by Harvey Kraft
Way back in prehistoric times when shamans initially gained the gift of consciousness, they began their pursuit of “seeing into the unseen.”
Throughout history, their transcendent abilities expanded until the most successful master of visionary skills ever, Gautama, achieved a total awakening of the Universal-Mind. But according to him, he was neither the only Buddha, nor the first. Other Buddhas he envisioned throughout space-time in far-off world-systems had been and were doing the same work that he would do on Earth, and still others would arrive in the future.
Who was he? Where did he come from?
The Buddha from Babylon is a modern exploration of the lost history and cosmic visions of Siddhartha Gautama. The result is a speculative biography built on solid, verifiable evidence and links. Despite a vast amount of research, the case can only be a circumstantial one. Yet it offers the first legitimate historical alternative to the stories that have been passed down through the ages.
His most commonly cited biography, Buddhacarita [aka Life of the Buddha or Acts of the Buddha], was penned in the first century by playwright Asvaghosa (80–150 CE). This unabashedly mythic biography was written in the adoring style of presenting a divine hero with supernatural powers. In this context the Buddha was a divine being descending from “Heaven” into the earthly realm.
Based on the Buddha’s past life tales (Skt. jataka) compiled beginning 300 BCE and afterward, Asvaghosa portrayed the birth of a prince destined by his divine advent to become the revealer of “the Truth regarding the Reality of All Existence.” He started his tale with a supernatural birth of a cosmically endowed child born to Queen Maya—her name a metaphor for the emergence of a transcending wisdom into this world of illusion. Asvaghosa wrote that the newborn Siddhartha miraculously leaped from his mother’s womb and immediately took his first step. This act showed that at birth he immediately and inherently possessed supernatural powers.
The early days of the would-be Buddha tells of a young Siddhartha Guatama, a scion to the royal crown of the “Sakya” (Dynasty of the Sun) nation-clan, who was born in Kapilvastu (City of Kapil), presumably located in northeastern India. His childhood years were described as a sheltered upbringing inside his family’s vast royal estate in Kapil, the capital of the Sakya kingdom. Siddhartha did not emerge from its grounds until he reached a mature age. By that time, according to Asvaghosa, Siddhartha had become an adult with a wife and son. But once he ventures out of his father’s royal family estate, he is moved to pity when observing the ravages of aging, sickness, and death. Struck profoundly with compassion for the doomed plight of human beings, he abdicated his position as the crown prince expected to take his father’s throne and embarked on a personal spiritual journey, vowing to find the cause of suffering and discover an antidote for it.
Asvaghosa’s mythic biography may have been based on facts, but its author was more concerned with elevating the Buddha’s birth to a divine status, as was the case with the treatment of Jesus in the Christian Gospels written at about the same time. While his compelling tale accurately communicated the key concepts and aspirations of the Buddhist Teachings, the story was, at least partially, a legend. His Buddha was a messianic savior who is destined from birth to save people from suffering and strife by using divinely-gifted supernatural powers.
FINDING BABIL
In the 19th century CE, a claim was made that Kapilvastu, the ancient capital of the Sakya, had once been located in today’s Nepal, a country neighboring northeastern India.
Was the Buddha born in Nepal?
The city of Lumbini in Nepal prizes its reputation as the Buddha’s homeland, a sacred destination for many Buddhists. Although many historians and archeologists doubt this claim, few have been inclined to challenge it, perhaps until proof is found of an alternative location. But Nepal’s claim had been tarnished from the start.
A discredited 19th century government surveyor based in Nepal, Dr. Alois Anton Führer (on location 1886–1898 CE), forged archeological evidence used to proclaim that Lumbini was originally the lost Kingdom of Kapilvastu, the home of the Sakya clan and birthplace of the Buddha. Despite evidence that he was a forger and trader in fraudulent antiquities,1 the area developed into a profitable tourist destination for Nepal, a decidedly Hindu country. In modern times, Nepal officially designated this area as a Buddhist pilgrimage zone and named it the Kapilvastu District.
