How do we celebrate the birthday of someone who defined the world and the self as an illusion? Is that the sound of one hand clapping?
The annual celebration is on the lunar calendar between May 5th and 26th, 2024, depending on national tradition wherever you live.
The exact date of Buddha’s Birthday is based on the Asian lunisolar calendars and is primarily celebrated in Vaisakha month of the Buddhist calendar and the Vikram Samvat Hindu calendar. This is the etymology behind the term Vesak. In modern-day India and Nepal, where the historical Buddha lived, it is celebrated on the full moon day of the Vaisakha month of the Buddhist calendar. In Theravada countries following the Buddhist calendar, it falls on the full moon, Uposatha day, typically in the 5th or 6th lunar month. In China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines, it is celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. The date varies from year to year in the Western Gregorian calendar but usually falls in April or May. In leap years it may be celebrated in June. In Tibet, it falls on the 7th day of the fourth month of the Tibetan calendar. [Source:Wikipedia]
This is a worldwide event as forms of Buddhism, selectively filtered by Western Culture and universalism, have become globalized.
Martin Baumann, in his influential article on global Buddhism, suggests four distinct developmental stages in Buddhist history: the canonical, the traditional, the modern, and the global.26 Continuing the general modernization processes of Buddhism, he finds “global” rather than “modern” or “post-modern” to be more inclusive as a spatially more precise concept to represent “the vigorous global dissemination of Buddhist people and institutions that occurred in the late twentieth century.”27 [Source: Oxford Research Encylopedia]
As we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, this is becoming post-global, emphasizing group identity and moving away from Western ideology and rationality. Ironically, Buddhism's openness to science and pragmatism as a practice for relieving existential suffering works in both directions.
But first, we need to work on solving the mystery of Buddha's birthday. This is a historical problem.
Celebrating a birthday focuses on historical information. The date of birth and age are followed by location and family information. As an academically trained historian, this requires a historiographical background.
History itself is a mystery completely entangled in human memory—and we all know how weak that memory is. Family conflicts are common based on disagreements between primary participants in the events at issue from a few days ago.
One of the most valuable memes about history is, yes, historical. Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying, "History is the lie commonly agreed upon." Or maybe he didn't, but other people have said it, and that puts things in perspective.
If you look up Buddha’s birthday, you will see that he was born as Gautama in 563 BCE. If you were to look at older histories, you would see 624 BCE, which was maintained as the traditional Buddhist date. 563 BCE is a recent agreement, and the date is better but still a guess, as 624 BCE did not link with existing histories.
The problem is that there is no direct source of information, as nothing about early Buddhism was recorded for a hundred years or more. To give away some of the secrets, the copies that we have of the first written versions of the stories are much later after the turn to the Common Era twenty-one hundred years ago.
Prior to that, the primary sources for early Buddhism were the rock pillars installed by Ashoka the Great.
Ashoka the Great, was the third Mauryan Emperor of Magadha in the Indian subcontinent during c. 268 to 232 BCE. His empire covered the largest part of the Indian subcontinent, stretching from present-day Afghanistan in the west to present-day Bangladesh in the east, with its capital at Pataliputra. A patron of Buddhism, he is credited with playing an important role in the spread of Buddhism across ancient Asia. [Source: wikipedia]
The original records are all oral histories based on memorizing and repeating the early sutras based on the Gautama Buddha’s conversations and teachings. Those teachings were what Gautama was all about, and the information on his birth was added in as people need a complete story, whether they have one or not.
Oral histories can be very accurate in cultures where that is the only means of recording the words of important people. In the early days, the problem for modern historians was that things were added to fill the gaps. Much of what gets added is expected, such as prophecies that Gautama, as the Enlightened One, must have been foretold.
During the First Buddhist Council, three months after the parinibbana of Gautama Buddha in Rajgir, Ananda recited the Sutta Pitaka, and Upali recited the Vinaya Pitaka. The Arhats present accepted the recitations, and henceforth, the teachings were preserved orally by the Sangha. The Tipitaka that was transmitted to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Asoka was initially preserved orally and was later written down on palm leaves during the Fourth Buddhist Council in 29 BC, approximately 454 years after the death of Gautama Buddha.[a][6] The claim that the texts were “spoken by the Buddha” is meant in this non-literal sense.[7]
The oldest records of Gautama’s teachings (the Tipitaka noted above) are the Pali Cannon. Pali is a specialized version of Sanskrit, the literary language from around three hundred BCE. The Pali Cannon did not exist in any form until the early Common Era as the core document of the Theravada tradition, which is the oldest tradition in Buddhism.
Authoritative written versions of the Buddha’s early teaching existed only one thousand years after Gautama’s death.
The story diverges from reality with these additions. If you read the story, Gautama was born to a leader of the Shakya clan in the state of Kosala in the eastern Gangetic plain. The birth, we are told, took place under a sala tree in Lumbini, which was his mother’s home as she was traveling when Gautama arrived.
The key to solving the mystery is examining the historiographical process of figuring out what happened. How do we do that?
We have two useful clues above. The Shakya clan and trees, the Sala tree (Shorea robusta) in this early story, are native to the Indian subcontinent. You may be familiar with the Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa), under which Gautama achieved enlightenment.
