Kapyong

Gday AdamWho and readers,

Over on this thread,
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread....83#post6712083

AdamWho made these claims :


Well, I had a look for that evidence, and found your claims did NOT stand up to scrutiny, AdamWho.


"1. Actual writings by Buddha"

Really?
So far as we know - Buddha wrote NOTHING himself.

“So far as we are aware, he didn’t commit anything to writing. Thus, all we know of Buddha’s teaching has come down to us from others. From the very beginning, though, both an oral tradition and a written tradition developed”

(Patrick S. Bresnan.Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought. Second Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003, 1999.)

Also :
Tradition says the later monks recalled and collected his words. But NO writing by Buddha himself.

“Although the oldest available written Buddhist texts are relatively late, tradition assures us that the texts known as Nikayas contain an early and reliable record of the Buddha’s actual teachings, for immediately after the Buddha’s death a council of monks was summoned to recall and collect these teachings”

(John M. Koller and Patricia Koller. A Sourcebook in Asian Philosophy. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1991.)


2. Historical person existing by that name

Really?
Actually there is little historical fact, but just stuff of LEGENDS.

“Unfortunately, very little is known about Shakyamuni Buddha that we could call historical fact. Historical record keeping was not much practiced in those days, and his followers were far more concerned about preserving his teaching than with the details of his life-and"

“I want to emphasize this point: Commonly repeated stories about the life of Buddha are the stuff of legend, not history"

(Patrick S. Bresnan.Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought. Second Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003, 1999.)


3. Secular historical accounts

Really?
In fact we have no HISTORY - just books and legends from many CENTURIES later.

"The primary sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are in a variety of different and sometimes conflicting traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā.[8] Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa, and dating around the beginning of the 2nd century CE.[8] The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE.[9] The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda sect is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE.[9] Lastly, the Nidānakathā is from the Theravāda sect in Sri Lanka, composed in the 5th century CE by Buddhaghoṣa.[10]"

(From Wiki.)


4. Eye witness accounts by contemporaries

Really?
In fact there are NO eye-witness accounts at all. Our earliest source is from several CENTURES later.

“Various ancient sources give us information about the life of Buddha. The oldest and most important document is the Pali Canon. Committed to writing in the first century B.C.E., the Pali Canon is a carefully assembled collection of the then-existing scriptural works and traditions regarding Buddha. The accounts in the Pali Canon, however, are really nothing more than two commentaries that deal with two different parts of Buddha’s life. They give us only some basic facts”

"5. A whole religious movement lead personally by him for a long time."

Really?
WHAT time, AdamWho?
Because Buddha's date is UNKNOWN, estimates vary by 1/2 a MILLENIUM !

"Traditionally, eastern Buddhists give the date of Buddha’s death as 949 B.C. (with variants including 878 B.C. and 686 B.C.), while northern Buddhists gave 881 B.C., and the southern Buddhists provide 543 B.C. as the correct year. More recent scholarship began to settle on the year 486 B.C. or even 368 B.C., so many textbooks usually fudge the issue and say he was born around 500 B.C. All methods rely on lists of kings and councils recorded in the Buddhist tradition itself, tied into known history through the Mauryan Emperors Candragupta and Asoka."

Actual evidence for Buddha is dated CENTURIES later :

"There is one big problem when you look for the historical Buddha: he wasn’t there. Literally, there is no evidence of the Buddha being spoken of or depicted anywhere near that time. Neither the Buddha nor Buddhism appears in the art, archeology, or written record of ancient India until the first century A.D. The skeptical mind is left wondering, why was there no Buddha until then? Why did Buddhism make absolutely no appearance for over 600 years after he was supposedly born? "

Buddhist texts all date from many centuries after the alleged dates of Buddha :

"The oldest extant Buddhist writings we have are the so-called “Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism,” the Kharosti Scrolls. ... They are dated as early as 130-250 A.D."

"The Pali Canon, the mother of all Buddhist scriptures, is usually asserted be first-century B.C. in origin, reflecting hundreds of years of oral tradition. However, that claim is itself based on legend, and the manuscripts we have available are no older than the 18th or 19th centuries A.D., and “the textual traditions of the different Buddhist countries represented by these manuscripts show much evidence of interweaving” [www.palitext.com/subpages/lan_lite.htm]. The basic fact is, in the Pali Canon, there is a lack of historical dates or descriptions of the Buddha that would provide any historical context or clues. The Pali Canon mostly details teachings and rules for monks, not Buddha as a person."

