A Question of Reliable Source

3. What source material is available on the Buddha’s life?

³ “What is known of the Buddha’s life is based mainly on the evidence of the canonical texts, the most extensive and comprehensive of which are those written in Pali, a language of ancient India,” says the book World Religions​—From Ancient History to the Present. What this means is that there is no source material of his time to tell us anything about Siddhārtha Gautama, the founder of this religion, who lived in northern India in the sixth century B.C.E. That, of course, presents a problem. However, more serious is the question of when and how the “canonical texts” were produced.

4. How was the authentic teaching of the Buddha preserved at first?

⁴ Buddhist tradition holds that soon after the death of Gautama, a council of 500 monks was convened to decide what was the authentic teaching of the Master. Whether such a council actually did take place is a subject of much debate among Buddhist scholars and historians. The important point we should note, however, is that even Buddhist texts acknowledge that the authentic teaching decided upon was not committed to writing but memorized by the disciples. Actual writing of the sacred texts had to wait for a considerable time.

5. When were the Pali texts put down in writing?

⁵ According to Sri Lankan chronicles of the fourth and sixth centuries C.E., the earliest of these Pali “canonical texts” were put in writing during the reign of King Vattagamani Abhaya in the first century B.C.E. Other accounts of the Buddha’s life did not appear in writing until perhaps the first or even the fifth century C.E., nearly a thousand years after his time.

6. What criticisms are voiced against the “canonical texts”? (Compare 2 Timothy 3:16, 17.)

⁶ Thus, observes the Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, “The ‘biographies’ are both late in origin and replete with legendary and mythical material, and the oldest canonical texts are the products of a long process of oral transmission that evidently included some revision and much addition.” One scholar even “contended that not a single word of the recorded teaching can be ascribed with unqualified certainty to Gautama himself.” Are such criticisms justified?

The Buddha’s Conception and Birth

7. According to Buddhist texts, how did the Buddha’s mother come to conceive him?

⁷ Consider the following excerpts from Jataka, part of the Pali canon, and Buddha-charita, a second-century C.E. Sanskrit text on the life of the Buddha. First, the account of how the Buddha’s mother, Queen Maha-Maya, came to conceive him in a dream.

“The four guardian angels came and lifted her up, together with her couch, and took her away to the Himalaya Mountains. . . . Then came the wives of these guardian angels, and conducted her to Anotatta Lake, and bathed her, to remove every human stain. . . . Not far off was Silver Hill, and in it a golden mansion. There they spread a divine couch with its head towards the east, and laid her down upon it. Now the future Buddha had become a superb white elephant . . . He ascended Silver Hill, and . . . three times he walked round his mother’s couch, with his right side towards it, and striking her on her right side, he seemed to enter her womb. Thus the conception took place in the midsummer festival.”

8. What was predicted regarding the Buddha’s future?

⁸ When the queen told the dream to her husband, the king, he summoned 64 eminent Hindu priests, fed and clothed them, and asked for an interpretation. This was their answer:

“Be not anxious, great king! . . . You will have a son. And he, if he continue to live the household life, will become a universal monarch; but if he leave the household life and retire from the world, he will become a Buddha, and roll back the clouds of sin and folly of this world.”

9. What extraordinary events were said to have followed the pronouncement regarding the Buddha’s future?

⁹ Thereafter, 32 miracles were said to have occurred:

“All the ten thousand worlds suddenly quaked, quivered, and shook. . . . The fires went out in all the hells; . . . diseases ceased among men; . . . all musical instruments gave forth their notes without being played upon; . . . in the mighty ocean the water became sweet; . . . the whole ten thousand worlds became one mass of garlands of the utmost possible magnificence.”

10. How do Buddhist sacred texts describe the Buddha’s birth?

¹⁰ Then came the unusual birth of the Buddha in a garden of sal trees called Lumbini Grove. When the queen wanted to take hold of a branch of the tallest sal tree in the grove, the tree obliged by bending down to within her reach. Holding on to the branch and standing, she gave birth.

