The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt.For other uses, see Buddha (disambiguation) and Gautama (disambiguation).The Buddha is depicted teaching in the lotus position, while making the Dharmacakra mudr.
According to Buddhist tradition, after several years of mendicancy, meditation, and asceticism, he awakened to understand the mechanism which keeps people trapped in the cycle of rebirth. The Buddha then traveled throughout the Ganges plain teaching and building a religious community. The Buddha taught a middle way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the Indian ramaa movement. He taught a spiritual path that included ethical training and meditative practices such as jhana and mindfulness. The Buddha also critiqued the practices of Brahmin priests, such as animal sacrifice. These were passed down in Middle-Indo Aryan dialects through an oral tradition. ![]() ![]() An Arahant is one with taints destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached the true goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final knowledge. Most people accept that the Buddha lived, taught, and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara ( c. BCE, or c. 400 BCE), 23 24 25 the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajatasatru, who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara. While the general sequence of birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death is widely accepted, 28 there is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as c. BCE to 483 BCE. 1 32 Within the Eastern Buddhist tradition of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, the traditional date for the death of the Buddha was 949 B.C. According to the Ka-tan system of time calculation in the Kalachakra tradition, Buddha is believed to have died about 833 BCE. More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988, 34 35 36 the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddhas death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not been accepted by all historians. This and the evidence of the early texts suggests that he was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE. The community was either a small republic, or an oligarchy. His father was an elected chieftain, or oligarch. Bronkhorst calls this eastern culture Greater Magadha and notes that Buddhism and Jainism arose in a culture which was recognized as being non-Vedic. In this context, a ramaa refers to one who labors, toils, or exerts themselves (for some higher or religious purpose). ![]() Indeed, Sariputta and Moggallna, two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sajaya Belahaputta, the sceptic; 74 and the Pali canon frequently depicts Buddha engaging in debate with the adherents of rival schools of thought. There is also philological evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques. Thus, Buddha was just one of the many ramaa philosophers of that time. In an era where holiness of person was judged by their level of asceticism, 77 Buddha was a reformist within the ramaa movement, rather than a reactionary against Vedic Brahminism. But from the middle of the 3rd century BCE, several Edicts of Ashoka (reigned c. BCE) mention the Buddha, and particularly Ashoka s Lumbini pillar inscription commemorates the Emperors pilgrimage to Lumbini as the Buddhas birthplace, calling him the Buddha Shakyamuni ( Brahmi script: Bu-dha Sa-kya-mu-n, Buddha, Sage of the Shakyas ). Another one of his edicts ( Minor Rock Edict No. Dhamma texts (in Buddhism, dhamma is another word for dharma), 81 establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pli Canon. Hinber proposes a composition date of no later than 350320 BCE for this text, which would allow for a true historical memory of the events approximately 60 years prior if the Short Chronology for the Buddhas lifetime is accepted (but he also points out that such a text was originally intended more as hagiography than as an exact historical record of events). These include texts such as the Discourse on the Noble Quest (Pali: Ariyapariyesana-sutta ) and its parallels in other languages. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Stra, Mahvastu, and the Nidnakath. Of these, the Buddhacarita 92 93 94 is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Avaghoa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Stra is the next oldest biography, a Mahyna Sarvstivda biography dating to the 3rd century CE. The Mahvastu from the Mahsghika Lokottaravda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE. The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhinikramaa Stra, 97 and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidnakath is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoa. The Jtaka tales retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts. The Mahpadna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautamas birth, such as the bodhisattvas descent from the Tuita Heaven into his mothers womb. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, ideas of the Buddhas omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahvastu. In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddhas disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing 101 while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made a claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the higher knowledges ( abhij ). The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddhas life as a ramaa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty-five-year career as a teacher.
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