Most modern scholars believe he was most likely born sometime around 480 BC or thereabouts in Śākya Gaṇarājya, an oligarchic state in the northern Indian subcontinent and he most likely died sometime around 400 BC or thereabouts. He was almost certainly a real person, but his life is shrouded in a great deal of legend. ![]() Much like Jesus or Pythagoras, he is a rather shadowy figure about whom little is known for certain. ![]() The historic individual who is usually referred to as “the Buddha” was actually named Siddhārtha Gautama. It is an Anglicized form of the Sanskrit word बुद्ध ( buddhá), meaning “enlightened one.” Buddhists believe that there have been many buddhas throughout history and that there will be more buddhas in the future. I also want to talk about the evidence in the surviving written sources for what the historical Buddha really looked like.įirst of all, let’s get one thing straight: the term buddha is not a name, but rather a title. In this article, I want to talk about the real iconography of Siddhārtha Gautama. Because these statues are referred to as “Laughing Buddhas,” most westerners naturally assume that they depict Siddhārtha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.Ĭontrary to popular belief, however, these statues do not, in fact, depict the Gautama Buddha, but rather a completely different figure from Chinese folklore. You can find these statues all over East Asia and miniature versions of them are often sold as souvenirs in gift shops. In the western world, whenever someone hears the word “Buddha,” they virtually always immediately think of East Asian statues depicting a smiling obese man with a bald head and elongated earlobes dressed in a robe that displays his enormous belly.
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