"Buddha" before the Pali Canon?

[Ramalingam Shanmugalingam]

Religion in the wrong hands can be more dangerous than opium products.
Buddhism of the "self-centered and arrogant, concealing self-aggrandizement
behind a facade of "social service"" Buddhist Monks who wield enough
influence to corrupt the Sinhala political leaders much to the detriment of
Buddhism.Religious power lies in the continuing, generating, developing and
assimilating acts of individuals based on faith. Buddhism is attributed to
one Buddha's power. Whether such a genius existed or not is hard to
establish to the full satisfaction of the human five senses. Nevertheless,
Buddhism has existed for centuries according to Tamil literature in Tamil
Nadu.

In the Saint Manikkavasagar's works, it is noted that a King of Ceylon with
his dumb daughter visited Chidambaram (Famous Siva temple in Tamil Nadu)
accompanied by a Buddhist High Priest and an entourage of Buddhist Monks to
meet Tamil Saiva dignitaries and defeat them in a debate. Saint
Manikkavasagar led the Saiva debate team that took place in the temple in
the presence of the Chola King. Saivites won the debate and the Buddhists
became abusive and ridiculed Saivism. The Saint led a prayer and seizing the
opportunity the King from Ceylon requested the Saint to make his dumb
daughter speak. Saint not only cured her affliction but she could answer
some of the questions posed earlier. The King thereafter embraced Saivism.

"To err is human", therefore a perfect God could not have created these
imperfect humans. Faltering humans created religious Gods that helped many
to act with restraint. However, in the light of technological power and
Globalization of material gains, cultural and religious fervent exponents
will carry this to an extent that will lead to future clashes. The
establishment of the US Commission on Religious Freedom by an act of
Congress does not auger well for the independence of religions from state
interference within and outside the US.

Every religion is bent on establishing its superiority over others and not
the power and glory of the "Ageless, Endless and the Effulgent Source of
Energy" (THIRUVEMPAVAI) or "God is Love" truth that makes us the LIVING
humans. Saint Manikkavasagar is no exception to this human weakness
expressed in "ACHAPPATTU - Ten Verses on Fear"

"I fear not the anthill snake
        I fear not the truth of the untrue
        He is my Lord of the lumpy locks
        With the third Cyclops eye
        I seek his footsteps
        I fear them who sustain the existence
        Of another God and not learnt of My Lord."


-----Original Message-----
From: Indology [mailto:INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK]On Behalf Of Steve
Farmer
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 2:27 AM
To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK
Subject: "Buddha" before the Pali Canon?


I have a question touching on, or rather going a step beyond, the
Buddha redating issue.

A prominent Vedicist (who does not participate on this list) sent
out an email the other day with the following intriguing comment.
His point arose out of a previous discussion of the links between
Vedic and Buddhist traditions:

> Pali texts are
> certainly not the oldest of Buddhist texts, and Pali was not the
> language of the Buddha or of the early Buddhist community. This
> is a myth propagated in the 19th century by the Pali Text Society
> etc. There certainly are very old documents within the Pali canon
> -- e.g. the Suttanipata, and within it the Attakavagga (see
> Vetter's article on this).

I take it that he is referring here to Vetter's arguments (e.g.,
in his 1988 monograph, pp. 101 ff.) concerning pre-Buddhist
strata in the Attakavagga. But I have no information about his
reference to Pali not being the "language of the Buddha or of the
early Buddhist community." Can someone more knowledgeable about
than I am about recent Buddhist studies help me out with
bibliography in any European language?

In general, I should point out that I take arguments about the
historicity of "the Buddha" with deep skepticism, since ancient
biographies of figures like this (cf. "Confucius," "Aristotle,"
"Jesus," etc.) were invariably late constructs, reflecting
scattered data in rapidly growing textual canons (collected
syncretically to generate figures who eventually reached cosmic
dimensions), self-serving claims by warring schools, and other
equally dubious sources. Indeed, I think that strong
cross-cultural models can be built for how biographies like these
grew over time. The credence that these biographies (stripped
only of their miraculous elements) are still given even by modern
researchers rests on no stronger grounds than the fact that they
have been endlessly repeated.

Hence I view the redatings of early Buddhism by Bechert et
al.(which I fully support) to be redatings of the Pali canon and
not of "the Buddha" -- and am hence equally skeptical about
claims about "the language of the Buddha" (not only don't pot
speak, as the saying has it, but neither do biographical
constructs - or if they do they are surely multilingual). I've
been surprised to find that claims concerning the "historical
Buddha" are still widely accepted by Buddhist scholars, even
revisionists following in Bechert's path. (The argument is always
about *when* "the Buddha" died, not about whether or not he is a
syncretic construct, built around a variety of "awakened"
religious revisionits.) Vetter too (1988: xxi ff.), despite his
work on pre-Buddhist levels of Buddhist texts, accepts a lot of
conventional lore about the life of "the Buddha" that no one
could *possibly* support using well-controlled evidence.
Interestingly, these tendencies are also common in recent
revisionist works on early Confucian works, in which efforts to
destratify the texts are often coupled with remarkably
traditional accounts of Confucius's "life."

In any event, does anyone have any comments about the "language
of the Buddha," Buddhist texts antedating the Pali canon, etc?

Best wishes,
Steve Farmer