User:Farang Rak Tham/Historicity of the Buddha

The historicity of the Buddha is a heated topic that is being debated among scholars of Buddhism. Though the general scholarly consensus is that the Buddha was a historical person, there have been scholars who have raised doubts, at times leading to heated debate.

Scholarly views
With regard to whether the Buddha has actually lived, there are several main opinions among scholars. On the one hand, there is Buddhist studies scholar Jonathan Silk stating that the Buddha "is essentially historically unknowable" since he believes there is no "set of facts" with which the life of the Buddha corresponds. On the other side of the spectrum, there are some scholars like Richard Gombrich and Alexander Wynne, the latter of which is of the opinion that "early Buddhist discourses are largely authentic, and can be regarded as a reasonably accurate historical witness" to the Buddha's living person. In between these two opinions are people like scholar of Asian religions Bernard Faure, who argues that "[i]t is fair to say that [the Buddha] was born, he lived, and he died ... [t]he rest remains lost in the mists of myth and legend".

There is no scholarly, nor traditional consensus on the exact dates of the Buddha's life. In a 1988 symposium on the topic, dates of the decease of the Buddha varied between 486 BCE to 261 BCE.