to the Sramans. [Doesn't sound like Buddhism.] Megasthenes apparently never understood that the Brahmans are in fact one of the “tribes”, i.e. castes, that he had distinguished: nor that “forest-dwellers” are not a species of Sraman, but rather those who have reached a certain period of life, whether Brahman or Sraman. [Megasthenes lived 14 years in Pataliputra; it would seem improbable that during those years he couldn’t have worked all this out.]

Megasthenes’ work, which came to form Europe’s knowledge of India up until the Renaissance, was in some ways lacking in understanding, and never offered any appreciation of philosophy, language or literature. In one case, a sage joked that since the conversation took place through three interpreters, they were as likely to get a clear idea of the philosophy being expounded as to purify water by running it through mud.

But this did not mean that the Greeks who lived closer in were similarly lacking. One Greek king of the Panjab, Menander (second century BCE), in fact became immortalized for his penetrating interest in Buddhism in the form of the Pali classic Milinda-panha, or “Questions of King Milinda”: “Many were the arts and sciences he knew—holy tradition and secular law; the Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya and Vaisesika systems of philosophy; arithmetic, music; medicine; the four Vedas, the Puranas and the Itihasas; astronomy, magic, causation and spells; the art of war; poetry; and property-conveyancing—in a word, the full nineteen.”

And another Indo-Greek of the same period, announcing himself as Heliodorus, Greek ambassador (yonaduta) from King Antialkidas, left an inscription in perfect Prakrit on a column still standing at Besnagar in Madhya Pradesh. It ends with the spiritual precept:
Three steps to immortality, when correctly followed, lead to heaven: control, generosity, attention.

Strictly speaking, Manu’s contemporary conception of Madhyadesa (“midland”) [see map] would have excluded Magadha and the region of the lower Ganges as too far to the east. But in practice we can infer from Xuanzang that in his day the speech of “Middle India” included the language of Pataliputra, ancient capital of several Indian empires, and of Nalanda, even then the pre-eminent university in the land.

Sanskrit and its related Indo-Aryan languages are different from all their relatives to the north and west, in Iran, Russia and Europe, in possessing an extra series of consonants, known to Sanskrit grammarians as the murdhanya (“in the head”) sounds, or to Westerners as the retroflex stops, after the position of the tongue, with the tongue curled backward against the roof of the mouth. These sounds are all characteristic of the Dravidian languages now spoken in the south of the Aryan languages in India, as well as other neighbors, such as the Munda languages dotted around the northeast of India. Whereas no other Indo-European language has them (making them unlikely as a feature of whatever language they all originate from), they are so systematic in Dravidian that they are probably as old as the family. It would appear, then, that they have established themselves in Sanskrit and Aryan as a “substrate”, a residual feature of the languages that the earliest adopters of Sanskrit were speaking, and could not lose when they learned the new language.

In fact, it remains obscure what, if any, linguistic effect Ashoka’s conquest had on Kalinga. It is just too long ago, and too much has happened since. Orissa is now a mainly Aryan-speaking area: the earliest inscriptions in its language date from the tenth century CE. The language is Oriya, closely related to the Bengali spoken farther north: but little is known of its earlier history, and it has been suggested that Orissa was still non-Aryan even in the seventh century CE. Xuanzang recognized at least three distinct countries in this region: Udra (the origin of the name Orissa), which he said had “words and language different from Central India”, Konyodha, “with the same written characters as those of mid-India, but language and mode of pronunciation quite different”, and Kalinga, where “the language is light and tripping, and their pronunciation is distinct and correct. Both in particulars, that is, as to words and sounds, they are very different from mid-India.”

Sanskrit influence permeated farther south, with the cultural spread of Hinduism, eventually saturating with borrowed words three of the major non-Aryan languages. Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Tamil, in the extreme southeast, was less affected linguistically, although its society was ultimately no less Hindu. And besides this gradual export of words, there had also been, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, a major transplant of a whole community, with its Aryan language, to the extreme south. This accounts for the presence of Sinhala in Sri Lanka. The history of the movement of people that brought this language is not documented, but it may be reflected through the legend in the epic Ramayana, which climaxes in a military expedition to this island. About two hundred years later, in the late third century BCE, the links between Sri Lanka and the Aryan north were reinforced when Ashoka sent his son Mahinda to the island as a Buddhist missionary, so founding the Theravada school of Buddhism which has endured to this day. [Of course, this is the stuff of legend. According to a footnote in A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms by James Legge (1886), the Chinese traveler Fa-Hein, who traveled through India and Sri Lanka in search of the Buddhist books of discipline between CE 399-414, when in Sri Lanka, heard neither of Mahinda or his sister Sanghamitta. Surely the Sri Lanka Buddhists would have mentioned that they were supposedly converted to Buddhism by King Ashoka's son and daughter, no less.]

WAS ASHOKA A BUDDHIST?

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Ashoka was the Indian Constantine,

or, more correctly,

Constantine was the Roman Ashoka.

But who was Ashoka?

Diodotus I may have been Ashoka.

Buddhists claim that King Ashoka (273-232 BCE) converted to Buddhism and propagated their faith, citing his pillars and rock edicts as evidence of this activity. In fact nowhere in these pillars and edicts is Buddhism ever mentioned, though he does mention dharma pretty often.

But as John S. Strong says in The Legend of King Asoka, “Precisely what Ashoka meant by Dharma has been the subject of much debate. In Buddhist circles, the word means the Buddha’s Teachings—his doctrine—and it is thus widely supposed that this event marked Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhist faith. More generally, however, Dharma can be translated as law, duty, or righteousness, and as such it has many overtones in Indian religion. However he intended it, in his edicts, Ashoka seems to have been obsessed with Dharma. The Ashokan state was to be governed according to Dharma. The people were to follow Dharma. Wars of aggression were to be replaced by peaceful conquests of Dharma. Special royal ministers were charged with the propagation of Dharma. True delight in this world came only with delight in Dharma, and the old royal pleasure-tours and hunts were replaced by Dharma-pilgrimages.

Map of Mauryan Empire at its height under Ashoka.

"From these and other indications, we may say that Dharma seems to have meant for Ashoka a moral polity of active social concern, religious tolerance, ecological awareness, the observance of common ethical precepts, and the renunciation of war."

To say the word features prominently in his Edicts is an understatement. Nearly all mention it, some many times, and there are several attempts at defining it, (Piyadassi is Ashoka):

"Thus speaks the Beloved of the Gods, the king Piyadassi: There is no gift comparable to the gift of dharma, the praise of dharma, the sharing of dharma, fellowship in dharma. And this is: good behavior towards slaves and servants, obedience to mother and father, generosity towards friends, acquaintances and relatives, and towards sramanas and Brahmans, and abstention from killing living beings. Father, son, brother, master, friend, acquaintance, relative, and neighbors should say, ‘this is good, this we should do.’ By doing so, there is gain in this world, and in the next there is infinite merit, through the gift of the dharma." [Eleventh Major Rock Edict.]

Map showing Ashoka's major rock edicts, (connected by red lines); minor rock edicts, (yellow lines); and pillar edicts, (blue lines).

From the above definition we cannot say that Ashoka’s use of dharma refers directly to Buddhism since the word dharma was already in general use by Brahmans and other religions. For example, dharma was used in the Arthasastra, a manual on statecraft attributed to Kautilya, Chandragupta Maurya’s (Ashoka’s grandfather) chief minister, who of course was not a Buddhist: "having acquired new territory the conqueror shall substitute his virtues for the enemy’s vices and where the enemy was good, he shall be twice as good. He shall follow policies that are pleasing and beneficial by acting according to his dharma and by granting favors and exemptions, giving gifts and bestowing honors.”

In fact, Ashoka seems to be doing no more than following Kautilya's advice. Because of these and other enlightened policies, students of world history have often spoken admiringly of Ashoka as a ruler. H.G. Wells, for example, was effusive in his praise of Ashoka, saying that “the name of Ashoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star. From the Volga to Japan, his name is still honored. China, Tibet, and even India, though it has left his doctrine, preserve the tradition of his greatness.”

There is nothing wrong with such paeans of praise, Strong says, as long as it is clear that they reflect only a personal enthusiasm for the image of Ashoka presented in the edicts. When, however, it is implied that Buddhists the world over—“from the Volga to Japan”—must have admired Ashoka for the same reasons, then an objection must be sounded. Historically speaking, Buddhists the world over have known virtually nothing about the Ashoka-of-the-edicts. Instead, their enthusiasm for Ashoka was based almost entirely on the Buddhist legends that grew up around him.

Map showing places where Ashoka was supposed to have sent Buddhist missionaries. (Google images.)

There is a very simple explanation for the predominance of the legends. Although the edicts were inscribed in the third century BCE,

"the Brahmi script in which they were written was soon forgotten and it was only with its decipherment by James Princep in 1837 that the Ashoka-of-the-edicts came to the fore once again."

There does seem to be some evidence for Ashoka's knowledge of Buddha and Buddhism. From Lucian Stryk’s World of the Buddha:

FROM A MINOR ROCK EDICT, (MASKI VERSION.)

"Thus speaks Ashoka, the Beloved of the Gods. For two and a half years I have been an open follower of the Buddha, though at first I did not make much progress. But for more than a year now I have drawn closer to the [Buddhist] Order, and have made much progress. In India the gods who formerly did not mix with men now do so. This is the result of effort, and may be obtained not only by the great, but even by the small, through effort—thus they may even easily win heaven.

"Father and mother should be obeyed, teachers should be obeyed; pity…should be felt for all creatures. These virtues of Righteousness should be practiced… . This is an ancient rule, conducive to long life."

Ashokan pillar at Vaishali. The lion faces north. (Google images.)

