Phoenixstar

I have been doing some reading(just beginning actually)on the origins of Buddha. I have always seen the pictures or depictions of Buddha as being of an Asian descent. Now I am reading and learning more and more about him and the sources that I have been looking at all depict him as being black. They say that he along with other priests from the Egypt/Nubian area fled those lands and settled in India. I was wondering what you guys thought about this.

Entropic_Gnosis

I had not heard that before quite frankly. I have read sveral different accounts of Siddhartha Gautama's life and they all point to his birth in what is now Nepal. He apparently was of the "warrior king" cast whose name i can never for the life of me spell right "Kshatria" i think is the name. Given the political and racial climate of ancient India i find it very unlikely that he was black as the caste system was partialy based (originally) on the color of the skin of the different people in India. This may come from when the Aryan's invaded early on and subjigated the dravidians. The Aryan's being from the area of the black sea if i recall correctly makeing them look possibly like like Armenians which corresponds quite well to the more golden skinned people who were of the higher casts. it seems to me that given this that the buddha looked very much like what one would consider and Indian as looking like.

The idea that he came from Africa also doesnt seem to me very likely as his philosophy was based not only upon his enlightenment but upon concepts central to hinduism.

May I ask what these sources are? I would be intersted in reading them.

Seraphim

Why don't you rent "Little Buddha" and watch it?

bagong

I would be skeptical about the Buddha=Kshatria=light-skinned argument; it's based on two debatable assumptions.

1) The Buddha as a Kshatria and son of a great king are later imbellishments. In the 6th century BC, Indian "kingdoms" were really little more than city states, and even these were limited to the central Gangetic plain. Lowland Nepal, where the Buddha was from, was on the margin of Brahmanical civilization. In all likelyhood, the Sakyas (the Buddha's clan) formed a tribal republic of the type that the Buddhist Canon implies was still the most common form of social organisation in India at that time. At most, the Buddha's gotra (extended family) called Gotama, was a prominent sub-group in the Sakya, and his father simply a respected member of the clan elders council. So the Buddha was probably not Kshatria, but what would today be called "adivasi" (tribal group), at the margin of Aryan society.

2) Were the higher castes really lighter skinned? There's a lot of arguments about this, too long to get into right now, but I'm not convinced. Even in the Buddha's time, the supposed "Aryan invasions" were already roughly a thousand years past. That's a long time for intermixing to take place, even if there was a strong taboo on such marriages. And were the castes ever purely based on descent from the original Vedic nomads? My guess is they incorporated the existing elite right from the start.

That said, I don't think the Buddha was "black", if by that you mean African. There's nothing to suggest that a migration of Africans to India took place in this period, and the Buddha's teaching is clearly based on a long native tradition of religion and philosophy.

The Buddhist scriptures themselves desribe the Buddha as golden skinned, but they also say that he had blue hair, arms that came down to his knees, a special sheath hiding his penis, fingers of equal length, etc. It's clear that this is an entirely mythical description, not based on his actual appearance.

Entropic_Gnosis

I never meant to imply that the buddha was light skinned in the traditional sense of the word, only that from what history and stories we know that it is unlikely that he was from Africa. He probably looked, given his heratage, like any other Indian person: Dark gold/brown skin. black hair, dark eyes etc.

Not to my knowledge but there seems to be a correlation between the two that was all i was trying to imply. The "light skinned" higher caste thing i refered to was not to imply that buddha was pale in any sense of the word, but there is a trend of skin color correlating to caste in many parts of India. Frankly no one really knows what the guy looked like but from the records i can find i would assume he resembled people from Nothern India/Nepal

Phoenixstar

Right now I don't have time to post where I got the information from but, after looking at the sites again I saw that the views can easily be bent to lean heavily one way. Also I tried to watch Little Buddha but Keanu Reeves was driving me crazy. An indian with the "whoa dude lingo" is just not right

Entropic_Gnosis

I have to agree. I cant get through that movie to save my life. I always had a more "Ben Kingsly in Gandhi" look for buddha personally. But it dosent really matter what he looked like, the important part is the philosophy.

Phoenixstar

Ok Like I said this is one of the few places I have read about Buddha from the random site generation of Google. ok the website I went to was: Http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/india.html

GO to where it says part eight or just read the whole article and the other things that are at the site if it interests you. Like I said though now that I take a second look at it the viewpoint could be a little one-sided.

I just posted this here because you guys seem to be very ooen people and will listen to and answer any question no matter how crazy it sounds.

Thanks

andy_d

There are no pictures or statues which are modelled on him as he looked in life. Early Buddhism deliberately avoided representing him in human form, instead implying him through symbols such as empty footprints, lotuses, etc.

The statues in particular didn't turn up until 5 or 6 centuries later, and were the work of craftsmen around modern Afghanistan. They were heavily influenced by Greek statues of gods, and i've heard more than once that Apollo was a strong influence on early works.

Basically, wherever you go around the world, images of the Buddha Sakyamuni tend to reflect the racial features of the locals. As well they should, IMO Buddha should be all people.

Seraphim

by Phoenixstar

Also I tried to watch Little Buddha but Keanu Reeves was driving me crazy. An indian with the "whoa dude lingo" is just not right

I like Keanu Reeves ... he's OK ... seems to be a moderate kindda guy. My first Keanu Reeves movie was Little Buddha ... and I can say he potray it nicely (for a westerner).

Taught me something about Buddhism .... it doesn't matter where you come from, it is how much effect you put into your beliefs that counts ... right?

Oh yeah .... What kind of name is Keanu? Hawaiian?