4/18/2015 Episode 17: The Buddha and His Time | 15 Minute History

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Episode 17: The Buddha and His TimePosted on April 3, 2013 by Christopher Rose

Host: Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern StudiesGuest: Keely Sutton, doctoral student, Department of Asian Studies

Buddhism is unquestionably one of the world’s major faith traditions, but its origins aresomewhat shrouded in mythology and legend surrounding its founder, Siddharta Gautama,the historical Buddha. Who was he? When and where did he live? And what were the socialcurrents and forces in his own time that shaped his worldview and led him to renounce theworld in an effort to save humanity from itself?

Guest Keeley Sutton from UT’s Department of Asian Studies helps us understand thehistorical Buddha and the era in which he lived.

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Standards Alignment | Transcript | Documents and Further Reading

Transcript

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What is Buddhism?

That’s a difficult question. Some people say that it’s a religion or a religious tradition; otherpeople would maybe say that it’s more of a philosophy or a practice—something you practicemore than something you believe, which is where there’s a disconnect between east andwest.

When we talk about the development of Buddhism, what time period are we looking at,historically speaking?

Well, the dates of the historical Buddha, Siddharta Gautama, has been shifted around a bit

Buddha statue from the Gupta Period.

“Buddha [India] (69.222)”. In Heilbrunn

Timeline of Art History. New York: The

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/worksof

art/69.222 (October 2006)

—

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over the years. I think that scholars are now looking at maybe 470, 480 BCE as anapproximation of when he was born. He lived for 80 years, according to his biographies insome of the canons. So, that puts him at around 400 BCE when he passed away. Prior tothis, they had dates a little earlier, in the 500s.

What was going on in India at the time? I believe that Karen Armstrong describes thisperiod as the Axial Age. There was a lot of religious fervor with new movementsspringing up. What was going that was contributing to that?

Around that time period, you have some shifts in Brahmanical thought. Brahmanism is howearly religion in India was talked about, the name given to it. That has some of the aspects ofwhat still exists in Hinduism today, one of which is the caste system. You have Brahmins,K?atriya, Vai?yas, and S?dras—it’s a four part caste system.

The Brahmins were the priests; K?atriya were the rulers or kings; Vai?yas were themerchants or pastoralists, they were herders—they herded cattle, or they grew crops; andthe S?dras, who were the servants. They were the bottom, and they weren’t allowed accessto the ritual system. If you’re Vai?yas or K?atriya, you could have Brahmins performsacrifices for you. These sacrifices initially were for the normal kind of mundane things—longlife, riches, having a son—and in the old literature, which are the Vedas, you see concernsfor being reborn into heaven, even. There wasn’t an idea of rebirth like you see later.

But, when you get more towards the Buddha, toward the Axial age, something new washappening—an urbanization was going on. So, instead of having small kin groups, you haverulers who are ruling over several kin groups; you have the growth of cities, and with that youhad people who were more settled and not moving around as much. Maybe they hadsurpluses, surplus of food, a surplus of money, things like that. So, people with surpluseshave the ability to give it to people.

At the same time, you have these Sramana movements, which means ascetic, orrenouncing, movements. This was happening within the Vedic / Brahmanical world as well.And at that time, that’s when you start seeing concepts such as Sa?s?ra, which is the wheelof birth and rebirth, this idea of being born and reborn back into the world. And the idea ofkarma, which originally meant “action” only in the ritual sphere, so when you talked aboutkarma you were talking about how the Brahmin priests sacrificed—it was their sacrificialactions. Instead, this took on the new understanding that what you did in this world wouldaffect how you were reborn. And then you start getting the idea too in the Upanishads, whichare the later Vedic texts, of moksha—the idea is that you want to be reborn.

That you want to be able to control how you’re reborn…

…right! And actually get out of the system—release, moksha means release or liberation.

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Where does the Buddha fit in to all of these developments?

He was within this whole sphere, so these ideas were probably floating around to a certainextent—the idea of Sa?s?ra, the idea of karma.And there was also the idea of Brahman.Brahman is the unchanging and highest reality that exists in and even beyond the world.Another concept that’s related is that of ?tman, which is the essence and true self of theindividual. It’s perhaps loosely analogous to a soul.

Now, in the Upanishadic texts the big kind of “aha!” moment was when you realize that ?tman equals Brahman. So, Brahman—not the priests Brahmin, but Brahman the reality, whatthings really are. In the Upanishadic, the Vedic, the Brahminical sphere, the way to reachrelease was to realize that you are actually the Ultimate, Brahman. That is who you reallyare: your ?tman, your self, is Brahman.

