The History of Buddhist Thought c9.2

c9.2

AN account of a religion may be expected to begin with the biography of its founder. But in the case of Buddhism we are faced with the fact that all the biographies by ancient Buddhist authors are centuries later than the period of which they speak. They have all been composed after the time when the movement had broken up into separate schools, and they represent the traditions, often contradictory, preserved by these bodies, and modified in accordance with various dogmas concerning the nature of a Buddha and the means of winning release. The popular story of Buddha’s life, as known to the West, is merely the modern version of one of these traditions, and it has been made plausible only by ignoring the other accounts and omitting all the marvels.