Paste and Future Buddha Yet to come
Let's Discuss about Paste and Future Buddha Yet to come, still, we have seen a lot of paste about buddha now let's start future Buddha yet to come.
Maybe you've wondered about the question whether the Buddha Gautama who lived 2,500 years ago was the only Buddha or if there were other Buddha's before him or if there might be other Buddha's after him this is a question that we can find some answers to at least some suggestions about in the early texts, and that's what I'll be discussing.
We're going to be looking at this question of past and future Buddhas, so what I'm going to do first is to look at the textual evidence in the early text we'll be looking at old Buddhist texts for their having been past Buddha's. Then we'll turn to evidence in those same texts for future Buddha's, and we'll see that in both cases these this evidence while it is there is historically questionable in various ways, and we'll go through some of that as we go along.
Keep In mind about Paste and Future Buddha Yet to come
Now as we go along in this discussion today, I think we should keep in mind something that Buddhist scholar Steven Collins has said he says that the whole idea of their having been past buddhas or they're being future Buddha's is as he says intrinsic to the logic of the Buddhist Dharma, in other words, it's not a surprise that we would find tales of past Buddhas or predictions of future Buddhas.
If we think of the Buddhist Dharma, it is that all things change that all things pass away and that all things come around again if you like in some different degree and that there are laws of change that is to say the Dharma doesn't tell us that all things happened randomly.
But rather than all things happen given certain kinds of laws, particularly the law laws of tenant origination which I did an article about, I'll put a link to that down below if you want to know more about that. Still, there's plenty of our Four Noble Truths is another thing I'll put a link down to the article about that as well, so there are certain truths certain regularities about the universe.
So given that all things go away and all things come back, and there are certain regularities to that it stands to reason that other people in the past would have known this would have discovered it for themselves or that other people in the future might do the same that the buddhadharma might pass away from time to time.
Indeed that's what the Buddha says it might pass away and be rediscovered or have been rediscovered many times already. Indeed, in a beautiful early Sutra, the Buddha discusses this possibility when he likens his discovery to the Dharma to the development of an ancient city that has been depopulated and left in ruins.
Story about Paste and Future Buddha Which will come
So the Buddha says he says suppose a person was walking through a forest they'd see an ancient path an ancient route travelled by humans in the past following it along they'd see an ancient city an ancient capital inhabited by humans in the past it was lovely complete with parks groves lotus ponds and dams, in the same way, I saw an old path an ancient route travelled by fully awakened Buddhas in the past.
Now traditionally in early Buddhism, they're said to be six prior Buddhas that as six buddhas before Gautama Buddha Gautama who lived 2,500 years ago however in early Buddhism we really in most places where these old Buddha's are just are mentioned they're not described they're referred as a list there's only one site in which anything much is said about them which is called the maha Padano suta.
Parenthetically this is the site that we get the whole story of the four places the four famous sites that the Buddha supposedly saw before leaving the palace the location of the sick person and the dead person and the older man and the monastic the monk that that story is given of a prior Buddha V rather than a story about Gautama.
So and I did an earlier video about that. I'll put it down in the show notes below. However, this idea of their having been six prior Buddha's and of the Buddha Gautama Gautama being the seventh Buddha is historically questionable the word that seems to be associated with this idea of the Buddha being the seventh Buddha is though is the word it's a word in pali ec septum--ah and ec Septimus seems to have entered into Buddhism as an epithet.
Description of the Buddha himself it originally meant the ultimate sage the ultimate rishi was she being a CEO or a sage. It was brought into Buddhism by we think that giant adherents Jainism is a separate religion around before Buddhism, and there were, of course, joins in the neighborhood. They became some of them converted to Buddhism and brought with them some of the ideas and vocabulary of Jainism, and so they called the Buddha the ultimate sage are the ultimate seer EC septum--ah.
However this word EC septum--ah could also be interpreted or misinterpreted a different way of sort of a play on words instead of meaning ultimate sage or ultimate seer it means the seventh sage or the seventh C are depending on how you read the name it's again a sort of a play on words here, and this suggests that it maybe this notion of the Buddha being the seventh sage or the seventh seer may have come up or been constructed at a later time when the Jain context of that word EC sucked Emma had been abandoned or misinterpreted misunderstood, so they thought that they were calling him the seventh sage when they were calling him the ultimate sage that's one possible reading here one possible historical reconstruction.
Time period of Paste and Future Buddha
It may also be that this was a play on words that was understood now the giant leader when a man named not a puta who was an arrival of the Buddha during the Buddha's lifetime was known in his lineage as the 24th a leader of the Giants. As a result, some believe that at a later time in the Buddha Vung saw, which is the following text that was constructed sometime after the Buddha's lifetime, this lineage of prior Buddha's was expanded to 24 as well.
So that the Buddha became the 25th, in other words, saying that the Buddha's lineage was more extended than not to put does and indeed later on indeed in the Buddha funks on a different chapter it's an even expanded 228 so the Buddha's lineage over time seems to have broadened partly it may be or arguably through competition with giants who had already established or understood an extended family of prior teachers to their current teacher now the great scholar of early Buddhism a Richard Gombrich has argued that this these lists of prior Buddha's were constructed basically to lend credence our weight to the Buddha Dharma that is to say that without these lists there seems to be a lack of tradition being one rhetorical strategy that people use to establish the truths of what they're saying.
So if the Buddha is saying something that is genuinely entirely original for him, then there is a particular interest in that, of course. Indeed the Buddha does say that this is original to me. I discovered it. Still, also it loses something at least with some of the audience because some of the audience is going to be interested in knowing that this is a tradition that there are a lot of people who held this in the past that there's some reason you know has some weight of tradition behind it.