Some archeologists, ignoring the fraud, continue to seek confirmation of the Buddha’s presence by expanding their search to nearby regions in Nepal, as well as the adjoining Siddharthnagar District (named after Siddhartha) in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh, and the state of Bihar, its eastern neighbor, and home of Bodh Gaya, said to be the site of his enlightenment. While both nations make claims to be the Buddha homeland, neither can offer clear proof from his lifetime. Although Buddhists lived in this area a couple of centuries after the lifetime of the Buddha, it is unlikely that confirmation of the “Sakya clan” or of their capital Kapilvastu can be found anywhere in Nepal or India.
On the other hand, potentially older Buddhist locations have been unearthed to the west of the Indus River Valley in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. These lands have been identified as the earliest centers of Vedic, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian cultures. A great deal of archeological evidence in this area has been destroyed over time or remains lost, so no direct physical trace from his time has been found here either.
The recent destruction of ancient Buddhist sites in Afghanistan and Pakistan puts into question whether the region has the will to preserve remnants of Buddhist history or develop an archeological respect for their own geographical heritage. Contrast the conditions there with the kind hospitality and respect that contemporary Nepal and India have shown for Buddhism. These peace-loving people deserve praise for that outreach.
The absence of any evidence supporting the existence of the Sakya contrasts with the known history of the Saka people, a nation once located between Persia and India.
In support of this possibility, the oldest and richest discoveries of Buddhist worship and art have been made in this area, rather than India or Nepal. Long ago, the Saka culture settled in an arc stretching from ancient southeastern Persia (Seistan-Baluchistan regions of Iran and Pakistan) along the coast of the Arabian Sea to the Sindhu and Gandhara regions (Afghanistan), and up through the northern climes of the Swat Valley (foot of the Himalayas in modern Pakistan). Could the actual homeland of the Buddha have been the area west of the Indus Valley, known as the ancient lands of the Saka nation—a Scythian-Aryan peoples?2
If so, how did Buddhism come to be indentified exclusively with India?
At one time, under the rule of the Mauryan King Asoka, a few hundred years after the Buddha’s time, the land known as India had expanded to include territories that later became Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In addition, the Buddha himself had traveled into India as far as the Ganges River. In his time Brahmanism was the dominant religion in that area. Buddhism would have been deemed a minor new religion by the Brahmin-dominated culture (the forerunner of Hinduism), but it is also likely that he collected a significant number of converts there.
There is also some evidence of a migration by a large Saka Buddhist community from the Swat Valley to northeast India not too long after the lifetime of the Buddha. The move may have been due to natural causes or military threats. The two areas appear to share similar geographical characteristics, and indigenous Buddhists may have welcomed them. This would explain why the early Buddhists came to settle in northeastern India.
Although the original Saka Buddhist community may have been responsible for preserving a good deal of the oral Teachings of the Buddha, their recordings as sutras, related stories, and commentaries may have been initiated in India.
To be more appealing to the immediate population, the scribes sought to portray its founder as a local figure. Therefore the Buddhist scriptures acquired the varnish of Indie localities, characters, and religious
agendas. Indian Buddhists further enhanced his appeal by providing him with the aura of supernatural adoration.
Prior to the first millennium CE, the Buddha was referred to as the Sage of the Saka (Saka Muni). Buddhist stone inscriptions were etched with the name Sakamuni,3 providing clear evidence that the Buddha was a member of the Saka. But Buddhists in India decided to reinvent the Kingdom of the Saka. It became the fictional kingdom of Sakyavati,4 land of the longlost Sakyas. At this point they renamed him Sakyamuni, Sage of the Sakya, and later inscriptions reflected that change.
Linguistic analysis of Saka heritage shows a relationship to Mesopotamia and Arya-Vedism. The name of the ancestral hometown of the Buddha, Kapilvastu, a settlement (vastu) called Kapil, also appears to have been a derivative name. Its source appears to be the name Babil, which was originally a Sumer/Akkad term for the “Gate of God,” commonly used in the Babylonian region. Its echo is apparent in the names of Babylon and the Bible.