“He issued from his mother’s womb like a preacher descending from his preaching-seat, or a man coming down a stair, stretching out both hands and both feet, unsmeared by any impurity from his mother’s womb. . . . ”

“As soon as he is born, the [future Buddha] firmly plants both feet flat on the ground, takes seven strides to the north, with a white canopy carried above his head, and surveys each quarter of the world, exclaiming in peerless tones: In all the world I am chief, best and foremost; this is my last birth; I shall never be born again.”

11. What conclusion have some scholars drawn regarding the accounts about the Buddha’s life as found in the sacred texts?

¹¹ There are also equally elaborate stories regarding his childhood, his encounters with young female admirers, his wanderings, and just about every event in his life. Not surprisingly, perhaps, most scholars dismiss all these accounts as legends and myths. A British Museum official even suggests that because of the “great body of legend and miracle, . . . a historical life of the Buddha is beyond recovery.”

12, 13. (a) What is the traditional account of the Buddha’s life? (b) What is commonly accepted regarding when the Buddha was born? (Compare Luke 1:1-4.)

¹² In spite of these myths, a traditional account of the Buddha’s life is widely circulated. A modern text, A Manual of Buddhism, published in Colombo, Sri Lanka, gives the following simplified account.

“On the full-moon day of May in the year 623 B.C. there was born in the district of Nepal an Indian Sakyan Prince, by name Siddhattha Gotama.a King Suddhodana was his father, and Queen Mahā Māyā was his mother. She died a few days after the birth of the child and Mahā Pajāpati Gotamī became his foster-mother.

“At the age of sixteen he married his cousin, the beautiful Princess Yasodharā.

“For nearly thirteen years after his happy marriage he led a luxurious life, blissfully ignorant of the vicissitudes of life outside the palace gates.

“With the march of time, truth gradually dawned upon him. In his 29th year, which witnessed the turning point of his career, his son Rāhula was born. He regarded his offspring as an impediment, for he realized that all without exception were subject to birth, disease, and death. Comprehending thus the universality of sorrow, he decided to find out a panacea for this universal sickness of humanity.

“So renouncing his royal pleasures, he left home one night . . . cutting his hair, donned the simple garb of an ascetic, and wandered forth as a Seeker of Truth.”

¹³ Clearly these few biographical details are in stark contrast to the fantastic accounts found in the “canonical texts.” And except for the year of his birth, they are commonly accepted.

The Enlightenment​—How It Happened

14. What was the turning point of Gautama’s life?

¹⁴ What was the aforementioned “turning point of his career”? It was when, for the first time in his life, he saw a sick man, an old man, and a dead man. This experience caused him to agonize over the meaning of life​—Why were men born, only to suffer, grow old, and die? Then, it was said that he saw a holy man, one who had renounced the world in pursuit of truth. This impelled Gautama to give up his family, his possessions, and his princely name and spend the next six years seeking the answer from Hindu teachers and gurus, but without success. The accounts tell us that he pursued a course of meditation, fasting, Yoga, and extreme self-denial, yet he found no spiritual peace or enlightenment.

15. How did Gautama finally reach his supposed enlightenment?

¹⁵ Eventually he came to realize that his extreme course of self-denial was as useless as the life of self-indulgence that he had led before. He now adopted what he called the Middle Way, avoiding the extremes of the life-styles that he had been following. Deciding that the answer was to be found in his own consciousness, he sat in meditation under a pipal, or Indian fig tree. Resisting attacks and temptations by the devil Mara, he continued steadfast in his meditation for four weeks (some say seven weeks) until he supposedly transcended all knowledge and understanding and reached enlightenment.

16. (a) What did Gautama become? (b) What different views are held regarding the Buddha?

