Peter Harvey's Articles on Lions Roar

Buddhist scholar Peter Harvey explores the facts, myths, and deeper truths of the Buddha’s life story. Whatever Buddhist tradition we follow, we are probably all familiar with some version of the story of the Buddha, featuring his life and qualities. But what are contemporary Buddhists to make of this figure, generally known as Gotama Buddha by Theravadins and Sakyamuni Buddha by Mahayanists, who lived in the fifth-century BCE (perhaps 484–404)? How close can we get to knowing what he was really like based on critical analysis of the early texts? This is a question related to Buddhist practice, for not only is it said that to have insight into the Dhamma is to have insight into the Buddha, but also that to have insight into the Buddha is to have insight into the Dhamma (SN.III.120). For a modern Buddhist practitioner, the developed story and figure of the Buddha is a bit like a venerated piece of antique furniture, with a fine patina on it from centuries of handling by previous generations. We are also adding our own fingerprints to it. But trying to dig back to the “bare facts” of the Buddha’s life can be like stripping the patina off a fine antique—something many people would be wary of doing, since it might be disrespectful to the original. However, perhaps it is necessary, as the “antique” Buddha needs restoring, and doing so may reveal the various decorations that have been added over the centuries. Still, we need to beware of being restricted by too narrow a view of what is possible; our modern perspectives and ideas may lead us to a rather thin and shallow way of seeing the world. We may be tempted to say of some element of the Buddha’s life story, Ah, that cannot be true, so it must be a later addition that we can ignore. And we also need to remember that myths are meaningful stories that may convey truth or a direction worth exploring. The Buddha’s Life Stories. The earliest recorded stories of the Buddha are preserved mostly in Pali texts from the Theravada tradition, which express and share ideas common to various early schools prior to the development of the Mahayana, which in turn developed further reinterpretations and extensions. Some material on the life of the Buddha exists in the Vinaya, or texts on monastic discipline, but more are found in the suttas, the discourses of the Buddha. In their Pali versions, these are grouped in five nikayas, or collections: the Digha Nikaya (DN), Majjhima Nikaya (MN), Samyutta Nikaya (SN), Anguttara Nikaya (AN), and Khuddaka Nikaya (KN). The suttas and Vinaya were originally transmitted by communal chanting, then written down for the first time around 20 BCE in Sri Lanka. As in other early textual collections, such as the Chinese Agamas, the suttas of the Pali Nikayas begin, “Thus have I heard, at one time the Blessed One was staying at… and…,” which purport to be the words of Ananda, the Buddha’s faithful attendant for many years, and spoken at the council of five hundred enlightened monks (arahants) convened after the death of the Buddha to collect his teachings. The story of the historical Buddha is told in various stages across diverse sources. In the suttas and Vinaya, for example, there is scattered material on certain periods in his life, notably his conception and birth (Acchariya-abbhuta Sutta, MN.123); a few aspects of his pre-renunciation life (e.g. Sukhumala Sutta, at AN.I.145); his renunciation (Ariya-pariyesana Sutta, MN.26); his spiritual quest, in which he was taught two “formless” mystical states (MN.26 and Maha-saccaka Sutta, MN.36) and then practiced harsh asceticism (MN.36); temptation by Mara (Padhana Sutta of the Sutta-nipata, verses 425–49); his using the four jhanas as a basis for remembering many past lives, seeing how beings are reborn according to their karma, and attaining enlightenment (MN.36); considering whether to teach and then teaching (MN.26; Dhamma-cakka-ppavatana Sutta, SN.V.420–25; Vin. I.4–12); and gaining his first disciples and sending them out to spread the Dhamma (Vin. I.12–21). Events in his forty-five years of teachings are hard to sequence, but the last three months of his life are dealt with in the Maha-parinibbana Sutta (DN.16, DN. II.72–168). The Jataka stories, their verses recorded in the Pali canon, were fleshed out in later commentaries. They include many tales of inspiring people, gods, and animals depicted as past rebirths of the Buddha prior to his enlightenment. Some of the stories originate in non-Buddhist collections but were later “Buddhicized.” All of them came to be seen as illustrating how as a bodhisattva the Buddha developed various perfections. The Buddhavamsa of the Pali canon describes the Buddhas of past ages and aeons whom he met and was inspired by. While the facts of human frailty and mortality are known to us all, a clear realization and acceptance of them often does come as a novel, disturbing insight. Centuries after the Buddha’s death, a more devotional interest in his life developed. Several biographies/hagiographies