"Buddha" before the Pali Canon?

[Dr Y. Vassilkov]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Antoine Leca" <Antoine.Leca at RENAULT.FR>
To: <INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK>
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2000 8:05 PM
Subject: Re: "Buddha" before the Pali Canon?


> Certainly my examples cannot be compared in importance with Buddhism
> (what can in the last 500 years?) However, I believe that while strong
> unique leadership is a way to "build" powerful movements, this is not
> the only one.
>
> Think about French Revolution at the end of XVIIIth c. C.E.
> Certainly there are leaders that can be identified. But saying this
> is the job of only _one_ (which one?) is very hard to establish.

> the Christian crusades at the end of the Middle Ages, also cannot
> be attribuated to only one leader ...

As it seems to me, there is great difference between foundation of a
soteriological religion - and  establishing a political party or organizing
a revolution. Great political events are predetermined by many social,
economical and ideological factors, - while the "seed" out of which the
"tree" of any soteriological religion grows is constituted by the founder's
mystical, psychological experience. Human contacts with the Sacred or
Supernatural have their own history of development (and of decline!) but in
this history a founder, as a mystically gifted individual, plays an
exceptional role.


Yaroslav Vassilkov