two questions about the physical evidence of Buddhism
Yes, the origin of Buddhism in an as of yet not historically established Buddha is a bridge too far. And maybe even the first calving off of a lineage of Buddhism in the time of Ashoka the Great Is a bridge too far. But what about the span between ancient Gandhāra and what we can recognize in texts that came together in the 5th Century? Just for the sake of argument how much do the remains from Gandhara represent a confirmation of materials in the Palī Cannon?
Wiki: “The earliest textual fragments of canonical Pali were found in the Pyu city-states in Burma in the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE” So, just how much do these actually verify the Buddhist Canon as represented by the Wisdom Publications?
See: Citation[11] Stargardt, Janice (2000). Tracing Thoughts Through Things: The Oldest Pali Texts and the Early Buddhist Archaeology of India and Burma. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. p. 25.
Too far for whom? The Ashokan Pillars mention specific suttas by name… Certainly that’s enough evidence for any reasonable person that the texts existed (in some form) at that time.
There are tens of thousands of suttas in the Pāḷi Canon as we have it and we have unearthed hundreds of fragments (give or take) from Gandhara and so on. So, that gives you a rough estimate of what percentage of the canon is physically attested.
Some of the fragments are quite small. You’d think them weak evidence, but the fact that we’re so reliably able to identify “oh! this tiny corner of parchment is a fragment of the Brahmajala Sutta!” is extremely confidence-inspiring. If the texts were passed down with even a small error rate every century, you’d only be able to identify very large segments of text by now. Since we can identify even very small fragments, this is solid evidence that the texts have been passed down with extremely high fidelity.
The Gāndārī finds date from the 1 century BCE to the 3-4 centuries CE:
Buddhist Texts from ancient Gandhāra (modern northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan), are some of the oldest extant traces of Buddhist thought and practice. They are witnesses to a thriving tradition at a multicultural trade hub along the Silk Road at a time when Buddhism was first spreading from India to Central and East Asia, between the 1st century BCE and 3rd century CE. https://gandhari-texts.sydney.edu.au/
The Kharoṣṭhī script, in which the Gāndhārī texts are (exclusively) written, almost entirely disappears after the 3rd or 4th centuries CE:
The Kharoṣṭhī script, as is well-known, died out in its homeland in the third or,
at the latest, fourth century CE.
The scholars date Pāli texts to the 3-2nd centuries BCE:
Gethin (2008, p. XXV): “In sum, although we cannot date the texts translated in this volume with any final certainty, we can say that they are likely to date in something close to their present form to the third or second century BCE”.
Here is from Ven. Anālayo’s work Early Buddhist Oral Tradition (2022):
Although it seems to me that Sujato and Brahmali (2014) overstate the certainty of knowledge that can be derived from the available textual material, they do have a point in warning against excessive skepticism. An example in case is the position argued by Drewes (2017, 1 and 19), according to whom “no basis for treating the Buddha as a historical figure has yet been identified” and that “we do not have grounds for speaking of a historical Buddha at all,” hence he may as well be regarded as a mythical figure comparable to Kṛṣṇa. This exaggerated claim has met with deserved criticism by Levman (2019), von Hinüber (2019a), and Wynne (2019).493
It seems to me best to adopt a middle-ground position between affirming certainty about what the historical Buddha exactly did or taught and dismissing his existence. The same applies in general for the early Buddhist oral tradition: although it is at present no longer possible to recover the original version of any teaching, it does not follow that such an original version never existed.
Kṛṣṇa Devakī-putra (son of Devakī) - already appears as a historical character in the Chandogya Upaniṣad 3,17.6 – "tad dhaitad ghora āṅgirasaḥ kṛṣṇāya devakīputrāyoktvovāca " Kṛṣṇa’s teacher here is mentioned as Ghora Āṅgirasa. The link between this historical Kṛṣṇa Devakī-putra and the person of the same name in the Mahābhārata is attributed to euhemerist mythology.
Similarly there may have been a historical contemplative Gautama who probably later may have been given an exaggerated and mythological superhuman and supergodly character in the 4 prose pitakas.
I am afraid there is a chasm between the historicity of “Kṛṣṇa Devakī-putra” and the historicity of the Buddha.
The protagonists of the Upaniṣads (like the famous Yājñavalkya) may have been entirely mythological/literary (fiction).
On the contrary, the Buddha most likely existed. If you read the sources I gave you in another thread, and the papers mentioned above, his historicity will very likely become more acceptable to you.
There is very little “mythological” and “superhuman” in the four Nikāyas.
On the contrary, there is a lot of things that contradict his “superhuman” character: a lot of mistakes (the existence of Vinaya is the best example!), weaknesses, ilnesses, ignorance, etc.
In the later Lokottaravāda and Mahāyāna scriptures the Buddha is clearly a superhuman or a god. In the Pāli Nikāyas he is mostly just a human.
Yes, but do we know exactly what those suttas contain or do not contain?
Pali Canon has many thousands of suttas.
I do believe that the Pali Canon contain historical Buddha’s teaching edited for oral transmission. But I would love if there was more hard archeological facts so we could know the Teaching more accurately.
Many of them are few lines in length (especially in AN book of 1s) and many of the suttas are almost verbatim repeats except for one word. If one also takes repeating stock phrases into account, after a while it can shorten the time to read. So in actual case there is less to read. It is possible to read a Nikaya in 1 month. Many years ago, when I was younger, and had more time, I finished reading them in fairly reasonable time. I was reading 100-200 pages per day.
Really?
109 times he is presented as being a teacher of gods and humans That is just one phrase but there are numerous such mythological and superhuman aspects that are made as explicit claims repeatedly all across the EBTs.
In the Mahāparinibbānasutta (in the Dīgha Nikāya) he claims at the end of his life that if Ānanda had requested him to live for millions of years, he would have (or may have) done just that. That is not “just a human” speaking, that is a mythological superhuman character speaking about his supposedly superhuman ability to outlast everyone else in life.
In Ud 3.2, he is able to take a monk to the heaven of the 33 Vedic devas (tavatimsa) and show the monk 500 apsarases (heavenly damsels).
No sir, the Buddha of the Pali Nikayas is very much superhuman.
are you serious?