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Welcome to the World of Antiquity channel. I’m David Miano,
and I am answering voicemails. Let’s give one a listen.
Hi David. My question is:
Did Buddha exist? How do we know a certain historical figure [is] real or not? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. This is an interesting one, and it could be asked about
a number of famous people from ancient history. Sometimes our only witnesses to
their existence are secondary sources, so we have to weigh a number of factors
in order to determine how probable it is that they actually lived. That's all that history can do,
by the way - weigh probabilities. Since we can’t get into a time machine and go back and look, we
can never know anything for certainty. We can only ascertain how likely it is that something happened
or someone existed. Is it more probable or is it less probable. So let’s do that with the Buddha.
When we speak of the Buddha, we are referring to the presumed founder of Buddhism,
sometimes called Gautama, or Siddhartha, or Shakyamuni. If he did exist, the exact
years of his life are debated. It is usually assumed he lived in the 6th or 5th century BCE.
The earliest historical record we have of the Buddha
are the edicts of Ashoka, the king of the Mauryan Empire from the mid-third
century BCE. The Asokan rock edicts testify to the existence of a canon of Buddhist texts
already by that time, which is maybe 150 years after the Buddha is presumed to have existed.
And they mention the Buddha.
The edict says that these texts, according to the king of Magadha, Priyadassi, were written by the Buddha.
Now, the king of Magadha, Priyadassi, is a historical
figure who came from a time slightly earlier than Ashoka. None of this proves the historicity of the Buddha,
but it is noteworthy that Ashoka had no doubts as to the historical existence of the Buddha.
The presumed historical existence of the Buddha is also reflected in many of the early Buddhist
scriptures, where the Buddha is situated in actual historical places alongside real historical figures.
In terms of toponymy, according to these scriptures the Buddha lived and worked in a fairly
narrow geographical area. Not only place names, but common flora, fauna and farming implements
specific to that region, and various religious customs are all mentioned.
This is not to deny that some of this material could have been invented
by skillful fabricators; it doesn’t prove the existence of the Buddha as a historical person.
But the fact that the scriptures are set in a historical time and place does make the proposal
that the Buddha existed the most parsimonious explanation for the story that we've got.
The alternative would be that a pseudo-historical figure was invented out of whole cloth.
We would have to assume a deliberate fraud that fooled a lot of people. It’s possible, but...
Here’s another thing to think about. If the Buddha was invented, why?
Well, to start this new movement. Yeah, but if you were the one making up this new way of life,
wouldn’t that just make you the founder? You’d be the Buddha. Buddhism must have had
a founder or founders. I suppose you could argue that it was created by committee,
but more commonly in ancient times a new philosophy was devised by one insightful,
bright individual who came up with the core of it, and then it was refined by others afterward.
Why not here?
Much of the material in the Pāli scriptures, the writings believed to be earliest, portrays
the Buddha less as a mythical figure and more as a human being, who lived, experienced pain, got old,
and died. In several instances he is described as having a bad back. If he were an invented,
mythical figure from the beginning, we would expect him to begin as an idealized individual.
If he were a real person who was later mythologized, we would expect to see pretty much what we have,
which is earlier texts portraying him in more human terms and later texts as more idealized.
And the reason why such non-ideal statements were not removed later is
because they were already part of the accepted tradition, and it couldn’t be changed.
Now yes, some parts of the Buddha’s biography probably are invented,
even the historical sounding parts. That’s what we call historicizing,
that is, giving something the appearance of historical truth, even when it isn’t.
This was according to the customary hyperbolic standards of biography of the time. But still,
there is discernible in the canon what appears to be evidence of an early, core biography
preserving the authentic history of a real person in an unembellished way. Due to its conciseness
and its repetition in other parts of the Pali canon, many consider the Ariyapariyesanāsutta
of the Middle Length Discourses to be the earliest biographical account we possess of Siddhārtha Gautama.
Here the Buddha tells us in one sentence how he began his search for enlightenment:
The words bear little resemblance to the kind of details we get in later Theravādin and Mahāyāna
writings, where his father is a king, his mother a queen, and various supernatural
events accompany his going-forth. Are these words close to what the real Buddha actually said?
Maybe. They're simple and honest, and they reflect a certain genuineness.
But we can never know for sure. My thinking is that it is more likely than not that the Buddha
existed. But I can’t tell you for a fact that this is so, nor can anyone else at this point.
Anyway, I hope that information helps. If you would like to leave me a question on my voicemail,
you can do so at speakpipe.com/DavidMiano. I can’t guarantee that I will answer every
single voicemail that I receive - it just depends on how many I get - but if yours makes the cut,
I will answer it here on the channel. If it doesn’t, keep on trying. We’ll see you next time.
You might like my little e-booklet, Why Ancient History Matters. It’s designed to persuade people
that the subject is important, even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it to help
spread the word. So feel free to share it with someone you know. It’s free for anyone who wants it.
I’ve left a link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy. Catch you later!