Tagged: Buddha's historicity
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Drewes - A Historical Buddha After All? (2023)
1In this paper, David Drewes refutes Oskar von Hinüber's arguments for the historicity of the Buddha, reaffirming his position that there is no reliable evidence to establish the Buddha as a historical figure. Drewes systematically dismantles von Hinüber's reasoning, arguing that the earliness of a text does not guarantee its historicity, as the early Buddhist texts are fundamentally concerned with supernatural events rather than historical records. He deconstructs specific claims, such as the interpretation of the Upaka story through the "criterion of embarrassment" and the early dating of the *Mahāparinibbānasutta*, by providing alternative explanations rooted in literary tropes, polemics, or philological analysis. Drewes concludes that scholarship on the historical Buddha has relied on fallacious arguments from authority and subjective interpretations rather than scientific evidence, and that without such evidence, the Buddha's existence remains a matter of faith rather than a demonstrable historical fact.
Drewes - The Idea Of The Historical Buddha (2017)
2In a reevaluation of the Buddha's historicity, David Drewes argues that scholarship has never actually established that the Buddha was a real person and that he cannot be properly considered a historical figure. The author traces the development of the idea from the early nineteenth century, when the Buddha's existence was an open question, through the pivotal work of scholars like Eugène Burnouf, who separated the final Buddha, Śākyamuni, from his mythical predecessors based on Nepalese tradition rather than new evidence. Drewes contends that subsequent influential scholars, such as T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, cemented the Buddha's historicity not through factual discovery but by presupposing it and defending it with fallacious arguments, such as the logical necessity of a founder or appeals to a scholarly consensus that was not yet established. Even major twentieth-century proponents like E.J. Thomas, Étienne Lamotte, and André Bareau admitted that no reliable historical data could be extracted from the legends. Drewes concludes that since early texts depict a generic, supernatural being rather than a specific individual—with names like "Siddhārtha" being late additions and clan names like "Śākya" being potentially mythical—the Buddha belongs in the same category as other ahistorical founders like Vyāsa or Laozi, whose existence is a matter of belief rather than empirical fact.
Drewes - Toward Blue Skies Ahead - Reply To Von Hinüber's Second Response (2023)
3In this reply, David Drewes defends his thesis on the lack of evidence for the historical Buddha against critiques from Prof. Dr. von Hinüber, clarifying that his original paper targeted the scholarly inconsistency of affirming historicity without proof. Drewes explains that his focus on secondary sources is due to the absence of any primary texts being presented as evidence, and he posits that the origins of Buddhism before the mid-third century BCE are unknowable, cautioning against projecting modern concepts like "mystical experience" onto its prehistory. He systematically refutes von Hinüber's specific counterarguments by employing detailed linguistic and manuscript evidence to defend his textual emendations in the Dīrghāgama and Sañghabhedavastu, and he substantiates his mythological analysis by showing that numerous Indian myths, including the Sītā story, feature a ritualistic golden plow, thereby connecting a Pali story about the Buddha's youth to this broader narrative tradition.
Wynne - Did the Buddha exist? (2019)
4In his article, Alexander Wynne argues against extreme skepticism regarding the Buddha's existence, presenting evidence that early Buddhist discourses are largely authentic historical records. He refutes claims that the Buddha is a myth by citing the high fidelity of the texts' oral transmission, archaeological and inscriptional evidence from the Aśokan era that corroborates details about the Buddha's clan and disciples, and the texts' consistent depiction of a pre-imperial India before the rise of large cities, coinage, and brick architecture. Wynne's central thesis is that the teachings reveal a singular and idiosyncratic personality—a quiet, pragmatic, and sometimes reticent teacher—whose unique and coherent philosophical system, characterized by concepts like 'not-self' and the dialectic of silence, is too distinctive and complex to have been invented by a committee, pointing instead to a single, historical founder.