Buddha's birthplace found (Buddhism, myths, faith, Abraham)
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Interesting. If we are talking 6th c B.C then that is not too likely to be just siting a memorial in a place where nothing happened. It does have a bit of a problem, though, in that it requires us to swallow that story about Mayadevi hanging onto a tree to give birth. Is it not possible that it is is more of a commemoration of Buddha's enlightenment under a Pipal tree?
One thing I want to know is - what sort of tree was it built around? If a Pipal, that sounds like the standard Pipal -tee commemoration of Buddha's enlightenment. If some other kind of tree, that would suggest that it had historical rather than doctrinal significance.
Being so early though does undermine my suspicion that Buddha may not have been a real person and Buddhism was rather invented by committee. I am willing to be proven wrong.
"The Buddhists of different parts of the East differ widely in their chronology. The Northern Division of the faith place the birth of Buddha in 1030 B.C., the Southern fix his death in 543 B.C., a discrepancy of five centuries. Other accounts reveal disagreements of still further magnitude. Upon this absence of even an approach to chronological accuracy, Professor Wilson has broached the idea that probably the existence of Buddha is a myth. 'There are various considerations which throw suspicion upon the narrative and render it very problematical whether any such person as Sakiya Sinha, or Sakiya Muni, or Sramana Gautama ever actually existed.'"
That's a useful point. Since the Buddha's birthdate is anything from 800 -400 B. C. E, there is a few hundred years' gap wherein devotees could have gone back to where they thought Buddha was born and started a shrine. The early date does not mean that the founders of the shrine had to have sound knowledge of the facts.
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