Obviously, you and I would be released right now if it was just a intellectual understanding.But we’re talking about a really deep understanding that comes about after years of studyand meditation. So that was key because ?tman in this system, the Brahminical system,equals Brahman.

Well, Buddha came in to this system—the Buddha, Siddharta Gautama—and what he endedup understanding is that there is no self. This was a major shift, from a self, a soul, your ?tman being Brahman—meaning that you have an eternal self—he said no, there’s no suchthing as a self. So, he was clearly reacting to this.

Another way that he reacted to it of course was that he was very egalitarian. So instead ofBrahmins being the people who were the conduit between the gods and the people, and alsothis rigid caste system in which where you were born is where you were, he said, “No, comeone, come all,” basically. Women were eventually allowed into the system. It didn’t reallymatter what your caste was, as well.

Let’s talk a little bit about the Buddha’s personal biography—

Sure.

—Who he was, where he was, what his station was in life, and how he came to areligious life.

Biographies of the Buddha started being written a few hundred years after his death. One ofthe most famous ones is A?vagho?a‘s Buddhacarita, which means “A History of theBuddha.”

They say he was a prince. I think he said within some of the Pali Canon that he was a K?atriya, he would tell people that he was a K?atriya. He definitely was of a ruling family. This

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particular story was already infused with the mythology of the Buddha. A lot of things happenthat point forward to who he would become—

—right—

So, his mother, for instance had a vision of a white elephant entering her side. And then, laterthe story says that she was on her way to her family’s house to have the baby, which iscustomary, and she stopped at this particular grove, and she had the Buddha without pain,standing up. The Buddha was born fully aware, he took seven steps, and he spoke. So,that’s what the Buddhacarita says. It further goes on to talk about how he was—because ofall of these auspicious things that happened around him—he went and spoke to some wisemen or Brahmins and they said, “Well, your son will be a universal king, or he will be a reallywise sage, a religious ascetic. He will renounce the world.”

Relief of Queen Maya’s Dream. From the Sunga Period (2nd century AD). Stupa de

Bharhut. Sculpture. Calcutta. Indian Museum.

—

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Well, the king, his father, didn’t want him to become a renouncer, he wanted him to becomea world king. The story says that he put him in a palace, and he made sure that he saw nosuffering, nothing bad. And he was lavished with all of the sensory delights that you couldimagine. Eventually, he got married at age 29, and he had a son. But, the gods had tointervene according to this story, and one day when he was out in the city, they sent certainthings for him to see.

One of these was a sick person, one was a dead person, one was an old person, and finally,an ascetic—a renouncer—who was in saffron robes with a shaven head. The point of all thiswas that when he saw the first three, he realized that you cannot escape certain kinds ofsuffering. You can’t escape sickness, death, or old age. And these kind of tormented him.And when he saw the monk, he had to ask, “Who is that?” And when his charioteer told him,it started this thought process, I think, in his head.

And from that point, he left the palace—

Miniature of the young Prince Siddharta, encountering suffering. (miniature of ink and

gold leaf on paper, Thailand, 1776).

—

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—right—

—and began his religious journey—

—right—

What was his early … I don’t know if ministry is the right word to use in terms of theBuddha, but clearly he attracted followers. What was the impact of his small religiouscult during his lifetime, or as far as we can tell?

We don’t really have a lot of evidence from that time. We have the Pali Canon, which wasn’teven written down until after his death, that’s the earliest text. We also have the Therigatha,which are songs of the elders, the men and the women. We know that, as I said before, youhad these other renouncing movements. There were a lot of them going on, and you hadJainism going on as well. I don’t know – we know that it was patronized, obviously, but wedon’t know how much it was even seen as a separate movement on the ground. Peopleprobably patronized a lot of different traditions. People would have the same kind of thing,they would come begging.

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How did his thoughts change and evolve over his lifetime? Do we have a sense of howthey matured, what sort of messages he left behind?

The main kind of ideas are the Four Noble Truths, and you can kind of see it from the story,too—again, that was written after his death—

—right—

it’s all encompassed very nicely.