So in Gombrich is understanding these lists of prior Buddha's may have been constructed simply as a sort of rhetorical device again income an in competition with people like the Giants, in other words, there may not have been there wouldn't have had to have been any prior Buddha's but even if there hadn't been this these lists would have been constructed anyway to land weight to the Dharma so now let's turn from past Buddha's to future Buddha's and indeed in the early texts only one future Buddha is mentioned he's named Mattea.
Some of us may be more familiar with the Mahayana or Sanskrit interpretation of the name Maitreya. These are the same word. It's just one is poly. One is Sanskrit, and this only occurs in one early suta which is the Chuck of Odyssey Hinata suta now the scholar of old Buddhism Piya tan who writes a lot on the early texts an excellent scholar considers this text the Chuck of Assisi Hinata sutra to be a late text this is a text that discusses the wheel-turning King it's Chuck of Athenians a wheel-turning King it's a great king who establishes righteous rulership over the world.
In this case over India and does things well and in pia tans understanding this may have been a text that was constructed later on during King Ashoka's realm have a video about him I'll put it down below King Ashoka was an early the first and most important we might say Buddhist a king over India who lived roughly speaking a century after the Buddha's lifetime and Apia tan believes that this whole text may be there for a late book coming from that period.
It was supposed to be perhaps a way of Lee lending weight to an Ashoka's kingship because it was establishing that the kinds of things that Ashoka was doing were righteous were correct living you know ruling a kingdom along ethical lines. Still, even if we don't consider this whole text to be late, it may be that the figure of Mattia in the book is a new addition this is sort of what an ollie oh another scholar of early Buddhism has suggested an ollie Oh talks about the figure of Mattia or Maitreya in this text as being out of place he believes that it was added after the Buddha's lifetime.
As a kind of an aspirational figure, somebody that we could turn to if we were concerned or worried or sad about the passing of the historical Buddha Gautama so after his death there certainly would have been a lot of hair-pulling a lot of concern a lot of worries a lot of sadness and having a figure like Matea to look forward to might have indeed been something of a spur to I hope let's say in the future and but why does an all you think this well Analia says that the one difference about this Italia figure in the Chuck of Odyssey Hinata suta is that it's the only place in early Buddhism.
We have such a definite prediction about the future we don't in early Buddhism find predictions because such forecasts would Analia suggests implying a kind of strong determinism about reality it would mean that not only were things roughly determined by let's say causes and conditions and karmic baggage and karmic background, but the words were sharply defined such that we could know right now that somebody in certainly hundreds and perhaps thousands of years in the future would be the next Buddha.
We would even know their name this is the kind of thing that nanano feels is runs against the early Buddhist Dharma it doesn't fit the way that the Buddha himself would have described the world he would never have described the world in such strong deterministic terms additionally Analia points out in the ayahs which are the Chinese translation of these early Buddhist texts they're an I think we could compare the Buddhists.
The Nepali texts against because they come from a slightly different tradition but very similar kinds of books in the main there is one text in the Chinese agamous that's not in the Pali material in which the Buddha discusses with one of his disciples a disciple named Maitreya and the Buddha in this discussion in this Sutra says that his that this disciple Maitreya is going to become the future Buddha Maitreya.
In other words, not only is it there is going to be a future Buddha Maitreya, but this Buddha Maitreya is going to be the same person at least insofar as there is the same person given a karmic consequence over the lifetimes the same person as this monastic in front of him. This Analia suggests it is a subtle shift towards the early Mahayana that is to say that with this kind of Sutra what we're getting.
I call it a Sutra because we're now talking about the Sanskrit a northern tradition of Buddhism rather than the Pali Southern tradition that northern culture eventually did become the Mahayana the idea here is that we're shifting the aim of our practice from an objective of attaining awakening which was the first Buddhist idea of our goal towards a grander purpose of attaining Buddhahood of becoming a Buddha ourselves and this was not a name that was considered even possible really in the early texts it was not something that was discussed.
Now the Buddha was the Buddha Gautama, and you weren't going to become him later on; however, this did become a possibility. In this text, we see a subtle shift here where the Buddha reveals this as a possibility to his very own disciples. He's saying that not somebody might attain the same position he has. Still, one of them actually will find one of them will be the next one this this this monastic named Maitreya it's quite a fascinating Sutra.
All of this material taken together I think implies that there are specific historical questions we have about Matea or Maitreya in the early sutras our suit does it seems to be or at least has elements that might suggest that it's a later Edition that it wasn't there originally but that it was put into the text either the whole book is late or that at least this and this person of Maitreya is a new addition after the Buddha's lifetime that said we should keep in mind what I talked about at the beginning here about Steven Collins's point which is that the whole idea of past and future Buddha's even though they may be historically questionable in these cases.
Summary of Paste and Future Buddha Yet to come
The whole idea of them is perfectly natural to the Dharma. We would expect there to be a past Buddha's or people who realized elements of the Dharma or the whole Dharma in the past, and that might do so again in the future.
So even though we find these speculative and perhaps not convincing in the early texts at least some of us may not we certainly shouldn't consider them entirely out of place and indeed even though we may have our questions about this we also have to be careful that we're not bringing back our tendencies towards historical considering historical accuracy 2500 years ago into the past these men indeed were not always intended to be entirely historically accurate a text the time and may have had their reasons for being composed.
But even if they were not there originally as we've shown and talked about, there would have been a reason to composed them to put them there for competition as we've said with other belief systems such as Jainism to add a whole idea of a tradition to early Buddhism that was there before the Buddha that lends weight to the Dharma and Dharma of the teaching of the Buddha and also it would be useful to add an idea of a future Buddha as something to aspire to as perhaps something greater even to want to than mere awakening as it came to be understood later on now this whole history does push into the account of the Mahayana.
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