Left: Detail of the lion on the capital. (Google images.)

From a minor rock edict rendered into English by Venerable S. Dhammika found at the website The Edicts of King Ashoka:

"Piyadasi, King of Magadha, saluting the Sangha and wishing them good health and happiness, speaks thus:[36] You know, reverend sirs, how great my faith in the Buddha, the Dharma and Sangha is. Whatever, reverend sirs, has been spoken by Lord Buddha, all that is well-spoken,[37]. I consider it proper, reverend sirs, to advise on how the good Dharma should last long.

"These Dharma texts -- Extracts from the Discipline, the Noble Way of Life, the Fears to Come, the Poem on the Silent Sage, the Discourse on the Pure Life, Upatisa's Questions, and the Advice to Rahula which was spoken by the Buddha concerning false speech -- these Dharma texts, reverend sirs, I desire that all the monks and nuns may constantly listen to and remember, [38]. Likewise the laymen and laywomen. I have had this written that you may know my intentions."

If these minor rock edicts are authentic and Ashoka does mention Buddha by name (even though Buddha is a title and not a name), then we have to concede that he was trying to promote Buddhism. But I’m skeptical as to the authenticity of these minor rock edicts. Why didn't Ashoka mention Buddha and Sangha on the major rock edicts or pillar edicts?

This is a quote from John Keay's, A History of India:

The tradition that Ashoka actually became a Buddhist monk is now discredited. The inscriptions never mention the Buddha and show no awareness of his ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ or any other Buddhist schema. Even the idea of ‘conversion’ is suspect, since codes like those of the Buddhists and Jains were not seen as exclusive. Religion as creed, doctrine as dogma, and faith as truth are equations with little validity in pre-Islamic India. Most subscribed to the inexorable cycle of rebirth and to the notion that there were various ways of effecting eventual escape from it. The propitiation of a particular deity could help, but was more commonly a means of warding off disease and pestilence. Even brahmanical orthodoxy demanded no profession of faith, merely an acceptance of brahman authority and a high degree of caste conformity. There was indeed competition, especially amongst the heterodox sects, for adherents and for patronage. There was also ferocious debate which, on at least one occasion, required Ashoka’s intervention. But conversion, in the sense of renouncing one set of doctrines for another, was meaningless.

To understand who Ashoka was, read this chapter from Buddhist India by T. W. Rhys Davids, published 1903. Davids was one of the early Buddhism scholars and the chapter gives us a picture of Ashoka before some later scholars began adding their own spin.

ASHOKA

Chandragupta, aided very largely by the previous organization of the great empire of Magadha, was able, once he had gained the mastery, not only to remain in possession for the long period of twenty-four years (about BCE 322—298), but to hand on the empire, with enlarged territory, to his son, Bindusara. Of him we know almost nothing. The Ceylon Chronicles merely say that he reigned for about twenty-eight years, and the Greeks, who call him Amitrochates (that is, Amitra-ghata, foe-destroyer, no doubt an official title), only tell us that Deimachos was sent to him as ambassador by Antiokhos, and Dionysios by Ptolemy Philadelphos. A few sentences from the pen of the former are still extant.

When he died, about 270 BCE, he was succeeded by his son, Ashoka, then the Magadha viceroy at Ujjeni, of whom the Ceylon Chronicles and other Buddhist writings, and his own inscriptions, tell us so much. The Greeks do not mention him[very odd, considering Asoka's empire was the greatest empire of ancient India], and the Brahmin records completely ignore him until the time when, ten or twelve centuries afterwards, all danger of his influence had passed definitely away. They then go so far as to include his name among others in a list of kings. When this was done the authors of it had no access to the Buddhist writings, and could not read the inscriptions. It follows that the tradition had been carried down, all the time, in the Brahmin schools, though not one word about it had allowed to transpire.

At the beginning of the researches by European scholars the Ceylon Chronicles were of most service. As I had said elsewhere:

“When in the thirties that most gifted and original of Indian archaeologists, James Prinsep—clarum et venerabile nomen—was wearing himself out in his enthusiastic efforts to decipher the coins and inscriptions of India, whilst the very alphabets and dialects were as yet uncertain, he received constant help from George Turnour of the Ceylon Civil Service. For in Ceylon there was a history, indeed several books of history; whereas in Calcutta the native records were devoid of any reliable data to help in the identification of the new names Prinsep thought he could make out. It is not too much to say that without the help of the Ceylon books the striking identification of the King Piyadassi of the inscriptions with the King Ashoka of history would never had been made. Once made, it rendered subsequent steps comparatively easy; and it gave to Prinsep and his coadjutors just that encouragement, and that element of certainty, which were needed to keep their enthusiasm alive.”

So Prinsep read the inscriptions. Building on the foundation he laid, we can read them better now. But we are not likely to forget the genial scholar whose noble life was sacrificed in the seemingly impossible task of laying those foundations. Now that we have the contemporary records in all their simplicity, and redolent of the time, the picturesque accounts, written six centuries or more afterwards, by well-meaning members of the Buddhist Order, who were thinking the while, not of historical criticism, but of religious edification, seem of poor account. It may be human to kick down the ladder by which one has just climbed up. But we need not do so, in this case, with too great violence. We may want it again. And it jars upon the reader to hear the Chronicles called the mendacious fictions of unscrupulous monks. Such expressions are inaccurate; and they show a grave want of appreciation of the points worth considering. Just as in the case of Megasthenes, or of the early English chronicles, so also in the case of the Ceylon chronicles it would be unreasonable to expect that sort of historical training which is of quite recent growth even in Europe. The Ceylon Chronicles would not suffer in comparison with the best of the Chronicles, even though so considerably later in date, written in England or France. The opinion of scholars as to the attitude to be adopted towards such works is quite unanimous. The hypothesis of deliberate lying, of conscious forgery, is generally discredited. What we find in such chronicles is not, indeed, sober history, as we should now understand the term, but neither is it pure fiction. It is good evidence of opinion as held at the time when it was written. And from the fact that such an opinion was then held we can argue back, according to the circumstances of each case, to what was probably the opinion held at some earlier date. No hard words are needed: and we may be unfeignedly grateful to these old students and writers for having preserved as much as we can gather from their imperfect records.

It may be asked, perhaps, why we do not try to save the intellectual effort necessary to balance probabilities in later accounts that cannot be entirely trusted, by confining ourselves exclusively to the contemporary documents, the inscriptions? The answer is that such a method would be absurd; it would not even save trouble. They give only a limited view of the set of circumstances they deal with. Royal proclamations, and official statements, are not usually regarded as telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. To put it mildly, there is an economy of candor in these documents, intensely interesting though they are. And they are enigmatic. It is not possible to understand them without the light thrown upon them by the later accounts. It would only add to their difficulty to reject, for instance, the identification of the Piyadassi of the inscriptions with the Ashoka of the literature, or the fact of his relationship to Chandragupta, or of his capital having been at Pataliputta, or any other of the numerous sidelights to be drawn from the Chronicles. As M. Senart says:

“I believe that the Chronicles have, in certain details, under the name of Ashoka, preserved of our Piyadasi recollections sufficiently exact, not only to allow a substantial agreement (une concordance sensible) to appear, but even to contribute usefully to the intelligence of obscure passages in our monuments.”

Besides numerous passages scattered through other books (which have not yet been collected) we have four connected narratives dealing with Ashoka. These are:

(1). The Ashoka Avadhana, in Buddhist Sanskrit, preserved in Nepal. [Avadhana means legend, and as the title states, this is pure legend: see here.]

(2). The Dipavamsa, in Pali, preserved in Burma.

(3). Buddhaghosa's account in his commentry on the Vinaya.

(4). The Mahavamsa, in Pali, preserved in Ceylon.

[The Dipavamsa is the oldest known Pali chronicle of Sri Lanka which deals with the history of the island up to the time of Mahasena (325-352 CE), which can be ascribed to the 4th century CE. The other chronicle is the Mahavamsa, composed by Mahasama (5th century CE) which deals with the history of Sri Lanka up to the time of Mahasena. So both chronicles are very late and anything they have to say about Ashoka would be legend passed down orally over the centuries. Also see below.]

Of these, the first was composed in the Ganges valley. The author and date are unknown; but it is probably as late as the third century of our era. It forms one of a collection of legends called Divyavadana. The exact force of this title is somewhat ambiguous. Avadana means a story, but as it is used exclusively of the life-story of a person distinguished in the religion, the collection corresponds to the Vitæ Sanctorum of the Christian Church. We know so little, as yet, of the literature of Buddhist Sanskrit that we cannot form any clear idea of the method by which the tradition it has preserved was handed down.

It is otherwise with the other three. We know that there were two great monasteries at Anuradhapura in Ceylon, the Great Minster and the North Minister. There the canonical books were handed down, in Pali; and commentaries upon them, in Sinhalese, interspersed with mnemonic verses in Pali. In the third century of our era someone collected such of these Pali verses as referred to the history of Ceylon, piecing them together by other verses to make them a consecutive narrative. He called his poem, thus constructed, the Dipa-vamsa, the Island Chronicle. The old verses were atrocious Pali, and the new ones added are not much better. Then, as the old ones were taken, not from one commentary only, but from several, we get the same episode repeated in different verses. Added to this the work was supplanted in Ceylon by the much better-written book called the Maha-vamsa, or Great Chronicle; and was completely lost there. The present text, which is corrupt, has been restored, in the excellent edition by Professor Oldenberg, from MSS., all of which are derived from a single copy that had been preserved in Burma.