“Buddha Amoghasiddhi with Eight Bodhisattvas [Tibet (Central regions)]

(1991.74)”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/worksof

art/1991.74 (September 2008)

—

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All life is suffering, first of all. And, this was something that was understood already in themilieu of Vedic thought anyway, it was just how you dealt with it that differed. By suffering, itdoesn’t mean sharp, shooting pain. Maybe a better translation is “unsatisfactoriness.” So, inthe Buddhist understanding, when we’re anxious about schoolwork or we’re anxious aboutwork, or we’ve got the restless feeling, or we’re just a little sad, or we get something thatwant and then we realize that maybe that’s not what we wanted, or it’s not enough—you getwhat you want but then you realize that you’re happy for a day but then you’re back to whereyou were—all this is suffering. So, that’s the first tenet, or the first Noble Truth: all life issuffering.

The second Noble Truth is that suffering is caused by desire. So, because we want thingsand want to own them and have them, that’s what causes the suffering.

The third noble truth is that there is a way to stop suffering. He said, we can stop it. It’s notsomething that we have to live with.

And the fourth Noble Truth is the Eightfold Path, which is his particular prescription. This isset up almost like something a doctor would do. He looks at the problem, he finds the root ofit, he figures out whether or not it can be cured, and then he gives you the cure. So, this isthe cure, the Noble Eightfold Path.

Are there similarities between some of these concepts and some of those that weassociate with Hinduism?

Well, you definitely have Sa?s?ra, which is the wheel of life and death and rebirth. You’vegot karma. Instead of ?tman, the Buddha said there’s no self, in fact one our our bigfundamental problems is that we think that we exist, we think that we have a soul, but wereally don’t. And that’s diametrically opposed to Brahminism. But, interestingly enough … theway that Buddhism dried up and left India is not totally clear, people point to a lot of differentreasons, but one of the things that people do say is that after these Sramina movements ofthe Vedic world—of Brahminism—with these Upanishadic understandings, but then you alsohave later the Bhakti movements. Bhakti means devotion. And later you have these Bhaktimovements growing throughout India and some people argue that Buddhism was kind ofincorporated into some of these other movements. Some of the Bhakti movements, or evensome of the Vedic movements–movements that are based on the Vedas.

As a matter of fact, vegetarianism, which a lot of people think actually started with Jainism,which started around the same time as the Buddha—Buddhism kind of adopted it, and thenHinduism adopted it.

Vishnu eventually incorporated the Buddha as his ninth avatar. So, the ten major avatars ofVishnu, which were written about later, took him as the ninth avatar.

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You mention that the Buddha married and had a son…

… yes, R?hula, his name was, which means “binding.”

… was there any veneration of the family?

No.

So, we don’t really know what happened to the line of descendants after that?

No, we sure don’t. At least not as far as I know.

He always said that the important thing was the teaching. In fact, the Buddha promoted theidea that this understanding has always existed. There have been Buddhas before him, andthere will be Buddhas after him. What happens is that, say, the Buddha—which means“awakened one,” literally—his given family name was Siddharta Gautama, he was alsoknown as the Tath?gata, which means the Thus Come One, so he has various titles andthings. The Buddha is a title for someone who comes to this understanding alone at a timewhen the world has forgotten it, and then he teaches it to other people. So, someone whocomes after him and becomes enlightened, you become an Arahant (or an Arhat in Pali), buta Buddha is someone who specifically has no teacher, discovers it on his own, and thenteaches it.

You mention that the Buddha lived to be 80 years old. Was he considered to havedied? Did he ascend? What are the traditions surrounding the end of his earthlyexistence?

He is said to have died from food poisoning, from pork…

…a strong vegetarian message there, I suppose!

…maybe. I don’t know if it’s a vegetarian message so much as just mundane and highlightsthe fact that he was just a man. He got it from begging; they would accept whatever peoplegave them. Beggars can’t be choosers.

When he died, there are sayings about showers of flowers and things like this. He reachedwhat they call parinirvana, final nirvana. You don’t have to die to reach nirvana, but when youdo die, and you’re released and you’re not coming back, you reach parinirvana. This is aconcept that confuses people sometimes, because they wonder if you have to die to reachthis state. He reached final nirvana, which means he’s done. He’s not coming back.

Then he was cremated, and the ashes were divided among these stupas. Stupas are theseburial domes, and you circumambulate them.

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There’s a pilgrimage route in northern India, if I’m not mistaken…

… yes, there is. I’m not familiar with it, but I imagine it’s his birth, his first sermon, and hisdeath. People go there and circumambulate. People used to go there and they would donate.There’s a wealth of inscriptional evidence that we have. It gives you peoples’ names andwhat they did. They would have their names carved on brick and put in these structures, youcould see where they were from, what they did, what kind of classes were participating inBuddhism in this time period. It’s really interesting.

