There is little factual evidence for details of the Buddha's life, the Pali sources are considerably later. What is known from Jain and other ascetic traditions correlates with the stories of his pre-nibbana spiritual practise in the Pali literature. These do not describe a "Scythian" milieu at all, rather, one that later is attested in historical records as particularly "Indian". In the final analysis, it really doesn't matter from what culture he came, it's what we can distill from the burden of later biographical and instructional materials that points to the ultimate truth of existence.
Beckwith has his own theories about dates and when what (Indian) tradition happened compared with when the tradition says it happened.
What I took away was that there was this Central Asian thing happening close to India, (possibly in part, in reaction to Darius the Great imposition of a Scythian cult -we call it Zoroastrianism- which aligned with his views of how to run an empire). (Scythians wrote nothing down at this stage so… but Beckwith sees it as a possible connection between the otherwise disperse centres of the _Axial Age_...) One outcome is that, maybe, there is this guy who knows how to sell a certain practice. It's possible there were others but weren't as good at sales or the context was not as auspicious. Claiming original priority is a good claim inthe marketplace...
It's possible that one of these peeps is the model for both Lao Tzu and the Buddha, or some confused vice versa, the timelines are confused by both historical processes and historical records, and their lack. And boosters for one tradition or another.
In some traditions the descriptor of Buddha is Sakyamuni, or the sage of the Sakya. Sakya or Saka is a name for some or all of the Scythians, depending when and where you are.
Beckwith also argues that 'Lao Tzu' who is from 'the west' is named for the name of the Buddha that the old guy from the west kept repeating (I cannot repeat the detail of his ideographic analysis of Chinese etymologies, let alone critique it here.)
anyway…. in some part of this vast area and time when Alexander the Great appeared, some of these guys the Greeks called gymnosophists educated Pyrrho of Elis on their methods and views. Whatever happened cannot be reconstructed. We have some texts that hint at echos whispered in a long lost temple garden…. Beckwith gives it a go.
I feel it was humanity best guess, whether it points to any ultimateness I'll leave for the future to look back on in glorious hindsight.
I can’t argue with Beckwith’s theory of the “Scythian/Sassanian” origins of the salient figures who turned the western and Asian worlds in the “Axial Age” as I’ve not read him. After some years of study I can only conclude that the founders (more than one, each) of the Jain and Buddhist traditions knew each other, that they came of age out of a practise that acknowledged ordinary life as beset by dukkha and offered differing methods for overcoming illusion and seeing a Way. There were others, Goraknath among them, whose followers did not grow into massive sizes. What the Buddha taught, what the first Tirthankara taught was orally transmitted; when put to writing the earliest core had been elaborated into a structure neither founder would entirely recognize (much like Jesus would marvel at modern Catholicism). Nevertheless, the Indian traditions all share enough commonalities to suggest a common cultural milieu one that, incidentally, Alexander and his pundits found entirely alien to their experience. Yet Greeks and Scythians, whoever they were, had been cultural pal for centuries before.
and thanks
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/three-types-of-suffering/19446/63?u=ngxinzhao
That's just one of the 3 types of dukkha.
A review of Beckwith's newer bookThe Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China
https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/christopher-i-beckwiths-the-scythian
There is little factual evidence for details of the Buddha's life, the Pali sources are considerably later. What is known from Jain and other ascetic traditions correlates with the stories of his pre-nibbana spiritual practise in the Pali literature. These do not describe a "Scythian" milieu at all, rather, one that later is attested in historical records as particularly "Indian". In the final analysis, it really doesn't matter from what culture he came, it's what we can distill from the burden of later biographical and instructional materials that points to the ultimate truth of existence.
Beckwith has his own theories about dates and when what (Indian) tradition happened compared with when the tradition says it happened.
What I took away was that there was this Central Asian thing happening close to India, (possibly in part, in reaction to Darius the Great imposition of a Scythian cult -we call it Zoroastrianism- which aligned with his views of how to run an empire). (Scythians wrote nothing down at this stage so… but Beckwith sees it as a possible connection between the otherwise disperse centres of the _Axial Age_...) One outcome is that, maybe, there is this guy who knows how to sell a certain practice. It's possible there were others but weren't as good at sales or the context was not as auspicious. Claiming original priority is a good claim inthe marketplace...
It's possible that one of these peeps is the model for both Lao Tzu and the Buddha, or some confused vice versa, the timelines are confused by both historical processes and historical records, and their lack. And boosters for one tradition or another.
In some traditions the descriptor of Buddha is Sakyamuni, or the sage of the Sakya. Sakya or Saka is a name for some or all of the Scythians, depending when and where you are.
Beckwith also argues that 'Lao Tzu' who is from 'the west' is named for the name of the Buddha that the old guy from the west kept repeating (I cannot repeat the detail of his ideographic analysis of Chinese etymologies, let alone critique it here.)
anyway…. in some part of this vast area and time when Alexander the Great appeared, some of these guys the Greeks called gymnosophists educated Pyrrho of Elis on their methods and views. Whatever happened cannot be reconstructed. We have some texts that hint at echos whispered in a long lost temple garden…. Beckwith gives it a go.
I feel it was humanity best guess, whether it points to any ultimateness I'll leave for the future to look back on in glorious hindsight.
I can’t argue with Beckwith’s theory of the “Scythian/Sassanian” origins of the salient figures who turned the western and Asian worlds in the “Axial Age” as I’ve not read him. After some years of study I can only conclude that the founders (more than one, each) of the Jain and Buddhist traditions knew each other, that they came of age out of a practise that acknowledged ordinary life as beset by dukkha and offered differing methods for overcoming illusion and seeing a Way. There were others, Goraknath among them, whose followers did not grow into massive sizes. What the Buddha taught, what the first Tirthankara taught was orally transmitted; when put to writing the earliest core had been elaborated into a structure neither founder would entirely recognize (much like Jesus would marvel at modern Catholicism). Nevertheless, the Indian traditions all share enough commonalities to suggest a common cultural milieu one that, incidentally, Alexander and his pundits found entirely alien to their experience. Yet Greeks and Scythians, whoever they were, had been cultural pal for centuries before.
I nod.