Overview

Gautama Buddha, Shakyamuni, or simply the Buddha, was a sage on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. Born in the Shakya republic in the Himalayan foothills, he is believed to have lived and taught mostly in eastern India sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE. The word Buddha means awakened one or the enlightened one. Buddha is also used as a title for the first awakened being in an era. In most Buddhist traditions, Siddhartha Gautama is regarded as the Supreme Buddha of our age. Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the Sramana (renunciation) movement common in his region. He later taught throughout regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala. Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism, and account of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order, but do not consistently accept all of the details contained in traditional biographies. The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain: most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as circa 563 BCE to 483 BCE, but more recent opinion dates his death to between 486 and 483 BCE or, according to some, between 411 and 400 BCE.However, at a symposium on this question held in 1988, the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death. According to Pali scholar K. R. Norman, a life span for the Buddha of c. 480 to 400 BCE (and his teaching period roughly from c. 445 to 400 BCE) fits the archaeological evidence better. These alternative chronologies, however, have not yet been accepted by all other historians. The discovery of a possible Buddhist shrine dated to 550 BCE at the Maya Devi Temple, Lumbini may push back the Buddha's birth date, but some archaeologists caution that the shrine may represent pre-Buddhist tree worship, and that further research is needed.

Full Product Details

9781500891435

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Samuel Beal (27 November 1825, Davenport - 20 August 1889, Greens Norton) was an Oriental scholar, and the first Englishman to translate direct from the Chinese the early records of Buddhism, thus throwing light upon Indian history. Samuel Beal was born in Davenport, near Stockport, Cheshire and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1847. He was ordained deacon in 1851, and priest in the following year. After serving as curate at Brooke in Norfolk and Sopley in Hampshire, he applied for the office of naval chaplain, and was appointed to H.M.S. Sybille during the China War of 1856-58. In 1857, he printed for private circulation a pamphlet showing that the Tycoon of Yedo (i.e. Tokugawa Shogun of Edo), with whom foreigners had made treaties, was not the real Emperor of Japan. He retired from the navy in 1877. In 1877, he was appointed professor of Chinese at University College, London. His reputation was established by his series of works which traced the travels of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims in India from the fifth to the seventh century, A. D., and by his books on Buddhism, which have become classics. Asvaghosha Bodhisattva was an Indian philosopher-poet, born in Saketa in northern India to a Brahmin family. . He was the most famous in a group of Buddhist court writers, whose epics rivalled the contemporary Ramayana.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available