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Who Was the Buddha?

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Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#51

Post by gerdesj »

QuercusMax wrote: post #21
GuiA wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Reminds me of a similar example with Jesus, commonly thought to be a carpenter, but who was really a tektōn (At least according to the Gospel of Mark) which could be translated as carpenter or stonemason. Most houses in Israel at the time would appear to have been made of stone, and therefore stonemason seems like it’d be a more appropriate translation.

Fascinating! That could explain why he gave Simon the name "Peter" (Stone), and references like "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (Matthew 21:42, quoting Psalm 118:22.)

@BigOak. I think that Peter was a Rock and not just a stone - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter#%22Rock%22_dialogu...

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#52

Post by sigzero »

QuercusMax wrote: post #21
GuiA wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Reminds me of a similar example with Jesus, commonly thought to be a carpenter, but who was really a tektōn (At least according to the Gospel of Mark) which could be translated as carpenter or stonemason. Most houses in Israel at the time would appear to have been made of stone, and therefore stonemason seems like it’d be a more appropriate translation.

Fascinating! That could explain why he gave Simon the name "Peter" (Stone), and references like "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone" (Matthew 21:42, quoting Psalm 118:22.)

Matthew 21:42 is talking about the Pharisees rejecting Christ.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#53

Post by ma2rten »

jaldhar wrote: post #37
alexmingoia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say myth, I mean in the sense that it’s not actually supported by the Tripitaka, which is the first complete written account of Buddha’s teachings by a lineage of his original monastic order (mostly confirmed by historical evidence where it exists) to survive as written to the present day, and considered canonical Buddhist teaching. It is most definitely quantifiable whether something is or is not written in t…

One also has to bear in mind that the Tripitakha was compiled several centuries after the Buddha is said to have lived and has several divergent versions according to the ideological predilections of its editors. Also Pali was probably not the native language of the Buddha. The vernacular of the area where he lived and taught was call Magadhi. (The Jain Agamas are transmitted in a related language called Ardhamagadhi…

I believe that some scholars actually believe that Pali is an artificial language, a mixture between different dialects that was intelligible to people from different regions.

There is no question that there are some later additions. There are even some contradictions. But by comparing different passages and comparing with the Chinese Agamas, we can get a pretty good idea of what the Buddha actually thought.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#54

Post by gerdesj »

weberc2 wrote: post #8
GuiA wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Reminds me of a similar example with Jesus, commonly thought to be a carpenter, but who was really a tektōn (At least according to the Gospel of Mark) which could be translated as carpenter or stonemason. Most houses in Israel at the time would appear to have been made of stone, and therefore stonemason seems like it’d be a more appropriate translation.

I've always been confused by the English definition of "carpenter". I always thought it was originally something like "woodworker" or a furniture smith, but it appears that most native speakers understood "carpenter" to mean "house builder". I wonder if at some time the same occupation referred to both or if I simply grew up misinformed?

Carpenter is a tricky term because wood is used in so many ways. This is strictly UK biased:

In building terms we distinguish a first and second fix carpenter. First fix is mostly structural and second fix is the rest. If your hair is wet its probably first fix - roof trusses and the like. Second fix will include things like skirting boards. It's not a hard and fast rule and will probably involve the same people. These trades are known as "chippies" (sing. chippy).

We also have cabinetry (your furniture smith - nice one) and other wood working trades. They are all called carpenters. A chippy is a carpenter and I think this a rare case where the nickname is more common than the real name. Civilians will often call a chippy a "builder". A cabinet maker is never known as a builder or a chippy.

The chippy thing is because a very small piece of wood is a "chip".

I think I know why you are a bit confused about the word carpenter. In the US and elsewhere, houses are mostly wooden. When a house is nearly all wood, then the word carpenter should mean builder. In the UK and elsewhere houses are built of sticks and bricks, mostly bricks.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#55

Post by wahern »

dionian wrote: post #19
ggm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is correct in that Buddha being a prince is a myth. The use of the word myth in connection with religion always fascinates me. The entire concept of religion generally depends on myths. recursive use of myth in myth. Generally I have to read these sentences as in my opinion because the 'factual' quality of statements regarding the ur-myths of religion is usually not quantifiable, its all contextually defi…

It turns out that myths are an incredibly powerful vessel to preserve and transmit information. Especially before we had widespread access to printing presses, books, and libraries

"Sacred text as cultural genome: an inheritance mechanism and method for studying cultural evolution", https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2153599X.2016.11...:

> Sacred religious texts have the properties required for an inheritance system. They are replicated across generations with high fidelity and are transcribed into action every generation by the invocation and interpretation of selected passages. In this article we borrow concepts and methods from genetics and epigenetics to study the “expressed phenotypes” of six Christian churches that differ along a conservative–progressive axis. Their phenotypic differences, despite drawing upon the same sacred text, can be explained in part by differential expression of the sacred text. Since the invocation and interpretation of sacred texts are often well preserved, our methods allow the expressed phenotypes of religious groups to be studied at any time and place in history.

