Tagged: Pali texts
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Drewes - The Idea Of The Historical Buddha (2017)
1In 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.
Shults - On the Buddha's Use of Some Brahmanical Motifs in Pali Texts (2014)
2This paper by Brett Shults argues that Pali texts demonstrate a sophisticated and deliberate engagement with Brahmanical culture by strategically adopting and reinterpreting its motifs to articulate Buddhist teachings. Moving beyond the idea of a shared cultural vocabulary, the author illustrates how early Buddhists repurposed specific Brahmanical elements for their own didactic purposes. Examples range from metallurgical similes, where the Brahmanical concept of refining gold for ritual purity is transformed into a metaphor for mental purification, to the Buddha's detailed technical knowledge of the Sāvitrī mantra's gāyatrī meter. The analysis further shows how core Brahmanical practices, such as the agnihotra (fire sacrifice) and the three Vedic ritual fires, are systematically interiorized and ethicized, shifting their focus from external rites to internal development and social responsibilities, thereby challenging and supplanting the original Brahmanical framework using its own terms.