Shortly after the Island Chronicle was composed, the celebrated Buddhaghosa, a Brahmin from Behar came over to Ceylon, and rewrote in Pali the old Sinhalese commentaries. His work supplanted the latter, which are now lost, and is the only evidence we have of the nature of the ancient tradition. He quotes, from the old Sinhalese commentary, a number of mnemonic verses also contained in the Island Chronicle, and gives us, in Pali, the substance of the Sinhalese prose with which they had originally been accompanied.

A generation afterwards Mahanama wrote his great work, the Maha-vamsa. He was no historian, and had, besides the material used by his two predecessors, only popular legends to work on. But he was a literary artist, and his book is really an epic poem of remarkable merit, with the national idol, Dushta Gamini, the conqueror of the invading hosts of the Tamils, as its hero. What he says of other kings, and of Ashoka amongst them, is only by way of introduction, or of epilogue, to the main story.

I have compared historically the various versions of one episode in these and other narratives (that of Ashoka and the Buddha relics), and have show how interesting are the results to be derived from that method. To retell such an episode in one’s own words may be a successful literary effort, but it would be of no historical value. It would give us merely a new version, and a version that had not been believed anywhere, at any time, in India. By the historical method, a few facts of importance may yet be gathered from amidst the poetical reveries of these later authors.

So, for instance, the tradition—Indian of course in origin, but preserved in Nepal—states that Ashoka’s mother was the daughter of a Brahmin living in Champa. This may well be so. We hear nothing of his youth or early training. The Ceylon books all say that at the time of his father’s death he was holding the position of viceroy at Ujjeni, and that he had there married a local lady residing at Vedisa, afterwards the site of the celebrated building now known as the Sanchi Tope. They had two children, a son, Mahinda, and a daughter, Sanghamitta. But as this was really a misalliance, the lady being only of a merchant’s family, she was left behind when Ashoka left Ujjeni to go to Pataliputta and there secure the succession.

All the accounts agree that this was no easy task. His elder brother, the viceroy of Takka-sila in the Panjab, opposed him, and it was only after a severe struggle, and not without bloodshed, including the death of his brother, that Ashoka made his way to the throne. The details of the struggle differ in the different stories, and there is a passing expression in one of the Edicts (all the more valuable because it is incidental) of brothers of the King being still alive well on in his reign. On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the tradition of a disputed succession is founded on fact. The Chronicles say that Ashoka was not formally anointed king till between the fourth and the fifth year after Bindusara’s death, and the language of the Edicts, which are dated, whenever they are dated, from the formal anointing, and not from the succession, would harmonize with this.

Of the events of the first few years after Ashoka’s reign we have no information. In the ninth year a war broke out between Magadha and Kalinga, perhaps the then most powerful kingdom in India still independent of the empire ruled over by Ashoka. Of the rights and wrongs of the dispute we cannot judge. Our sole information comes from one side only, and is an incidental reference in the thirteenth Edict, published by Ashoka five years afterwards. In that document the King states that it was the remorse and pity that aroused in his mind by the horrors of the conquest—the killing, death by disease, and forcible carrying away of individuals, to which non-combatants and even peaceable Brahmins and recluses were exposed—that resulted in his conversion. He does not say to what. That, apparently, was supposed to be quite clear to anyone. It was sufficient to say that he had come to the opinion that the only true conquest was conquest by the religion (by the Dhamma).

We are told, by the King himself, of three stages in his conversion. The Rupnath Edict is of about the same date as the last, but perhaps a little earlier, say the thirteenth year after his being formally anointed, or, as we should say, crowned—that is, in the seventeenth year after he became de jure the king. There he says that for two and a half years he had been a lay disciple (an upasaka), but had not developed much zeal; but one year before (before the date of the Edict) he had entered the Order, and begun to show greater zeal. Then in the eighth Rock Edict he declares that in the thirteenth year after his coronation he had set out for the Sambodhi--that is to say, he had set out, along the Aryan Eightfold Path, towards the attainment (if not in his present life then in some future birth as a man) of the state of mind called Arahatship. So in the ninth year of his reign an Upasaka, in the eleventh year a Bhikshu, in the thirteenth, still reaching upward, he enters the Path.

[He probably did not mean he entered the Order in the usual way: a king does not become a monk and remain a king.]

This is his own account of the matter, and he gives no one else any credit for his progress. It is not by any suggestion or instruction, received either from layman or recluse, that he has adopted this course. It is his own doing throughout. The Chronicles profess to know the name of the bhikshu who was instrumental in his conversion. I am not prepared to say, though their evidence is so much later, that there may not be some truth in their view. It is quite true that it is sound Buddhist doctrine that each man is “to be a lamp unto himself, to hold fast as a refuge to the truth [the Dhamma], to look not for refuge to any one besides himself.” But it is so very likely that one factor at least in the King’s change of heart may have been the exhortation or conversation of one or other of the Arahats, that we may suppose both accounts to have been right. It is strange for a king, whether in India or in Europe, to devote himself strenuously to the higher life at all. It is doubly strange that, in doing so, he should select a system of belief where salvation, independent of any belief in a soul, lay in self-conquest. No ordinary man would have so behaved; and the result must have been due mainly to his own character, his firmness of purpose, his strong individuality. But he was quite incapable of inventing the system. We know it had existed long before. And it is not probable that those who had already trained themselves in it were wholly without influence upon him.

Henceforward he devoted his great energy, and the powerful resources of his wide empire to the realization of his new ideals. To that end all his edicts were published, all the changes he made in the administration of his empire were directed, and enormous sums were lavished in the erection of costly buildings in aid of the new faith. It is characteristic that he says not a word of these last. To his mind it was apparently the teaching that was so much the most important thing that it swallowed up every other consideration. But the unanimous testimony of all the later traditions, confirmed as it is by the actual remains discovered, leaves no doubt upon the point.

It is true that no building erected by Ashoka remains intact above ground, but an inscription of his has been found at Sanchi, and it is the unanimous opinion of scholars that he built the first temple at Bodh Gaya. Sanchi, the old name of which is Chetiya Giri (the Hill with the Shrine upon it); must have been a famous place before Ashoka went to Ujjeni. There are no less than eleven topes on the plateau at the top of the hill. Some of them were opened in 1822 and the rest in 1851. At the second excavation one of the smaller ones was found to contain part of the ashes from the funeral pyres of Sariputta and Moggallana, two of the Buddha’s principal disciples. The village Vedisa, where Ashoka made the acquaintance of his first wife, lies close by, and the tops of other hills in the neighborhood are also crowned with stupas.

The person in whose honor the largest tope was built has not been discovered, as the relic box within it could not be found. But a large number of inscriptions in characters of the Ashoka period have been found on the pillars and railing surrounding it. And General Cunningham was of opinion that, while this tope itself, like the other topes on the plateau, was older and the gateways younger than Ashoka’s time, the Buddhist railing round it belonged to his reign. But it is by no means impossible that the gateways also should be ascribed to Ashoka. And, in any case,the remains at Sanchi may be fairly used to give us an idea of the kind of building that was likely to be put up by Ashoka’s command, and has played so great a part in the history of Buddhist India. The whole site is now a desolate ruin; and no attempt has yet been made to give, in drawing, a restoration of how it must have appeared in the days of its early beauty. But the annexed illustrations show the present appearance of the principal tope, and some of the details of the surrounding sculptures. And a portion of the railing round Bharahat [Bharhut] is added for the sake of comparison.

At Bodh Gaya, on the other hand, though it is known that Ashoka built the original temple, it has been so often changed, and added to, that only a few fragments of railing, and probably the very remarkable sinhasana, or throne, remain of the work done in his time. The present building has been restored, as a national monument, by order of the English Government. It will be noticed how different it is in outline from the ancient form, as how in the illustration of the Sanchi Tope. This is due to a difference of ideal. The ancient tope was an enlarged and glorified circular burial mound. The later ones imitate an ordinary dwelling-hut, the outline of which was determined by the natural bend of two bamboos, planted apart in the ground, and drawn together at the top. This shape is characteristic of all medieval temples in India, and an illustration of the Jain temple at Khujarao is annexed, as one of the best examples of this style. But to return to Ashoka’s own doings.

The Edicts hitherto discovered are thirty-four in number. We know of others seen in the seventh century, and we know, approximately, the sites on which they were seen—such, for instance, as those at Savatthi and Ramagama—and there must be others besides. Further discoveries, therefore, may be confidently anticipated. Of those now known two are merely commemorative proclamations recording visits paid by Ashoka—one to the stupa erected over the funeral urn of Konagamana the Buddha, and one to the birthplace of Gotama the Buddha. Three others are merely short dedications of certain caves to the use of the Ajivakas, a body of ascetic recluses often mentioned in the Buddhist canonical books. The remainder are so many tracts, short proclamations on stone, published with the view of propagating the Dhamma, or of explaining the methods adopted by the Emperor to that end.

The word “Dhamma” has given, and will always give, great trouble to the translators. It connotes or involves, so much. Etymologically it is identical with the Latin word forma; and the way in which it came to be used as it was in India, in Ashoka’s time, is well illustrated by the history of our own colloquialism “good form.” Dhamma has been rendered Law. But it never has any one of the various senses attached to the word “law” in English. It means rather, when used in this connection, that which it is “good form” to do in accord with established custom. So it never means exactly religion, but rather, when used in that connection, what it behoves a man of right feeling to do—or, on the other hand, what a man of sense will naturally hold. It lies quite apart from all questions either of ritual or of theology.