An article by one of the authors on the paper: https://evolution-institute.org/religious-epigenetics/

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#56

Post by wyclif »

gerdesj wrote: post #54
weberc2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been confused by the English definition of "carpenter". I always thought it was originally something like "woodworker" or a furniture smith, but it appears that most native speakers understood "carpenter" to mean "house builder". I wonder if at some time the same occupation referred to both or if I simply grew up misinformed?

Carpenter is a tricky term because wood is used in so many ways. This is strictly UK biased: In building terms we distinguish a first and second fix carpenter. First fix is mostly structural and second fix is the rest. If your hair is wet its probably first fix - roof trusses and the like. Second fix will include things like skirting boards. It's not a hard and fast rule and will probably involve the same people. The…

Americans often get confused when in the UK because "chippy" can mean either a carpenter or the fish and chips shop on the street.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#57

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

nabla9 wrote: post #48
smadurange wrote: post #40

It's often hilarious when I hear western analyses of Buddhism and the Buddha. It's like a trying to understand general relativity using analogies and guesses. You feel like you understand it, till you get to the Mathematics of it. First of all drop your arrogance. And understand that your way of thinking is already shaped by deep underlying assumptions that often originated in a Christian backdrop, including western…

> In orthodox Buddhism, like that in Sri Lanka, the path to understanding Buddhism is uncontroversial, difficult but uncontroversial. After reading the memoirs of Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (the author of Mindfulness in Plain English) I get the impression that Sri Lankan Buddhism was degraded into pointless rote learning and empty rituals. When Bhante G. became a monk in 1940's monks didn't even practice meditation.…

Sri Lanka, as well as most of SE Asia (but notably unlike the rest of the world), practice Theravada Buddhism, which is the oldest and most ritualized form of Buddhism. A really rough analogy in Christianity would be Orthodoxy or Catholicism.

But most Buddhism taught in the West descends from the Mahayana school, which teaches that enlightenment is possible in a single lifetime, and thus has a much heavier focus on individual practice and understanding. Again, as a crude analogy, thinks Protestants and printing the Bible in the vernacular so everybody, not just priests, can understand it.

And particularly popular in the West is the most austere branch of them all, Zen (Chan) Buddhism, which aims to strip away as much frippery as possible; again, roughly analogous to Lutheranism.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#58

Post by brainless »

A side nitpick:

I find it surprising the author mentions "pre-imperial India" to mark the era when Buddha was alive. There is a couple thousand years of rich history between the life of Buddha and "pre-imperial India". I would really like the Western authors to stop using Imperialism as a bookmark, as if India had nothing else significant before.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#59

Post by tasogare »

sombremesa wrote: post #44
alexmingoia wrote: post #2

The article is correct in that Buddha being a prince is a myth. The Pali canon (Tripitaka) does not assert he lived in a palace, depending on the translation used. It states he was born in bhavana (Sn. 685) which has in the past been translated as palace but it simply means a place. When Buddha talks about his fathers abode he just refers to a house or mansion or family complex, using the word nivasana (A.I 145) whic…

Are you sure about this? "Bhavana" most certainly does not mean "a place" in modern parlance (see: "Rashtrapati Bhavan", which is the president's residence), and a lot of the other words have extant meanings in Hindi which differ significantly from what you've said here. Either Hindi has diverged a whole lot from Sanskrit and the meanings have changed (vimana literally means flying vehicle, and I'm pretty sure it's t…

> Either Hindi has diverged a whole lot from Sanskrit and the meaning have changed

Yes it changed significantly. That’s why philology exists. And also why languages with long existence are classified in different strata.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#60

Post by abecode »

edgarvaldes wrote: post #25
weberc2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been confused by the English definition of "carpenter". I always thought it was originally something like "woodworker" or a furniture smith, but it appears that most native speakers understood "carpenter" to mean "house builder". I wonder if at some time the same occupation referred to both or if I simply grew up misinformed?

> but it appears that most native speakers understood "carpenter" to mean "house builder". In Latin-America we use a very similar word: "carpintero" with the same origin. But the houses in the region are commonly made of concrete brick, so we don't associate "carpenter" with "house builder".

My brother is a carpenter and works with a lot of Latinos. He also does birdwatching as a hobby. Supposedly carpintero is also what they call woodpeckers.
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