From:
http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com...-evidence.html


In short -
your claims are simply NOT supported by the evidence AdamWho.

The evidence for Buddha is even LESS reliable than the unreliable evidence for Jesus.


Kapyong

No Robots

Great work, Kapyong.

funinspace

Yeah, I wouldn't want to try and compare Buddha to Jesus, as the evidence far weaker. Not that the evidence for Jesus is good. However, if one compares Moses to Buddha, one find allot more similarities in very poor substanciation and records coming centuries later.

mountainman

G'Day Kapyong

You forgot to mention the Edicts of Ashoka.



The earliest archaeological evidence of Buddha appears about three hundred years after his (supposed) birth by the Indian warlord Ashoka. The earliest archaeological evidence for Jesus appears about three hundred years after his (supposed) birth by the Roman (or barbarian) warlord Constantine. This in itself, is a very interesting parallel.

While I dont necessarily think that AdamWho's statement, slightly modified, that the relative historicity of Buddha exceeds Jesus by 100 X is the correct relative ratio, the exercise of comparing the relative historicity of Buddha and Jesus Potter Harry Christ (or via: amazon.co.uk) is an excellent one.

No Robots

Only Minor Edict 3 mentions the Buddha by name, and also the Sangha, and even presumes to advise on the specifics of Buddhist texts to be read! What can we say? It sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the edicts, and it is almost certainly a forgery much after the fact, not done by Asoka at all.--"Ashoka a mythical creation of British colonialists"

Kapyong

Gday,

Archeological evidence of Buddha from 300 years later?
No.

Just ONE dubious, possibly forged mention of Buddha, that's all. Thanks No Robots.


Kapyong

mountainman

G'Day Kapyong,


While its good to start getting used to the idea of forged evidence, I do not think that No Robots has done you any service by citing thereference above. The URL provided was to a post to Pashtun forum - did you happen to read any of the responses?

Anyway, for a start I noticed that the jstor articles cited were quite old: http://www.jstor.org/pss/550283 from The English Historical Review © 1909 Oxford University Press; and http://www.jstor.org/pss/25210369 from The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland © 1907

But then after a little searching I realised that the article is sourced from the following blogsite, and consists of three separate blog articles. The name of the blog is ...... The Truth Shall Set You Free. Alarm bells started ringing ...

Here are the three articles:

http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com...g-history.html
Buddhism - Totally Wrong History?

http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com...-evidence.html
Historicity of the Buddha (part 2): the Lack of Evidence

http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com...-invented.html
Historicity of the Buddha (part 3): Was He Invented?


Part 3 concludes with the following (the Greeks invented Buddha):


The conclusion is obviously that the author, Justin, thinks that the real religion, namely Christianity influenced the Greek invention of Buddhism in the 1st century. Wow, great find No Robots.

Have a look at some of the blogs under christianity ...

http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com...l/Christianity


Holy fuck. How biased and bigoted is this source?

As I see it my original statement stands:

The earliest archaeological evidence of Buddha appears about three hundred years after his (supposed) birth by the Indian warlord Ashoka. The earliest archaeological evidence for Jesus appears about three hundred years after his (supposed) birth by the Roman (or barbarian) warlord Constantine.

yalla

The Buddha must have been real.

I've seen his tooth.

Well sort of, I was in the temple where it resides but I didn't actually see it but lots of other people have apparently.
In the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic_o..._of_the_Buddha

How can he have had a tooth which is still around today and not have been real?
Hey?


Mind you I've also seen John the Baptist's head, at least one of them anyway.
And the hairs of the beard of the prophet Mohammed in Topkapi, Istanbul
So they must all have been fair dinkum real fellas.
Obviously.

:huh:

mountainman

There is always a lucrative business in holy relics. Just ask Oded Golan. Or better yet, the 4th century christians and the "Holy Relics of the Saints and Martyrs and Apostles" business.


Each case on its own merits. From what I understand there was no widespread use of writing in India prior to the time of Ashoka. They like the Greek rhetoricians and other groups, without the technology of writing, valued memory, and the oral tradition.

An interesting thread - thanks Kapyong. The ANSTO C14 dating of the earliest Buddhist writings to the 1st century CE was something I learnt here.

No Robots

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?--"Was Ashoka a Buddhist?"

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.--A History of India (or via: amazon.co.uk) / John Keay, p. 96.