¹⁶ By this process, in Buddhist terminology, Gautama became the Buddha​—the Awakened, or Enlightened, One. He had attained the ultimate goal, Nirvana, the state of perfect peace and enlightenment, freed from desire and suffering. He has also become known as Sakyamuni (sage of the Sakya tribe), and he often addressed himself as Tathagata (one who thus came [to teach]). Different Buddhist sects, however, hold different views on this subject. Some view him strictly as a human who found the path to enlightenment for himself and taught it to his followers. Others view him as the final one of a series of Buddhas to have come into the world to preach or revive the dharma (Pali, Dhamma), the teaching or way of the Buddha. Still others view him as a bodhisattva, one who had attained enlightenment but postponed entering Nirvana in order to help others in their pursuit of enlightenment. Whatever it is, this event, the Enlightenment, is of central importance to all schools of Buddhism.

The Enlightenment​—What Is It?

17. (a) Where and to whom did the Buddha preach his first sermon? (b) Explain briefly the Four Noble Truths.

¹⁷ Having attained enlightenment, and after overcoming some initial hesitation, the Buddha set forth to teach his newfound truth, his dharma, to others. His first and probably most important sermon was given in the city of Benares, in a deer park, to five bhikkus​—disciples or monks. In it, he taught that to be saved, one must avoid both the course of sensual indulgence and that of asceticism and follow the Middle Way. Then, one must understand and follow the Four Noble Truths (see box, opposite page), which can briefly be summarized as follows:

(1) All existence is suffering.

(2) Suffering arises from desire or craving.

(3) Cessation of desire means the end of suffering.

(4) Cessation of desire is achieved by following the Eightfold Path, controlling one’s conduct, thinking, and belief.

18. What did the Buddha say about the source of his enlightenment? (Compare Job 28:20, 21, 28; Psalm 111:10.)

¹⁸ This sermon on the Middle Way and on the Four Noble Truths embodies the essence of the Enlightenment and is considered the epitome of all the Buddha’s teaching. (In contrast, compare Matthew 6:25-34; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; James 4:1-3; 1 John 2:15-17.) Gautama claimed no divine inspiration for this sermon but credited himself with the words “discovered by the Tathagata.” It is said that on his deathbed, the Buddha told his disciples: “Seek salvation alone in the truth; look not for assistance to anyone besides yourself.” Thus, according to the Buddha, enlightenment comes, not from God, but from personal effort in developing right thinking and good deeds.

19. Why was the Buddha’s message welcomed at the time?

¹⁹ It is not hard to see why this teaching was welcomed in the Indian society of the time. It condemned the greedy and corrupt religious practices promoted by the Hindu Brahmans, or priestly caste, on the one hand, and the austere asceticism of the Jains and other mystic cults on the other. It also did away with the sacrifices and rituals, the myriads of gods and goddesses, and the burdensome caste system that dominated and enslaved every aspect of the people’s life. In short, it promised liberation to everyone who was willing to follow the Buddha’s way.

[Box on page 139]

The Buddha’s Four Noble Truths

The Buddha expounded his fundamental teaching in what is called the Four Noble Truths. Here we quote from the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (The Foundation of the Kingdom of Righteousness), in a translation by T. W. Rhys Davids:

▪ “Now this, O Bhikkus, is the noble truth concerning suffering. Birth is attended with pain, decay is painful, disease is painful, death is painful. Union with the unpleasant is painful, painful is separation from the pleasant; and any craving that is unsatisfied, that too is painful. . . .

▪ “Now this, O Bhikkus, is the noble truth concerning the origin of suffering. Verily, it is that thirst, causing the renewal of existence, accompanied by sensual delight, seeking satisfaction now here, now there​—that is to say, the craving for the gratification of the passions, or the craving for life, or the craving for success. . . .

▪ “Now this, O Bhikkus, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of suffering. Verily, it is the destruction, in which no passion remains, of this very thirst; the laying aside of, the getting rid of, the being free from, the harboring no longer of this thirst. . . .

▪ “Now this, O Bhikkus, is the noble truth concerning the way which leads to the destruction of sorrow. Verily, it is this noble eightfold path; that is to say: right views; right aspirations; right speech; right conduct; right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; and right contemplation.”

[Picture on page 133]

Stone relief, Dream of Maya, from Gandhara, Pakistan, depicts the future Buddha as a haloed white elephant entering the right side of Queen Maya to impregnate her