On such Dhamma the Brahmins, as such, did not then even pose as authorities. But it was the main subject of thought and discussion among the Wanderers, and to them the people looked up as teachers of the Dhamma. And while, on the other hand, the Dhamma was common property to them all, was Indian rather than Buddhist, yet, on the other hand, the people we now call Buddhists (they did not call themselves so) were concerned so exclusively with the Dhamma, apart from ritual or theology, that their doctrine was called the Dhamma. It fell, naturally, for them into three divisions, quite distinct one from the other—the theory of what it was right (good form) for the layman (the upasaka) to do and to be, of what it was right for the Wanderer (the Pabbajita) to do and to be; and thirdly, what the men or women, whether laity or Wanderers, who had entered the Path to Arahatship, should do, and be, and know. On each of these three points their views, amidst much that was identical with those generally held, contained also, in many details, things peculiar to themselves alone. Now the Dhamma promulgated by Ashoka was the first, only, of these three divisions. It was the Dhamma for laymen, as generally held in India, but in the form, and with the modifications, adopted by the Buddhists.

The curious thing about this Dhamma, as a description of the whole duty of man, of the good layman, is—especially when we consider its date—its extraordinary simplicity. This is, historically, so very interesting, that it will be worthwhile to set it out in full.

ASHOKA’S DHAMMA.

ROCK EDICT, NO. 1.
1. No animal may be slaughtered for sacrifice.
2. Tribal feasts in high places are not to be celebrated.

ROCK EDICT NO. 3.
3. Docility to parents is good.
4. Liberality to friends, acquaintances and relatives, and to Brahmins and recluses is good.
5. Not to injure living beings is good.
6. Economy in expenditure, and avoiding disputes, is good.

ROCK EDICT NO. 7.
7. Self-mastery is always possible and excellent even for the man who is too poor to be able to give largely.
8. Purity of heart is always possible and excellent even for the man who is too poor to be able to give largely.
9. Gratitude is always possible and excellent even for the man who is too poor to be able to give largely.
10. Fidelity is always possible and excellent even for the man who is too poor to be able to give largely.

ROCK EDICTS NOS. 9 & 11.
11. People perform rites or ceremonies for luck on occasion of sickness, weddings, childbirth, or on starting on a journey—corrupt and worthless ceremonies. Now there is a lucky ceremony that may be performed—not worthless like those, but full of fruit—the lucky ceremony of the Dhamma. And therein is included the right conduct towards slaves and servants, honor towards teachers, self-restraint towards living things, liberality to Brahmins and recluses. These things, and others such as these, are the lucky ceremony according to the Dhamma. Therefore should one—whether father or son or brother or master—interfere and say: “So is right. Thus should the ceremony be done to lasting profit. People say liberality is good. But no gift, no aid, is so good as giving to others the gift of the Dhamma, as aiding others to gain the Dhamma.”

ROCK EDICT, NO. 12.
12. Toleration. Honor should be paid to all, laymen and recluses alike, belonging to other sects. No one should disparage other sects to exalt his own. Self-restraint in words is the right thing. And let a man seek rather after the growth in his own sect of the essence of the matter.

PILLAR EDICT, NO. 2.
13. The Dhamma is good. But what is the Dhamma? The having but little, in one’s own mind, of the Intoxications; doing many benefits to others; compassion; liberality; truth; purity.

PILLAR EDICT, NO. 3.
14. Man sees but his good deeds, saying: “This good act have I done.” Man sees not at all his evil deeds, saying: “That bad act have I done, that act is corruption.” Such self-examination is hard. Yet must a man watch over himself, saying: “Such and such acts lead to corruption—such as brutality, cruelty, anger, and pride. I will zealously see to it that I slander not out of envy. That will be to my advantage in this world, to my advantage, verily in the world to come.”

That is all. There is not a word about God or the soul, not a word about Buddha or Buddhism. The appeal is made, in apparent confidence that the statements are self-evident, to all the subjects of the empire. Under what conditions would such a state of things have been possible? Had there been then anything new or strange in this view of life (which now seems so strange to a European reader) there would haved been phrases in the Edicts striving to meet the natural objection that must certainly have arisen. There is nothing of the king. It follows that the doctrine, as an ideal, must have been already widely accepted, though men did not always act up to it. It is exactly as if, in a country already Christian, the king should issue proclamations calling on the people, in this point or in that, to act up to recognize the ideal of the Christian life. Ashoka, precisely as in the parallel case of Constantine, embraced a cause so far successful that it seemed on the verge of victory. And it is not at all unlikely that reasons of state may have had their share in influencing Ashoka, just as they certainly did in the case of Constantine.

It was not only within the boundaries of his own empire that Ashoka tried to spread the Dhamma. In the thirteenth Edict, in about 225 BCE, addressed to his sons and grandsons, after declaring that he himself found pleasure rather in conquests by the Dhamma than in conquests by the sword, he says he had already made such conquests in the realms of the kings of Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Epirus, and Kyrene, among the Cholas and Pandyas in South India, in Ceylon, and among a number of peoples dwelling in the borders of his empire.

"Everywhere” he adds, “men conform to the instructions of the King as regards the Dhamma; and even where the emissaries of the King go not, there, when they have heard of the King’s Dhamma, the folk conform themselves, and will conform themselves, to the duties of the Dhamma, that dyke against… [here the context is lost].

It is difficult to say how much of this is mere royal rhodomontade. It is quite likely that the Greek kings are only thrown in by way of makeweight, as it were; and that no emissaries had been actually sent there at all. Even had they been sent, there is little reason to believe that the Greek self-complacency would have been much disturbed. Ashoka’s estimate of the results obtained is better evidence of his own vanity than it is of Greek docility. We may imagine the Greek amusement at the absurd idea of a “barbarian” teaching them their duty; but we can scarcely imagine them discarding their gods and their superstitions at the bidding of an alien king.

Here, fortunately, the Chronicles come to our assistance. In a curt record they give us the names of missionaries sent out by Tissa, the son of Moggali (the author of the Katha Vatthu, and the president of the 3rd Council held in Ashoka’s reign and under his patronage). They were sent to Kashmir, to Gandhara, to the Himalaya (Nepal or Tibet), to the border lands on the Indus, to the coast of Burma, to South India and Ceylon. Each party consisted of a leader and four assistants. Of the five missionaries to the Himalaya region three are named as Majjhima, Kassapa-gotta, and Dunmdubhissara.

Now when Cunningham opened the Topes (brick burial mounds) at and near Sanchi he discovered under them several of the funeral urns containing ashes from the funeral pyres of the distinguished persons whose honor the Topes had been built. One of the urns has inscribed round the outside of it, in letters of the 3rd Century, BCE, the simple legend: “Of the good man, Kassap-gotta, the teacher of all the Himalaya region.” Round the inside of the urn is the legend: “Of the good man, Majjhima.” In another Tope close by at Sanari two urns bear the separate inscriptions: “Of the good man, Kassapa-gotta, son of Koti, teacher of all the Himalaya region,” and: “Of the good man Majjhima, the son of Kodini.” In the same Tope was a third urn with the inscription: “Of the good man Gotiputta, of the Himalaya, successor of Dundubhissara.”

Many of the Topes had been opened, in search of treasure, and the urns in them ruthlessly destroyed, before the archeologists examined them; so the evidence is incomplete. Even as it stands the evidence of the old characters on those preserved to us will be estimated in different ways by different minds. With these, and similar facts before them, some still consider the literature as a tissue of mendacious fictions; others still consider that the Buddha is only a sun myth, and his disciples merely stars. I must humbly confess myself unable to follow speculations so bold. The Ceylon scholars knew, of course, nothing of these long-buried inscriptions; and could not have read or understood them, even had they access to them. What we have to explain is how they came, centuries afterwards, to record precisely the same names in precisely the same connection. It is only the wildest credulity that could ascribe this to chance. And, dull as it may seem, I see no better explanation than the very simple one that these men really went as missionary teachers to the Himalaya region, and that the fact that they had done so was handed down, in unbroken tradition, till the Chroniclers put it down for us.

The Chronicles thus not only confirm but also supplement Ashoka’s information about the missions. And when we find that they ascribe the sending out of the missionaries, not to Ashoka, but to the leaders of the Order, and that they make no mention of any such missions to the Greek kingdoms in the distant West, is at least probable that the views they take is more accurate, in these respects, than the official proclamations.

So Ashoka mentions a mission to Ceylon. But it is his mission. No credit is given to anyone except himself. He merely says it was successful, and gives no details. As we might expect, the Chroniclers of the island give names and details, which they work up into a picturesque and edifying legend. Its central incident is the transplanting to Ceylon of a branch of the tree at Bodh Gaya under which the Buddha had achieved enlightenment.

Now this event is portrayed on two curious bas-reliefs on the Eastern Gateway at Sanchi, which must be nearly as old as the event itself. In the middle of the lower picture is the Bodhi Tree, as it stood at Gaya, with Ashoka’s chapel rising halfway up the tree. A precession with musicians is on both sides of it. To the right a royal person, perhaps Ashoka, is getting down from his horse by the aid of a dwarf. In the upper right picture there is a small Bodhi tree in a pot, and again a great procession, with to the left a city, perhaps Anuradhapura, perhaps Tamralipti, to which the young tree was taken before it went to Ceylon. The decorations on either side of the lower bas-relief are peacocks, symbolical of Ashoka’s family, the Moriyas (the Peacock); and lions, symbolical of Ceylon, or the royal family of Ceylon (that is, of Simhala, the Lion island). Opinions may differ as to the meaning of some of the details, but there can be no doubt as to the main subject.

It was a great event, an impressive state ceremony, and a fitting climax to that one of the missionary efforts of Ashoka’s reign which was most pregnant of results. For there, in that beautiful island, the province most fruitful of any in India or its confines in continuous and successful literary work and effort, there have never been wanting, from that day to this, the requisite number of earnest scholars and students to keep alive, and hand down to their successors, and to us, that invaluable literature which has taught us much of the history of religion, not only in Ceylon, but also in India itself.

