Tagged: Śākya clan
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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.
Levman - Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures (2014)
2Bryan Levman's article argues that Buddhist scriptures contain significant cultural remnants from India's indigenous Munda, Dravidian, and Tibeto-Burman peoples, which have been obscured by a later "brahmanization" that historicized the Buddha within the dominant Indo-Aryan (IA) tradition. The author identifies this indigenous influence by examining the hostility between IA immigrants and eastern ethnic groups like the Buddha's Sakya clan, whose distinct socio-political organization (*gaṇasaṅgha*), rejection of the Brahmanical class system, and non-Aryan marriage customs are evident in the texts. Furthermore, key Buddhist concepts and practices are traced to autochthonous roots, including the idea of the *Mahāpuruṣa* (Great Man), the veneration of trees and serpents (*nāgas*), the culture of sacred groves, and the unique funeral rites described for the Buddha's *parinibbāna*, all of which differ significantly from Vedic norms.