Buddhas arising every 32,000 years?

Q & A
1

I have a question perhaps someone here might be able to assist with.

Karen Armstrong, in her Buddha, said,

“Later Buddhist teaching would maintain that a sammāsambuddha will only appear on earth every 32,000 years, when the knowledge of the Dhamma had completely faded from the earth.”

Does anyone have any idea what this “later tradition” she’s referring to is? Has anyone here ever heard of any such tradition? Where does it stem from? What’s “later”? Would that be considerably later than what we tend to think of as EBTs?

2

I can’t speak to this exact question, but my general recollection of that book is that it is full of misinformation. Certainly not a good source.

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One calculation I read located Mettayya’s turn as Buddha 5 Billion years from now. If correct we could look back to the formation of planet Earth and look forward an equal distance in Time to the day Matteyya is born again.

I would love to re-locate this reference which was based on a sutta prediction…

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The Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism places Maitreya’s Advent at 5,670 million years after Buddha’s passing.

5

Heaven knows.

It seems unlikely to me that any Indian Buddhist text would make a statement to the effect that Buddhas appear at intervals of x number of years.

The very idea that there might be a fixed interval between one Buddha and the next would seem to be at odds with the pan-Buddhist belief that there are different kinds of æon (good, bad and middling), and that although these of equal duration they vary as to the number of Buddhas that appear in them.

Going with the Theravada version of this, there are said to be five kinds of æon:

suññakappa: no Buddhas appear.
sārakappa: one Buddha.
varakappa: two or three Buddhas.
maṇḍakappa: four Buddhas.
bhaddakappa: five Buddhas

So, according to this scheme, if the cakkavāḷa you inhabit is presently going through an auspicious æon (bhaddakappa) then you won’t have to wait nearly as long for a Buddha as you would if it were an æon of the other four kinds.

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Refer Buddhavamsa where it gives the time periods

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32,000 years time doesn’t seem to be plausible at least to me.

It should be considered in the context of one cycle of human life span from 80,000 to 10 years and back to 80,000 years.

Indian continent was Jambupipa (island) when human life span was 80,000 years. (DN26) India was a large island 225 million years ago according to geology.

During the life span of 10 years, women are marriageable at the age of 5, meaning early onset of puberty. (DN26) Now it is somewhere between about 9-12 years. It will take quite some time to reach 5 years.

So it would take many millions years for human life span to reach again 80,000. Even if upward change is accelerated, 32,000 seems to be too short.

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AN3.40

The teaching is well explained by the Buddha—apparent in the present life, immediately effective, inviting inspection, relevant, so that sensible people can know it for themselves

Whether Buddas arise every 32,000 years, 5 billion years, or 5,670 million years doesn’t seem apparent in the present life, nor does it invite inspection. I accept that some people may find it relevant, but it’s not for me.

If it’s 32,000 years or 32,001 years between Buddha appearances does that really make any difference whatsoever to how you will live your life this day? I understand that my opinions are unpopular here - just keeping it real.