In the seventh Pillar Edict, dated in the twenty-eighth year (that is, in the thirty-second year after Bindusara’s death, say about 248 BCE), Ashoka sums up all the other measures he had taken for the propagation of what he calls his dhamma. They are as follows:

1. The appointment of functionaries in charge of districts and provinces to instruct the people.
2. The putting up of pillars of the Dhamma (that is, pillars with the Edicts inscribed on them), and the appointment of special ministers at the court to superintend the propagation of the Dhamma.
3. The planting of trees for shade, and the digging of wells, at short intervals, along the roads.
4. The appointment of special ministers to superintend charities to both householders and Wanderers, and to regulate the affairs of the Order, and of other sects having jurisdiction apart from the ordinary magistrates.
5. The Appointment of these and other officers to superintend the distribution of the charities of the Queen and their children.

He claims by these means to have had great success in promoting the Dhamma (as set out above), and adds that such positive regulations as he has made are of small account compared with the change of disposition which he has been able to bring about; and that, above all, his own example will lead people to adopt his teachings.

Anyone who knows Indian feeling will be amazed at the boldness of this program. That the king should appoint Lord High Almoners or Charity Commissioners to look after his own gifts would offend none. That these officials should be required to look into the manner in which the great people at court disbursed their charities and report if they went wrong (wrong, that is, from the king’s point of view), would be unpopular enough in any case, but doubly so when his point of view was what it was. That the king should settle disputes, when brought before him or his court, between members of the various Orders, was right enough. That he should arrogate to himself to look after their private concerns was quite another matter. That he should hold a certain set of opinions, and be bent on propagating them, was comfortable to those that held the same. That he should ignore everyone else, even on his own side, and give out that he was the teacher, and that the Dhamma was his Dhamma, would be accepted, of course; but with a shrug, suggestive that much allowance must be made for the self-complacency of kings.

That he failed was no wonder. The set of opinions he favored with his patronage was enfeebled and corrupted by his favor. With all his evident desire to do the very best possible things, and always to be open to the appeals of the subjects he looked upon as his children, he left his empire in such a condition that it soon disintegrated and crumbled away. He made the boast (vain boast) that the Brahmins, who claimed to be gods upon the earth, had, by his efforts, ceased to be so regarded, and he himself committed the irreparable of imagining himself to be adeus ex machine, able and ready to put all things and all men straight.

Yet, in spite of all, he surely remains one of the most striking and interesting personalities in the history of the world. There is a personal touch in the Edicts which cannot be ignored. The language must be his own. No minister would have dared to put such confessions and such professions into the mouth of so masterful a master. The language is rugged, uncouth, involved, full of repetitions, reminding us often of the mannerisms of the speeches of Cromwell. And the preoccupation with himself, his opinions, his example, his good deeds, amounts almost to megalomania. But how sane the grasp of things most difficult to grasp! How simple, how true, how tolerant, his view of conduct and of life! How free from all the superstitions that dominated so many minds, then as now, in East and West alike! It was not his own view, it is true, quite as much as he makes out. But he had made it his own, and was keen to bring others to know it. To realize what this means, one may consider how many of the Greek princes in all the vast domains which had once formed the empire of Alexander were intellectually capable of rising to the same height. Unless it be maintained that the general average of intelligence in such things was higher then in India than in Greece it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that Ashoka must have been a man of quite exceptional natural ability. The style of his Edicts, on the other hand, is scarcely compatible with much intellectual culture or training. His early years were apparently otherwise occupied. But his long reign is a sign of physical vigor; and of his strong will and moral earnestness, even to the point of self-control, there can be no question. Those who think Indian affairs should be looked at through the spectacles of medieval Brahmins can never forgive him for having made light of the priests, and the gods, and the superstitious ceremonies of the day. But the gospel he preached was as applicable to the India of that day as it would be to India now. That he was wanting in the most efficient sort of practical statesmanship seems to have been chiefly due to the glamour of his high position, of a majesty that was, indeed (and we should never forget this), so very splendid that it was great enough to blind the eyes of most. The culture of a Marcus Aurelius or an Akbar might have saved him from this. But even as it was, it is, among European rulers, with Marcus Aurelius for some things, with Cromwell for others, that he deserves to be compared. That is no slight praise, and had Ashoka been greater than he was he would not have attempted the impossible. We should have had no Edicts. And we should probably know little of the personality of the most remarkable, the most imposing, figure among the native princes of India.
END

THE SOURCES OF THE JATAKAS

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The Jatakas, or Buddha birth stories, are found in the Sutta Pitaka of the Tripitaka, and consists of 547 jatakas, each containing an account of the life of Buddha during some previous incarnation as a Bodhisatta (Bodhisattva), or being destined to enlightenment, before he became Buddha, the Enlightened One. Rather than being original, the bulk of these stories are pre-buddhistic, and merely adaptations of Indian tales. Each story consists of three parts: the story of the present, the story of the past, and the verses. Only the verses are regarded as canonical. The story of the present involves some supposed incident in the life of the Buddha, such as an act of disobedience or folly among the brethren of the Order, the discussion of a question of ethics, or an instance of eminent virtue. Buddha then tells a Story of the Past, which explains the present incident as a repetition of the former one, or as a parallel case, and shows the moral consequences. The third part of the story, the verses, are alone which are canonical, the prose being a commentary explaining how the verses came to be spoken.

From the Introduction to Jataka Tales, Translated by H. T. Francis and E. J. Thomas 1916.

INTRODUCTION.

We find in Hesiod the story of Jason, the son of Aeson, who by the will of the immortal gods achieved the many lamentable labors imposed on him by the haughty king Pelias, and who after his grievous toils carried off the bright-eyed maiden and made her his wife. This is a form of the tale known as the Hero’s Tasks, which exists among the most widely-scattered peoples. The comparative mythologists have explained it as a myth of the spring rains and the moon, but it does not fit into any of the theories of folktales prepared for its reception. Benfey held that although the impulse to invent folktales is a feature of general human nature, yet the existing folktales of Europe and Asia as a matter of fact originated in India. But this theory too is contradicted by the Jason story. Andrew Lang has compared various forms of it found among peoples not related either in language or culture—the Algonquin Indians, the Samoans, and Zulus, besides European races. It also exists in an Indian shape in the present selection of birth-stories from the Jataka (No. 220). This instance suggests, and many more could be given, that it is too early to speak of a “science of folktales.” The investigators are not yet even agreed upon a scientific method.

The great authority of Benfey has popularized the view that Indian folktales originated with the Buddhists. His work was done before the Jataka, the great collection of Buddhist birth-stories, was known, and it is now possible to see from the stories themselves that, so far from Buddhism being a great source of folktales, the bulk of those which occur in the Jataka are pre-buddhistic, and merely adaptations of Indian tales.

Benfey’s main argument for the buddhistic origin of Indian folktales was the fact that traces of Buddhism appeared to be found in the Pancha-tantra, the Indian collection of tales which has become widely known in the West as the fables of Bidpai. From this he inferred that the Pancha-tantra was a Buddhist work revised by Brahmins. But we now know that the work was of Brahmin origin, and had been revised in the versions which Benfey used by Buddhists and Jain editors. This has been proved by Dr. Hertel, who has edited and translated a much earlier form of the Pancha-tantra, known as the Tantrakhayayika, which is purely brahmanistic and without any Buddhist features. The question of the history of Indian folktales has not been simplified by this discovery, but has made it impossible to look for their origin in Buddhism.

The Jataka, as we possess it, occurs in the second of the three great divisions of the Pali Buddhist Scriptures, and in the Miscellaneous Collection of Discourses (Khuddhaka Nikaya) of this division. It consists of 547 jatakas, each containing an account of the life of Gotama Buddha during some incarnation in one of his previous existences as a Bodhisatta, or being destined to enlightenment, before he became Buddha, the Enlightened One. This number does not correspond to exactly 547 stories, because some of the tales occur more than once in a different setting, or in a variant version, and occasionally several stories are included in one birth. Each separate story is embedded in a framework, which forms the Story of the Present. This is generally an account of some incident in the life of the historic Buddha, such as an act of disobedience or folly among the brethren of the Order, the discussion of a question of ethics, or an instance of eminent virtue. Buddha then tells a Story of the Past, and even in one of his previous existences which explains the present incident as a repetition of the former one, or as a parallel case, and shows the moral consequences.

To adapt such an ancient tale was in general a simple matter, as it was not necessary to make the actors Buddhists. The tale might be told of a past time when there was no Buddha in existence, and in which the ideas are those of ordinary Hinduism. The necessary for the story is that the Bodhisatta in some character should appear. When the tale itself contained no instance of a wise person who could play the part of the Bodhisatta, modification was necessary; though this is often done by making the Bodhisatta a divinity or a sage who witnesses the events and recites the gathas, the verses with which the tale concludes. Some of the stories of the past are evidently manufactured by adapting the circumstances in the story of the present, and building up a story of the past out of it. Verses occur in all the births. In the first division of the work there is one verse in each tale, in the second two, and so on in increasing number. It is these verses alone which are canonical, the prose being a commentary explaining how the verses came to be spoken. But even here there is evidence of adaptation. Some of the stories of the past contain no verses, and in order to make the whole correspond to one type verses are inserted in the frame story, and spoken by the Buddha after or during the recitation of the story of the past. An instance will be found in Jataka 206, page 173.