Both the Shorea robusta and the Ficus religiosa were important symbols of enlightenment. Trees are not just incidental to this history, although they have been de-emphasized. The Buddhist tradition was built on an existing belief system that worshipped trees. That included a tradition of wandering forest monks that may have been in Gautama's cultural background. Another mystery and clue.
The Buddha Birthday mystery has already gotten very complicated.
All of the above is mostly irrelevant to Gautama’s birthday. I’ve given you just enough of what is called the normative history to understand the “lie commonly agreed upon”.
Dealing with this as a modern historian, what can we figure out that may be real?
In the stories about Gautama’s birth, we have trees. As noted above, we also have the Shakya clan. What we actually have is the name Shakya or Shaka, as in the later tradition up to today, Gautama Buddha is often referred to as Shakyamuni, which is translated as the sage of the Shakyas. This name is used commonly in the Mahayana tradition for the nirvana body of the Gautama Buddha.
According to the Trikaya doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism, a Buddha has three bodies, called dharmakaya, Samb Hoga kaya, and Nirvana kaya. The Nirvana kaya body is also called the “emanation” body because it is the body that appears in the phenomenal world. Shakyamuni is considered a Nirvana kaya Buddha because he was born, and walked the earth, and died.
The samghogakaya body is the body that feels the bliss of enlightenment. A Samb Hoga kaya Buddha is purified of defilement and is free of suffering, yet maintains a distinctive form. The dharmakaya body is beyond form and distinction.
The three bodies actually are one body, however. Although the name Shakyamuni usually is associated with the Nirvana kaya body only, occasionally in some schools Shakyamuni is spoken of as all bodies at once. [Source: Learn Religions]
Most 21st-century histories of Buddhism simply dispense with the legends and mythologies or record them as a side note because they lack objective data. However, oral histories and sophisticated traditions can contain objective historical truths, so we should not simply dispense with them. They should, however, be added only as a reference, for they are, as described above, a normative history. Many people know no other than that and believe these legends to be true.
The stories are also elaborate, having been developed over centuries of actual history. As I have said, our problem is people wanting a complete story, so things get made up and filled in to answer different questions at different times.
The Shakya people of the northeastern Gangetic plain appear to have existed from about 700 BCE but also appear to have disappeared within three hundred years. The story is one of clans, alliances, lies, and murders.
The Indo-Aryan Aruvedic cultures provided some of humanity’s oldest literature, which appeared during the era of oral Buddhism between 400 and 100 BCE. These are still the models for our modern popular literature. The heroic quest, which involved romance, murders, and comic relief, originated with the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana tales, which are still performed throughout South and Southeast Asia.
The normative history of early Buddhism may well include the peak and fall of the Shakya state, which lost out to the rise of the Kosala state on the border of modern Nepal. In fact, Gautama's lifetime marks the end of the Shakyas due to the substitution of a slave for an actual Shakya princess in a marriage agreement with Kosala.
There is one theory on Gautama’s death that plays with this conflict:
In his book, Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist Stephen Batchelor presents a plausible argument that the Buddha was poisoned because he was the most prominent surviving member of the Shakya royal family. [Source: Learning Religion]
But what if this is not related to the actual Gautama and Buddhist origins?
The term Shakyamuni and the importance of trees, both of which are tightly integrated with the oral tradition, may be clues to the real but less popular history during the era when normative history was being developed.
Scholars such as Michael Witzel and Christopher I. Beckwith have equated the Shakyas with Central Asian nomads who were called Scythians by the Greeks, Sakās by the Achaemenid Persians, and Śāka by the Indo-Aryans. These scholars have suggested that the people of the Buddha were Saka soldiers who arrived in South Asia in the army of Darius the Great during the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley, and saw in Scytho-Saka nomadism the origin of the wandering asceticism of the Buddha.[11][12]
This eliminates Gautama's problematic (historically) parentage, fitting him into a noble Indo-Aryan family and placing him among the Saka soldiers who controlled North India during Persian domination.
Beckwith’s full intent in identifying Guatama as Scythian also provides a link to the Persian relation of Ahura-Mazda, which focuses on good and evil and Greek philosophy. This is through the Greek philosopher Pyyrho of Elis, who, as a young man, became acquainted with Alexander (The Great) and traveled with his army to North India.
The Indian campaign of Alexander the Great began in 327 BC and lasted until 325 BC. After conquering the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the Macedonian army undertook an expedition into the northwestern Indian subcontinent. Within two years, Alexander expanded the Macedonian Empire to include present-day Punjab and Sindh in what is modern-day Pakistan, surpassing the earlier frontiers that had been established by the Persian conquest of the Indus Valley.
During these two years, Pyrrho studied with local monks and learned about early Buddhism. According to Beckwith, this is the origin of Greek Skepticism, which questioned all knowledge and was a unique development in Greek and Western philosophy.
The Solution
So, have we solved the mystery of Buddha’s Birthday? If the question is how old the Buddha is today, we can answer that with precision.
How old are you? The product of Gautama’s teaching is that each of us should become a Buddha. Everything else is an illusion.