were written that drew on scattered accounts in the existing sutta and Vinaya collections and on floating oral traditions. These include the Mahavastu (“Great Story,” a text from the Lokottaravada school of early Buddhism), the Lalitavistara Sutra (“The Play in Full,” a Mahayana sutra), the Buddhacarita (“Acts of the Buddha,” an epic poem by Ashvaghosha, and the Nidanakatha (the introduction to the Jataka commentary). These, with certain variations, give us the story of the Buddha as we have it now—material from the earlier texts linked into an ongoing narrative, with many embellishing features added in glorification of the Buddha. Later texts talk of the Buddha born as a prince, the son of a king. In fact, he lived and taught in a society in which small-scale tribal republics were giving way to larger kingdoms. He was born in the small republic of the Sakka (Skt., Sakya) people, in which rule was probably by a council of household heads, perhaps qualified by age or social standing. As he later wandered in the developing kingdoms, taught some of their kings, and talked of himself as coming from the warrior-ruler class, it became natural for later texts to refer to him as coming from a royal background. Later biographies describe the Buddha’s renunciation as being prompted by seeing, for the first time, an old person, a sick person, and a corpse, leading to agitation at the aging, sickness, and death that we are all heir to. Yet the early texts talk of his renunciation only as the result of gradual reflection (AN.I.145–46, MN.I.163). A story of seeing an old person, a sick person, a corpse, and a calm and inspiring renunciant is there in the texts but applied to a past Buddha, Vipassi (DN.II.22–9). Given that the lives of all Buddhas are said to follow a recurring pattern, we can see why this story was applied to the Buddha of our age. In any case, the story expresses a fundamental teaching in a very memorable way. While the facts of human frailty and mortality are known to us all, a clear realization and acceptance of them often does come as a novel, disturbing insight. There are also small variations between the developed biographies. The Theravada Nidanakatha says that the Gotama’s renunciation was just after the birth of his son, Rahula (Ndk.61–3), while the Sarvastivada tradition has Rahula being conceived on the night of the renunciation, thus ensuring that Gotama’s family line is continued. Was the Buddha Omniscient. A quality that is regularly applied to the Buddha in later texts is omniscience (sabbaññuta). To what extent is this claim found in the early texts? In the Kannakatthala Sutta, the Buddha accepts that omniscience is possible but asserts, “There is no renunciant or brahmin who knows all, who sees all, simultaneously; that is not possible” (MN.II.126–27). Rather, what he claims is the “threefold knowledge” (te-vijja). That is, as experienced on the night of his enlightenment, he could, “in so far as I wish,” remember his past lives, see beings being reborn according to their karma, and directly know his state of liberation (MN.I.482). The suttas attribute the claim of continuous omniscience to Mahavira, the Jain leader, though they also say that he prevaricated when actually asked a question to prove it (MN.II.31). Ananda joked that some teachers who made this claim still had to ask people’s names, failed to get alms food, and got bitten by dogs—so they then had to cover themselves by saying they knew these events were destined and so did not avoid them (MN.I.519). In the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha says on the breadth of his knowledge: Monks, in the world with its gods, maras, brahmas, in this generation with its renunciants and brahmins, gods and humans, whatever is seen, heard, sensed, and cognized, attained, searched into, pondered over by the mind—all that do I know.… I fully understand. (AN.II.25) Echoing such passages, the Milindapañha, a post-canonical Theravada text (developed from first century BCE), asserts: ...the Blessed One was omniscient, but knowledge and vision were not constantly and continuously present to the Blessed One. The Blessed One’s omniscient knowledge was dependent on the adverting [of his mind]; when he adverted it, he knew whatever it pleased [him to know]. (Miln.102) Accordingly, the Theravada tradition holds that all knowable things could be known by the Buddha. But the threefold knowledge, as the key example of the Buddha’s knowledge, says little about the future other than how particular beings will be reborn. On the question of whether the Buddha’s great knowledge extends to the future, he claims that it does (DN.III.134), but the example given is that he knows he will have no further rebirths. In other contexts, however, the Buddha claims to know things in the distant future, such as the coming of the next Buddha Metteyya (Skt., Maitreya; DN.III.76). The Buddha Makes Mistakes. The idea that Gotama possessed...

In Search of the Real Buddha

TEACHINGS

LIFE

EXPLORE BUDDHISM

NEWS