Buddhism took over the Hindu doctrine of rebirth and karma, but moralized it. Rebirth in heaven is no longer due to performing animal sacrifices, or the infliction of self-torture, but to practicing the virtues emphasized by Buddha, almsgiving, truth-speaking, forgiveness of enemies. But this teaching, which is the prominent one in the Jatakas, is not the essence of Buddhism. Doing good actions can never lead to salvation. “Whoever shall do nothing but good works will receive nothing but excellent future rewards.” The aim of the disciple is not to accumulate merit, but to win insight. Yet although much of the Jataka is merely moral instruction to the unconverted, it also expounds teaching which leads to enlightenment, such as the doctrine of impermanence, belief in the Buddha, the rejection of superstitious rites, freedom from lust, hatred, and delusion, and other bonds which the disciple must break as he advances on the Noble Path.

With regard to the question of the relation of the Jataka to non-buddhist Indian works, important results are reached by Franke in his article “Jataka Mahabharata Parallelen.” He has shown by the detailed examination of a number of parallel tales, as well as verses common to the Jataka and Mahabharata that neither work is directly dependent on the other, but that they are connected only through common sources.

A more difficult question is the relation of the beast fables to the fables of Aesop. Benfey became so firmly assured of the Greek origin of such fables in the Pancha-tantra that he refused to place the origin of that work earlier than 200 BC, on the ground that this was the earliest date at which a knowledge of Aesop’s fables could have reached India. But in the Jataka we now possess evidence for putting the existence of these fables in India much earlier. On several Buddhist stupas in India are carved representations of scenes in some of the Jataka tales and fables. The earliest and most important of these monuments is the Stupa of Bharhut, a village 120 miles southwest of Allahabad, the remains of which were discovered by Sir A. Cunningham in 1873. Carved in relief on the railings are a number of scenes of Jataka tales and fables with their titles. Twenty-eight have been identified, several so-called Aesopic fables being among them. The date of the stupa is put on epigraphical grounds between 250-200 BC, and we may assert the existence of jataka tales as early as the fourth century BC, while the tales and fables which Buddhism adopted must be much older. The first feeling of the folklorists on the publication of the Jataka was one of disappointment. Benfey’s investigations had all been on the assumption of a great Buddhist source for Indian tales, and the Jataka contained hardly anything which bore out current theories. It was suggested that the Pali scholars had played their best trumps, or were trying to win trick with cards which they kept up their sleeve. But the Jataka had really left the folklorist without a card for the game. The stories instead of being “a scanty contribution to the Aesopic question” made it obsolete. They proved the existence of a great body of Indian fable independent of any Greek source. As Mr. Jacobs has said, “it is idle to talk of a body of literature [Aesop] amounting to 300 numbers being derived from another [the Jatakas] running also to 300, when they have only a dozen items in common.

The much smaller question that remains is how, after setting aside the bulk of jataka beast fables as of Indian origin, are we to explain the parallelism in about a dozen which more or less resemble Aesop? More than this number have been compared, but many of the parallelisms, which were taken for granted as long as a common origin was assumed, have no value now that the question is open. Mr. Jacobs quotes Jataka 30, 32, 34 (with 45), 136, 143, 189, 215, 294, 308, 374, 383, 426, and among them are parallels to such well-known fables as The Ass in the Lion’s Skin, The Wolf and the Lamb, and The Fox and the Crow. It is not necessary for the present purpose to prove that even these are related in origin. The independent origin of similar tales is still a tenable theory; but it is possible to show, on the assumption that they are connected, that a path of transmission from India to Greece was open long before communications were established by Alexander. This was from India to Persia, and from Persia to Asia Minor. It can also be shown that tales from India actually reached Persia and the Euphrates district independently of any Greek mediation. Relations with India in the sixth century BC are shown by the inscriptions of Darius the Great (521-485 BC), especially in one at Persepolis, which mentions Indush, (the Indus district) and Gandara among the peoples who brought him tribute. In the Story of Ahikar we have a Persian or Babylonian story which Benfey identified with a well-known Indian type. It is the tale of a king’s minister, who falls into disfavor, and is restored through his skill in answering certain problems that had been sent to the king. This tale occurs in several Indian forms, and in Pali in a much inflated version as the Mahaummagga Jataka (546). The nineteen problems that occur in it are given below. The identity of several of the problems with the Indian, as well as the structure of the tale, is strong confirmation of the identity of the stories. One of the problems is the biblical Judgment of Solomon, for which Salzberger had already suggested a Persian origin. The date of the tale in Persia must be at least of the fifth century BC, as fragments of an Aramaic version of it have been discovered in a Persian military colony of Jews at Elephantine, which was established there during the supremacy of the Persians over Egypt. The penetration of the Ahikar story may be anterior to the Persian conquest of Babylon. That there were trade relations very early with India may be inferred from the Semitic origin of the Indian alphabet. Jataka 330 speaks of a voyage from India to Baveru, which is probably Babylon, (Babilu).

Mr. Jacobs gives several parallels to Indian fables from Midrash Rabba, a rabbinical commentary on the Pentateuch and Five Rolls. This work is a compilation much later than the date of the entry of Greeks into India, but it contains fables which possess Indian features not found in the corresponding Greek fables, and it shows communication with India outside Greek influence. According to Winter and Wünsche this Midrash is in part Babylonian, the older parts being Palestinian. The fables occurring in it are used as illustrations, and have the appearance of having been orally acquired. On Genesis 26, 26 is told the fable of the Egyptian partridge, which extracts a bone from the throat of a lion, as in Jataka 308, not a wolf, as in Aesop (Halm 276, 278b). On Esther iii 6, a bird, which builds its nest on the seashore that was threatened by the waves, tries to bale out the water with its beak, and is rebuked by another bird. Compare Jakata 146, which is without a parallel in Aesop. On Esther 3, 1 is told the story of a man who had a she-ass, its foal, and a sow. To the latter he gives unstinted food, but to the others in proportion. The foal inquires of its mother why the idle sow should be so fed. The ass replies, the hour will soon come when you will see the sow’s fate, and understand that it was well fed not out of favor, but for a disgraceful end. When the feast comes, the fatted sow is killed, and the moral explained to the foal. So in Jataka 30, where an ox and its younger brother take the place of the ass and foal. But in Aesop (Halm 113) a heifer pities a working ox. At the feast it is taken to be slaughtered, and the ox smiles and points the moral.

By Aesop we mean the Greek fables of various dates which have become collected under that name. Although the traditions as to the historical existence of Aesop are of no value, it is significant that Phrygia occurs most frequently as the home of Aesop. The name is probably Phrygian. Aesopos is the name of a river of Phrygia and Mysia, and also a Trojan at the siege of Troy. The “priority” or rather independence of Greek fable may be considered certain, but if in the case of a few it is necessary to infer a connection with the East, then we have a natural explanation in the relations of the Greeks of Asia Minor with their eastern neighbors and with Persia. Greek relations with Persia need no detailed proof. The Persian tale of Herodotus referred to on Jataka 67 (page 70) shows how such stories could easily pass to Greece.

The works showing the closest relationship with the Jataka are naturally Buddhist compositions, such as the Pali Cariyapitaka, the Sanskrit Jatakamala, Schiefner’s collection of Tibetan tales, and Chinese translations from Buddhist Sanskrit sources. The most extensive connection with non-Buddhistic collections is, apart from the Mahabharata, the Pancha-tantra, three of the frame stories of which occur in the Jataka, as well as a variant of a fourth (141, 206, 208, 349), and a number of single tales. A detailed comparison shows much the same result as in Franke’s investigation of the Mahabharata tales, that is, no direct borrowing on either side, but common inheritance from an earlier source. It was firmly held by Benfey that the Vetalapancavimsatika, “twenty-five tales of a vampire,” was of Buddhist origin. It is true that a version of it has found its way to the Buddhist Mongols, where it is known as Ssidi Kür, but it is difficult to imagine such a thesaurus of intrigue originating in a Buddhist community. The only traces of it in the Jataka are 145, of which the Vet. 21 shows a greatly elaborated version, Jataka 527 (Vet. 16), and possibly a much moralized version of No. 2 in Jataka 200.

We are dealing with a much simpler problem than the oral transmission of folktales, when we find Jataka stories in mediaeval and modern European literature, such as that of the robbers and the treasure in Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale (Jataka 48), or of the plowshares eaten by mice (Jataka 218), and the tortoise and geese (Jataka 215) among La Fontaine’s fables. These tales can be proved to have spread over Europe through literary channels. The Pancha-tantra was translated into Pahlavi from an imperfect Indian manuscript. For the Sassanid king Khosrau Anosherwan, who reigned from 531 to 579 AD. This translation has disappeared, versions known as Kalilah and Dinnah, and in English as the Fables of Bidpai. From these, and especially from the Arabic, properly belongs to the genealogy of the Pancha-tantra. A list of them is given in Lacnereau’s French translation of the Pancha-tantra, (Paris, 1871).

The present selection has been made with the purpose of bringing together the Jataka stories of most interest, both intrinsically, and also from the point of view of the folklorist. The translation adopted, with slight revision to remove inconsistencies, is taken from the complete edition translated under the editorship of Prof. E. B. Cowell, Cambridge, 1895-1907.

The thanks of the editors are due to Sir J. H. Marshall, C.I.E., Director-General of the Archaeology in India, who has had photographs expressly taken for the illustrations of the Jatakas on the carvings of the Bharhut Stupa, as well as to Professor E. J. Rapson, who has given much help and advice in their preparation and selection.
E. J. T.

February 1916

The Jataka Tales, (Open Source Buddhism Research Institute - Madison), with a traditional explanation for the source of the Jatakas.

