The history of Buddha

Traditional biographies

1.Biographical source

The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the ,, , and the Nidānakathā. Of these, theBuddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet, and dating around the beginning of the 2nd century CE. TheLalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a / biography dating to the 3rd century CE. The Mahāvastu from the tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE. The biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra, and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the tradition in and was composed in the 5th century by.

From canonical sources, the , the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and theAchariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123) which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātakas retell previous lives of Gautama as a , and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts. The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as the bodhisattva's descent from the into his mother's womb.

2.Nature of traditional depictions 

In the earliest Buddhists texts, the and , the Buddha is not depicted as possessing (sabbaññu) nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent (lokottara) being. According to , ideas of the Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the and later commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu. In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing 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" . The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a , his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as and his forty five year career as a teacher.

Traditional biographies of Gautama generally include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supra-mundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma".Nevertheless, some of the more ordinary details of his life have been gathered from these traditional sources. In modern times there has been an attempt to form a of Siddhārtha Gautama's life by omitting the traditional supernatural elements of his early biographies.

Andrew Skilton writes that the Buddha was never historically regarded by Buddhist traditions as being merely human:

It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to skeptical Western pupils), he was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, "superman"; the Buddha himself denied that he was either a man or a ; and in the he states that he could live for an were he asked to do so.

The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the , and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in for which significant accounts exist. British author writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure. Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.