Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

Agora

Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)

c. 480–400 BCE · conventionally dated 563–483 BCE

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Life is full of suffering because we crave and cling; by seeing this clearly and following a middle path of right living, we can be free.

Placement

South Asian & Tibetan Philosophy · South Asia · Ethics, Existence & Self, Religion, Mind & Consciousness

Four Noble Truths: suffering arises from craving and can be overcome by the Noble Eightfold Path.

Key ideas

Four Noble Truths
Anatta (non-self)
Middle Way
Dependent origination

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Influence

Influenced 11

Nagarjuna

influenced
Nagarjuna’s Root Verses on the Middle Way open by praising the Buddha for teaching dependent origination, which Nagarjuna reads as the emptiness of intrinsic nature. Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika, tr. J. L. Garfield, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (1995); SEP “Nagarjuna”
Evidence: AI draft
Nagarjuna › c. 150–250
Vasubandhu

influenced
Vasubandhu’s Treasury of Abhidharma systematised the Buddha’s teaching on the elements of existence, karma and no-self, defending no-self against the Pudgalavadins. Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakosabhasya, tr. L. de La Vallée Poussin (1923–31); SEP “Vasubandhu”
Evidence: AI draft
Vasubandhu › c. 350–430
Arthur Schopenhauer

influenced disputed
Schopenhauer saw his teaching of suffering and will-denial confirmed in Buddhism (World as Will, 1844); how much he knew of it before 1818 is debated. A. Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung II (1844); U. App, “Schopenhauer’s Initial Encounter with Indian Thought”, Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch (2006); SEP “Arthur Schopenhauer”
Evidence: AI draft
Arthur Schopenhauer › 1788–1860
Edmund Husserl

influenced
Husserl praised K. E. Neumann’s translation of the Buddha’s discourses in a short text of 1925; in the manuscript “Socrates – Buddha” (1926) he read the Buddha’s path as a transcendental turn akin to the phenomenological epoché. E. Husserl, “Über die Reden Gotamo Buddhos” (1925), Hua XXVII, pp. 125–126; “Sokrates – Buddha” (1926), ed. S. Luft, Husserl Studies 26 (2010)
Evidence: AI draft
Edmund Husserl › 1859–1938
Mohandas K. Gandhi

influenced ✓
In London Gandhi read Edwin Arnold’s life of the Buddha, The Light of Asia, with even greater interest than the Gita, as he recalled in his Autobiography (1927–29). M. K. Gandhi, An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927–29); E. Arnold, The Light of Asia (1879)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Mohandas K. Gandhi › 1869–1948
B. R. Ambedkar

influenced ✓
Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in 1956 and in The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957) read the Buddha’s teaching as a rational social ethic of equality against caste. B. R. Ambedkar, The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957); E. Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit (1992)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
B. R. Ambedkar › 1891–1956

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Dōgen

influenced
Dōgen taught that seated meditation (zazen) is the practice in which Shakyamuni Buddha and the ancestors realised awakening and handed it on directly (Bendōwa, 1231). Dōgen, Bendōwa (1231), in Shōbōgenzō; SEP “Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy”
Evidence: AI draft
Dōgen › 1200–1253
José Vasconcelos

influenced
Vasconcelos’s Hindustani Studies (1920) presented Brahmanic thought, the Buddha and Buddhism, and yoga to Spanish-speaking readers as part of his search for a spiritual alternative to positivism. J. Vasconcelos, Estudios indostánicos (Madrid, 1920)
Evidence: AI draft
José Vasconcelos › 1882–1959
Karl Jaspers

influenced
Jaspers presented the Buddha, with Socrates, Confucius and Jesus, as one of the four “paradigmatic individuals” in The Great Philosophers (1957). K. Jaspers, Die großen Philosophen I (1957), “Die maßgebenden Menschen”
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Jaspers › 1883–1969
Derek Parfit

influenced
Parfit added an appendix “Buddha’s View” to Reasons and Persons (1984), quoting Buddhist texts to show that the Buddha had held the reductionist view of persons he defends. D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons (1984), Appendix J “Buddha’s View”
Evidence: AI draft
Derek Parfit › 1942–2017
Shannon Vallor

influenced
Vallor drew on Buddhist ethics, beside Aristotelian and Confucian, for practices of moral attention and the extension of compassion in technological societies (Technology and the Virtues, 2016). S. Vallor, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (2016)
Evidence: AI draft
Shannon Vallor › contemporary

Criticism

Criticized by 5

Han Yu

criticised by
Han Yu attacked Buddhism as a foreign teaching that dissolves the bonds of ruler and subject, father and son (‘Memorial on the Buddha’s Bone’, 819; ‘Yuan Dao’). Han Yu, Lun Fogu biao (819); Yuan Dao; C. Hartman, Han Yü and the T’ang Search for Unity, 1986
Evidence: AI draft
Han Yu › 768–824
Zhang Zai

criticised by
Zhang Zai rejected the Buddhist view of the world as illusion and emptiness: all things are real condensations and dispersals of qi (Zhengmeng, 1076). Zhang Zai, Zhengmeng (1076); W.-t. Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963
Evidence: AI draft
Zhang Zai › 1020–1077
Zhu Xi

criticised by
Zhu Xi criticised Buddhism for taking human nature and principle to be empty and for abandoning family and social duties (Zhuzi yulei 126). Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei, juan 126; W.-t. Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963
Evidence: AI draft
Zhu Xi › 1130–1200
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

criticised by
In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Hegel treated Buddhism as the “religion of being-within-self”, whose principle is nothingness – a stage of spirit he placed below the religions of freedom. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion (1824, 1827), Part II, “Die Religion des Insichseins”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Friedrich Nietzsche

criticised by
Nietzsche judged Buddhism more realistic than Christianity but, like it, a religion of decadence for a weary humanity seeking release from suffering (The Antichrist, 1888, §§20–23). F. Nietzsche, Der Antichrist (1888), §§20–23
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900

Criticizes 1

Mahavira

criticised
In the Pali Canon the Buddha rejects the Jain teaching of Nigantha Nataputta (Mahavira) that past karma is burnt off by austerities, putting intention first. Majjhima Nikāya 14 (Cūḷadukkhakkhandha), 56 (Upāli), 101 (Devadaha)
Evidence: AI draft
Mahavira › c. 500–425 BCE · traditionally 599–527 BCE

Works

c. 400 BCEDiscourses (Sutta Pitaka)
The transmitted discourses of the Buddha on suffering, non-self and liberation.

Position

The Buddha’s teaching starts from the experience of suffering (dukkha) and is summed up in the Four Noble Truths: life is marked by suffering; suffering arises from craving; it can cease; and the way to its cessation is the Noble Eightfold Path of right view, conduct and meditation. Everything is impermanent and arises in dependence on conditions. There is no lasting self (anatta): a person is a stream of changing physical and mental processes. Liberation, nirvana, is the extinction of greed, hatred and delusion. Rejecting both sensual indulgence and harsh asceticism, he taught a “middle way” that spread across Asia.

Life & context

Siddhartha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan at Lumbini, at the foot of the Himalayas; his dates are disputed. Theravada tradition gives 624–544 BCE, older Western scholarship 563–483 BCE; many scholars now place his death around 400 BCE. After a sheltered youth he left home, practised severe asceticism and then attained awakening (bodhi) through meditation at Bodh Gaya. For some forty-five years he taught as a wandering monk in northern India.