BUDDHA BEFORE BUDDHOLOGISTS

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The story of Buddhism is a distinctively modern and, until recently, non-Buddhist thing to tell. Even the term Buddhism is of recent vintage. In seventeenth-century Europe, only four religions were identified in the world: Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedism, and Paganism (also known as Idolatry). The history of the academic study of religion is in one sense a process of replacing Paganism with a larger list of isms: Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, Sikhism, and, of course, Buddhism. Hinduism is a term derived from hind, a Persian word for the Indus River Valley, an area now located in Pakistan and populated by Muslims. Hinduism has no correlate in Sanskrit, its sacred language. Buddhism is a somewhat more complicated case. We really cannot say with certainty what the Buddha himself called what it was he said. None of what are regarded by the faithful as his words were written down until some four centuries after his death. However, when they were written down, we find him referring to what he taught as the dharma vinaya. Dharma is famously untranslatable; nineteenth-century translators used to render dharma as “law.” More recently it is often translated as teachings or doctrine. Vinaya refers to the rules of monastic discipline. Thus, the Buddha divided what he taught into, perhaps, a set of doctrines and a set of rules. The corpus of his teachings came to be referred to in Sanskrit as buddhadharma, the teaching or doctrine of the Buddha, and his followers as bauddha, Buddhists. Thus, an adjective, bauddha, that may be accurately rendered as “Buddhist,” existed in Sanskrit, even if there was little consensus over precisely what it encompassed.

But the term Buddhism has only recently been adopted by Buddhists. In Sri Lanka, what we might call Buddhism is simply refered to as the sasana, the teaching. In Tibet, it is most commonly referred to as nang pa'i chos, the religion of the insiders. In China, it is fo jiao, the teaching of the Buddha (fo used to be pronounced as budh in Chinese). In Japan, it is butsudo, the way of the Buddha. Over the history of these traditions, apart from a general recognition of India as the birthplace of the Buddha, there is little sense of the referents of these various names being a single entity that we might call Buddhism. They were, instead, like a variety of dialects, not always mutually comprehensible.

It is only with the invention of the category of religion, with its obligatory constituents of a founder, sacred scriptures, and fixed body of doctrine, that Buddhism comes to be counted as a world religion. Even then, it was judged by many Europeans as a rival to Christianity. During the nineteenth century, monks from a variety of traditions came to speak of a single pan-Asian Buddhism in an attempt to counter the attacks of Christian missionaries and colonial officials. One of the early attempts to unite Buddhism under a single creed (and a single flag) was made not by an Asian Buddhist but by a Theosophist, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott. In 1891 he formulated a set of fourteen rather bland principles that, with some effort, he persuaded a variety of Sri Lankan, Burmese, and Japanese Buddhist leaders to endorse.

Also during the nineteenth century, Buddhism became a subject of academic inquiry in Europe and America, focused primarily on the study of texts. Since that time, scholarly knowledge of Buddhism has expanded and changed and continues to change. The date of the Buddha’s birth remains a topic of active scholarly debate; the circumstances led to the rise of the movement (or movements) known as Mahayana, the “Great Vehicle,” continue to be explored, as does the degree of its importance in India; cases of the direct plagiarism of Hindu tantric texts by Buddhists (simply substituting the word Siva with the word Buddha are being discovered; birch bark scrolls inscribed with the Buddhist texts continue to be unearthed; previously unknown works (at least in Europe and America) are being translated into English; meditation is being reconsidered, both in terms of the extent of its practice historically as well as its function as a form of private and motionless ritual; the events of the first centuries after the death of the Buddha and prior to the writing down of his teachings remain a source of active speculation and study, considering, for example, what prompted the act of writing. And scholars continue to speculate about the reasons why, apart from the obvious factors such as Muslim invasions, Buddhism seemed to disappear from India, the land of its birth, around the twelfth century. It if did not entirely disappear, what remained and why?
[Adapted from The Story of Buddhism by Donald S. Lopez, Jr.]

We get a glimmering of what Thai people knew about the Buddha, before westerners made a study of Buddhism, from books written by European visitors to Siam in the 19th century and earlier. The following is adapted from Description of the Thai Kingdom or Siam: Thailand under King Mongkut by Monsignor Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix (1805-1862), a French bishop who visited Siam in the 19th century.

(For a 17th century account of Thai Buddhism and monks, whom he calls Talapoins, by Simon de la Loubère, French ambassador to Ayuttaya, see my other blog here.)

From this we can see that believers were not interested in the historical Buddha; they knew that he was born in India, they knew the names of certain places connected with his life without knowing where these were exactly. In fact, many Buddhists today say it doesn't matter whether there ever was a historical Buddha, it's the teachings which are important. What the pre-buddhologist Buddhists were interested in were the legends and stories of Buddha's past lives, the jatakas. In fact, the story of his last incarnation (as Prince Vessantara) before being born as the Buddha was probably just as significant to them as his supposedly historical life.

Mural painting from a Thai temple showing Vessantara, a previous incarnation of Buddha.

The last generation of Buddhas is contained in a book called Pra Patom Som Potijan. Pra Khodom (Gautama Buddha) was born in a city of India called Ka-billa-pat, (Kapillavastu) in about the year 543 BCE. Potisat, (Boddhisatva), the august being who was to become the Buddha, was then in the heavens called Dusit. Potisat examined the circumstances accompanying his transmigration. First, he chose the place among the sixteen kingdoms of India and the city of Ka-billa-pat was judged more convenient than any other, because it was in the center. After having determined the place, he chose the royal condition and Prince Siri Su-tot, (Sud-dho-dana) of the family of the Sakhaya, (Sakyas) was designated to be his father. Then he chose Princess Maha Maya to be his mother. The moment having come, Potisat went away, accompanied by all the angels of Dusit (Tusita) to a delightful garden where the transmigration took place.

Later the young queen had the following dream. She appeared to be transported into an enchanted region of the Himalaya Mountains. In front of her rose up a silver mountain at the top of which there was a white elephant of an extraordinary beauty. Soon she saw it come down from the mountain playing with its trunk and making the air ring out with its majestic roaring. Finally, it arrived near the queen and entered her womb in a fantastic way. The next day when she was woken up Maha Maya told her dream to her husband who called the astrologers to know its meaning. They told him: “Prince, don’t worry. This dream announces that the queen is pregnant with a boy who will reach the supreme dignity of Buddhahood.”

When the time for the delivery of the child approached, the queen wanted to spend a few days in a park where she bore the Buddha supporting herself on the branches of a tree called mai rang, (sal tree). The same day more than five hundred children destined for the service of the Buddha were also born. That day also 100,000 worlds quivered with joy and trembled to celebrate the birth of the young prince. But seven days later, his mother met the fate common to all mothers of Buddhas and died, to be reborn in one of the heavens.
It is said that not being more than a weak child, known by the name Sitat Raja Kumarn, (Prince Siddhartha), the young Buddha raised his hand toward heaven and spoke these words: “Of all beings who are on earth and in heaven, I am the most august and precious.” It is also said that his governesses, having placed him near a tree, its shade did not leave the child all day long. When this was known to the father, he came to be witness of this prodigious phenomenon, prostrated himself in front of his son and sang his praise.

When the prince reached the age of sixteen, his father married him to a princess called Pimpa, from whom he had a son called Rahun, (Rahul). Nevertheless, Indra, the King of the Angels, exposed the prince to various extraordinary visions in order to put him off the pleasures of the world. During his strolls in the royal gardens, he appeared to see decrepit elders with hideous faces, lepers, people covered with wounds, lamenting children, dying people struggling with death and a thousand other similar imaginary things. His father, seeing him sad and dreamy, tried to distract him by feasts and games and, confirmed in his suspicion in a dream, posted guards at all the palace gates and the city to prevent his son from going outside. But this was in vain, for the prince had decided to flee to the forests and completely renounce his wife, palace, and crown. Thus, one night, he woke up his horseman and both, having left the palace, went towards a gate of the city, where they found the guards asleep. At this moment Indra came to his help; four of his angels grabbed the legs of the horse and lifted it into the air and over the gate. As soon as Prince Sithat had reached the forest, he sent the horseman with the horse back to the city and entering the forest, he sat under a great sacred tree called maha po (maha bodhi, the pipal tree). There, Indra shaved his hair, dressed him in yellow dress and ordained him monk or somana, from which derives the name Somana Khodom, (Khodom was the name of the family or dynasty of this prince, Gotama in Pali). They also called him Sakkaya Muni because he descended from the Sakkaya dynasty.
He passed six years in this solitude, leading an austere life and applying himself solely to contemplation, after which he went to see and listen to famous scholars. But, seeing that he knew more than they, he abandoned them one after the other. However, the austere life he led had made him thin to the point that he no longer felt his strength. After deep reflection, he saw that this was not the voice of wisdom. He then renounced his austerity, bathed, ate and soon recovered his strength. His mind became perfectly brilliant; he recalled all his past knowledge and reached the perfect sanctity of Buddhahood. While he was still seated at the foot of the maha po tree King Pajaman, jealous of the glory to which he saw Somana Khodom elevated, sent him his three daughters to tempt him and divert him from his meditation. These three princesses used all kinds of ruses to get to their target. They painted the most seductive renderings of the world and its pleasures for Pra Khodom. They tried to capture his attention by gentle and tender words, by melodious chants and even by lascivious gestures, but they could not break his concentration. Somana Khodom remained unshakable. When Pajaman learned about the lack of success of his daughters, he became very angry and called the hundred thousand giants under his orders, came himself with his army to attack Pra Khodom. He let it rain clouds of darts and arrows on him, which, changing into flowers, made some kind of rampart around the saint. However, the angel, goddess of the earth, could not allow such an iniquity. She opened the earth and wringing her hair made come out water so abundant that they caused an inundation capable of drowning Pajaman and his giants, who could not escape except by hurried flight. It appears that Somana Khodom traveled the main cities of India accompanied by his five hundred disciples, the four famous of whom were: Prince Tevatat, (Devadhatta), his brother-in-law, who became his rival; Saribut, Mokhala and Anon, (Ananda) with whom he was closest. The kings built him several famous monasteries; he stayed quite long in the surrounding of Para-nasi, now Benares.

