Pillar from Asoka time, place where the Buddha gave his last sermon
-Archaeological evidence provides strong empirical proof of the Buddha as a historical figure.
-Many of the monasteries and cities mentioned in the Buddha’s discourses have been located.
-Buddha relics have been recovered from sited mentioned in the texts.
-The independently-dated Buddhist emperor Asoka has carved and inscribed sandstone columns erected throughout his vast empire- a number of which survive to this day- the refer extensively to the Buddha.
-There is much circumstantial evidence in the primary texts.
-The cohesion and lack of inner contradiction in the Buddha’s discourses together with the likely detailed prescriptions for the ordering of the monastic body found in the ‘Books of Discipline’, point strongly to a single author.
-Of course, physical evidence and logic always leave room for doubt. On one occasion, the Buddha said: “Whoever sees the Dhamma sees me”. In other words, verifying the truth of the teaching in one’s own life is, in the Buddhist view, the most reliable confirmation of the Buddha’s existence.
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Source:
- Without and Within – Ajahn Jayasaro