It’s funny, I think we have a similar system going on with some of the new buildingshere on this campus.

Right? <laughs>

Documents and Further Reading

Teaching The BuddhaA collection of materials developed to accompany the PBS documentary The Buddha.

Buddhism and Buddhist ArtArticles, images, and essays from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline ofArt History is funded by the Heilbrunn Foundation, New Tamarind Foundation, and ZodiacFund. The Timeline of Art History presents the Met’s collection via a chronological,geographical, and thematic exploration of global art history. Targeted at students andscholars of art history, it is an invaluable reference, research, and teaching tool. Authored bythe Met’s experts—predominantly made up of curators but also of conservators, scientists,and educators—the Timeline comprises 300 timelines, 930 essays, close to 7,000 objects,and a robust index, and is regularly updated and enriched to provide new scholarship andinsights on the collection.

The Art of South and Southeast Asia: A Resource for EducatorsBy Steven M. Kossak and Edith W. Watts. A great and early civilization arose on thesubcontinent of South Asia that in time spread northward to the Himalayan region andeastward to Southeast Asia, a vast area including Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia,Vietnam, Malaysia, and Myanmar. This resource introduces works of art from this areaselected from the superb South and Southeast Asian and Islamic collections of TheMetropolitan Museum of Art. Included are examples of Buddhist and Hindu temple art and thelater court arts of South Asia; these range from miniature painting and luxurious textiles toelegant personal possessions. As well as descriptions of the visual qualities and symbolicmeanings of the art, also provided are a summary of South and Southeast Asian history, asection about Buddhism and Hinduism, a timeline and map, classroom activities, lessonplans, a bibliography, and a glossary. These educational materials were made possible by

4/18/2015 Episode 17: The Buddha and His Time | 15 Minute History

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The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation.

Standards Alignment

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)This podcast addresses the following standards in the high school World History course:

1) History. The student understands traditional historical points of reference in world history.The student is expected to:

(B) identify major causes and describe the major effects of the following events from500 BC to AD 600: the development of the classical civilizations of Greece, Rome,Persia, India (Maurya and Gupta), China (Zhou, Qin, and Han), and the development ofmajor world religions;

(3) History. The student understands the contributions and influence of classicalcivilizations from 500 BC to AD 600 on subsequent civilizations. The student is expected to:

(A) describe the major political, religious/philosophical, and cultural influences ofPersia, India, China, Israel, Greece, and Rome, including the development ofmonotheism, Judaism, and Christianity;

(23) Culture. The student understands the history and relevance of major religious andphilosophical traditions. The student is expected to:

(A) describe the historical origins, central ideas, and spread of major religious andphilosophical traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism,Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, and the development of monotheism; and

(B) identify examples of religious influence on various events referenced in the majoreras of world history.

(25) Culture. The student understands how the development of ideas has influencedinstitutions and societies. The student is expected to:

(A) summarize the fundamental ideas and institutions of Eastern civilizations thatoriginated in China and India;

This podcast addresses the following standards in the high school World Geographycourse:

(17) Culture. The student understands the distribution, patterns, and characteristics of

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different cultures. The student is expected to:

(B) describe major world religions, including animism, Buddhism, Christianity,Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism, and their spatial distribution;

National Standards for History, Basic EditionThis podcast addresses the following standards in World History Era 3

Standard 3D: The student understands religious and cultural developments in India in the eraof the Gangetic states and the Mauryan Empire.

Describe the life and teachings of the Buddha and explain ways in which thoseteachings were a response to the Brahmanic system

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This entry was posted in 500 BC 600 AD, Podcast, South Asia, World History byRegion and tagged asia, asvagosa, atman, axial age, bhakti, brahman, brahmanism,brahmin, buddha, buddhacarita, caste, christopher rose, eight fold path, four nobletruths, hinduism, jainism, keely sutton, moksha, nirvana, NWH3.3D, pali canon,parinirvana, religion, samsara, self, siddharta gautama, south asia, southeast asia,therigatha, twg17.b, TWH1.B, twh23.a, twh23.b, twh25.a, TWH3.A, upanishad, vedic,vishnu by Christopher Rose. Bookmark the permalink[http://15minutehistory.org/2013/04/03/episode17thebuddhaandhistime/] .