The Brahmins, who saw that the Buddha was glorified, became very jealous. Every time people came to listen to the sermons of Pra Khodom, he was offered so many flowers that they formed a great pile beside the hall of preaching. The Brahmins having killed a young girl, hid her secretly under these flowers. After a year or two, while there was an afflux of listeners, people were wondering where a certain deadly stench came from. Inquiries were made and when they had discovered the body, Brahmins standing around cried out that it was a young girl that Pra Khodom had abused. Most people lent credence to this calumny and deserted the side of the saint, while others, attributing the thing to the malice of his enemies, remained loyal to him. The Brahmins, seeing that their success had not been complete, thought up another trick. They engaged a young and beautiful woman of their sect to feign that she was converted to Buddhism. For several months she was very unremitting in her attention to the sermons of Pra Khodom and made gifts to him every day. Finally, it was noticed that she was pregnant and, since this woman pretended to show her pregnancy day after day, the rumor went around quickly that the saint had had intercourse with her. One day, when there was a great crowd, she herself had the shamelessness to say this before the whole assembly. But Indra, metamorphosed into a rat, crept into the dress of this woman, cut all the ropes which kept in place a pile of cloths which fell to the ground and by which everybody saw that it was a fake pregnancy and the shameless woman was chased away with hoots amidst universal indignation.
Tevatat, (Devadhattha), the brother-in-law of Somana Khodom, was his disciple together with several other princes. Now, it happened that having gone with his master to a certain city, the inhabitants who all brought presents, never gave any to him making him extremely indignant. Thus he decided on the spot to leave Pra Khodom and to attract disciples himself. In the city of Pimpisarn (Bimbisara) there was a pious King whose son was still young. Tevatat planned to entice this young prince to use him in his evil designs. He went to see him, received expensive gifts and, swollen with pride, went to propose to Pra Khodom to establish him as teacher and chief of all his disciples. Somana Khodom rejected the impertinent request of Tevatat. The latter, outraged with pique, went to see the young Prince Ajatra Sattru, (Ajatasattru) and persuaded him to get rid of his father and usurp the throne. The prince followed this iniquitous advice, usurped the throne and gave Tevatat five hundred men armed with arrows to kill Somana Khodom. He found Buddha walking at the foot of a mountain, but the mere sight of him instilled them with so much respect that nobody dared launch an arrow and they went back home. Tevatat, furious, went himself to the mountain and started to roll down rocks in order to crush Pra Khodom. However, the saint said to himself: “What crime did I commit then to be persecuted like this?” Examining his past he recalled one day in one of his generations, when drunk he had struck a monk with a small stone causing a drop of blood to appear. Consequently, he wanted to be hit at the foot by a burst of rocks that would spill as much blood as a mosquito can suck.

Tevatat aped all the manners of Pra Khodom; he managed to assemble 500 disciples around him. One day Pra Khodom sent Mokala and Saribut to take them away. Tevatat, seeing them come, imagined that they had left their master. Satisfied, he told them: “I know that when you were with Pra Khodom he treated you as his two favorites and made one of you sit on his right side and the other on his left. Come, friends, I will treat you with the same distinction.” To better cover up their plans the two envoys sat down on his side, but Tevatat having gone to sleep, Saribut started to preach and after his sermon these five hundred monks reached the sainthood of angels, were lifted into the air and disappeared with the two envoys of Pra Khodom.

After this Somana Khodom went into the city of Savati and Tevatat, having fallen ill, wanted to get back into the favor of his old master. His disciples, having put him on a stretcher, set off on the road to carry him to the monastery of Savati. When they approached, the disciples of Somana Khodom ran to inform him that Tevatat had come to see him. “I know what he wants,” he told them, “but he will not see me.” This happened several times as Tevatat got closer to the Buddha. When Tevatat had come very near the place where Somana Khodom was, the monks once more told him that he was very near: “However close he may be,” he said, “he will not see me.” The disciples of Tevatat having put him down on the ground when he wanted to walk, his feet sunk into the ground gradually absorbed him up to his neck. Seeing himself in this state, he began to pray to Somana Khodom; he humiliated himself, accepted his wrongs and begged for forgiveness, exalting and glorifying the merits and virtues of Pra Khodom. The earth thus swallowed Tevatat who descended to the great hell Aichi, where his body, 8,000 toises high, is impaled on three great iron spits and burns surrounded by flames. He is standing upright without being able to lie down or even move, and he will suffer these horrible tortures for 100,000 karb, (kalpa) after which he will return to earth and become a Buddha.

Somana Khodom, having reached the age of eighty years, ate pork that had been poisoned by Pajaman. He felt a flow of blood because of it and having gone with his disciples up to the royal garden, in the surroundings of the city of Kosinarai, (Kusinara), laid himself down on a marble table and asked for drinking water. But before they could bring it, he expired on Wednesday the fifteenth moon of the sixth month of the Year of the Small Dragon.

When the various small kingdoms of India learned about the death of the Buddha, a very great crowd gathered. The funeral ceremonies were celebrated with an unheard-of splendor and, after the cremation of his body, the Indian kings divided his relics among themselves which they took away in golden urns.

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2009-08-12T00:58:00.007-07:00

ANICONISM

2009-08-12T00:58:00.005-07:00

Worship of the Dharmachakra,
Sanchi, 2nd-1st century CE.

Aniconism refers to the art in which portrayals of the Buddha in human form did not occur. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Buddhologists were puzzled by the absence of anthropomorphic representations of Sakyamuni Buddha in the earliest surviving Buddhist art, and it was assumed that the early Buddhists either avoided Buddha images entirely, or favored the use of symbols to refer to Buddha or important events in his life. For example, the depiction of a specific tree in early stone reliefs was interpreted to signify Buddha’s enlightenment beneath the bodhi tree. Similarly, portrayals of the wheel representing Buddhist law (Dharmachakra) were thought to be symbolic representations of Buddha’s first sermon.

The early twentieth-century writer Alfred Foucher was the first to articulate the theory, which has been universally accepted for nearly a hundred years. He based his ideas on the assumption that the earliest Buddha images were those produced in the Gandhara region of ancient India during the early centuries CE—more than half a millennium after the Buddha was supposed to have lived. In Gandhara, he surmised, artists were influenced by the Greek and classical world, which stimulated the anthropomorphic images of the Buddha.

The Bimaran Casket, with the Buddha surrounded by Brahma, left, and Sakra, right. British Museum. Dated between 30 BCE to 60 CE.

Nonetheless, a fresh analysis by S. L. Huntington based on archaeological, literary, and epigraphic evidence casts doubt on the practice of deliberate avoidance of Buddha images. Proponents of the theory have contended that the practice of creating anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha was initiated only when Mahayana Buddhism began to flourish around the early centuries CE. However, others have argued that, on the basis of textual evidence, Hinayanists were probably as receptive to the making of images as Mahayanists. Indeed, in the entire corpus of Buddhist literature, scholars have been able to find only a single, indirect reference to a proscription against the creation of Buddha images, and that is limited to the context of a single Buddhist sect.

If this is correct, the Buddha himself had no objection to having images made. Indeed, I cannot see what objection Buddha would have had to creating images in his likeness, if it would help his followers to remember him by. Don't forget that in Buddha's own day his growing sect had to contend with many "heretical" rivals, including the Jains. Also, in the first couple of centuries after the death of Buddha he was regarded merely as a philosopher, an ordinary human being, and not as a divinity, so there wouldn't have been any proscription against making Buddha images.

Archaeological evidence also challenges one of the mainstays of the aniconic theory, namely, the long-held conviction that the Buddha image was first created during the Kushan period around the first or second century CE. Recently a number of sculpted Buddha images belonging to the pre-Kushan period have been identified. The early date of these images confirms that representations of Buddhas were being produced at the same time as the so-called aniconic relief panels, thus suggesting the absence of Buddha images in the reliefs cannot be attributed to the widespread prohibition of Buddha images.

Relief panel with monks and lay people circumambulating a stupa, circa 2nd century CE, Schist (15 x 19.3 cm.), British Museum.

Huntington argues that most, if not all, of these reliefs do not represent events in the life of the Buddha at all, but rather portray worship and adoration at sacred Buddhist sites. Although some of these reliefs may depict devotions made at sacred sites even while the Buddha was supposedly still alive, most of them probably show the sites as they were worshiped after the lifetime of the Buddha. He also argues that the aniconic symbols, such as empty thrones, trees, wheels, and stupas (topes), were not intended to serve as surrogates for Buddha images, but were the sacred focus of worship at these sites. The reliefs, then, are essentially ‘postcards’ of the sites and show the practices of pilgrimage and devotion associated with them. (Devotees could perhaps have made rubbings of the reliefs and used them for private devotional purposes.)

Relief panel with the Buddha's First Sermon,
Pakistan, ancient region of Gandhara, circa 2nd century CE, Schist 28.6 x 32.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

There could be other explanations: 1) early anthropomorphic images of Buddha may not have survived, or have not been discovered yet. As more ancient images of the Buddha come to light, the aniconic theory will disprove itself; the earliest images of Buddha seem to be on a gold coin (Approx. 130CE) minted by Kushan King Kanishka, and the Bimaran casket (Earliest date 30BCE), and 2) perhaps the early Buddhists didn’t believe in a real Buddha, (there were supposed to have been 25 previous Buddhas in this Aeon alone) and only later, perhaps after the Third Buddhist Council convened by Ashoka circa 250-253 BCE, that a need for a historic founder was agreed upon.

Watch the video below (Open Source Buddhist Research Institute - Madison) for a traditional view of Buddhist aniconism.