The real Saka city of Babil would have been located somewhere in the Scythian region, an area best described as Greater Aryana where earlier many Arya-Vedic tribes had migrated from Europe and northwestern Asia in several waves over the course of hundreds of years. The Saka nation was a nomadic people that settled just east of ancient Medes, Elam, and Parsa (today’s Iran). One likely location for Babil could be along the ancient coastal region of Makran, which at the time included the southern coast of the Arabian Sea from the Persian Gulf to the Indus River. Today this area is known as the Seistan-Baluchistan province (formerly Sakastan) of southern Iran and Pakistan and includes the peninsula across the Straits of Hermuz (today’s Oman and United Arab Emirates). Another possible location for Babil could be in the northern lands of Greater Aryana, in and around Gandhara, where today sits the modern city of Kabul in Afghanistan, a name that echoes the sound of Kapil or Babil.
Dramatic evidence of Siddhartha Gautama’s presence in the region has been found as far west as Persia, but not in India. Family seals5 and records found at Persepolis, the ancient capital of the fourth Persian Emperor, Darius the Great, have been identified and associated with the names of Siddhartha Gautama and his father, Suddhodana Gautama.
The Persepolis seals identified royals and other important personages within the Persian ruling sphere. Guatama was the name of the royal family of the Saka kingdom.
How was Siddhartha Gautama connected to the Persian Empire?
Other written records have suggested the possibility that Siddhartha Gautama was a major player in the history of the Persia Empire. According to the Bisutun Inscriptions,6 Siddhartha Gautama’s name appears like an echo in the name of a little known King of Babylon. The inscriptions refer to a religious figure named “Gaumâta,” from whom the Achaemenid Persian Emperor, Darius the Great, seized the throne for himself.
Could it be that Siddhartha Gautama was the mysterious King “Gaumâta”?
The name “Gaumâta” appears to be a variant of Gautama, the Buddha’s family name. In the ancient multilingual land of Babylonia, multiple names and titles with spelling variations referring to the same person were common.
Is there any additional evidence to link “Gaumâta” and Siddhartha Gautama as the same person? Is it possible that Siddhartha Gautama rose to the throne of the Persian Empire? Could he have been an emperor before he attained Buddhahood?
After his youth in Babil and a period of religious training in the forests, he may have headed for Babylon where he quickly rose to a high position in religious circles. At that time Mesopotamia’s religious activities and cosmic explorations, including visionary, astronomical, and mathematical research, were managed by a popular order known as the Magi. They also provided the public with divination and welfare services. If, indeed, Gaumata had joined the interfaith Magi Order, we might be able to find evidence as to how he could have become the King in Babylon.
Does evidence of Babylonian Magi influences appear in Buddhist literature?
Could we discover Mesopotamian references in the Buddhist scriptures?
The earliest mathematical systems, astronomical measurements, and mythological literature were initiated in the ziggurat tower-temples of the Fertile Crescent by the cultures of Sumer/Akkad and Amorite Babylonia. Both Magi and Vedic seers furthered knowledge of a cosmic infrastructure, well known in the Buddha’s time from the Tigris to the Ganges.
Discovering this connection in the Buddhist sutras would challenge the prevailing view that Buddhism was born and developed exclusively in India. Although the oral legacy of the sutras were assembled and recorded later in India, a Babylonian finding would have major implications regarding the origin, influences, and intentions of the Buddha. Moreover linking Buddhist scriptures with the rich Babylonian culture of his day would show that Siddhartha Gautama was the personal author of his visions. It would also confirm the dates historians have deduced for the Buddha’s lifetime.
SIDDHARTHA IN BABYLON
During his youth in the Saka community, Siddhartha Guatama would have learned about the teachings of the Rig Veda, and he certainly would have known about other local religions, including Brahmanism and Jaina. Given the heritage of the shamanism in the Saka culture, he would also have been exposed to seer practices going back to tribal cultures and the earliest civilizations.
His Magi Order education would have immersed a brilliant, eagerly curious Siddhartha Gautama in Mesopotamian cosmic myths that included the Sumerian/Akkadian and Babylonian world creation tales. He would have been intimately familiar with the Seven Tablets of Creation, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the biblical Genesis of the Judean exiles living in Babylon.
Is there evidence of this interfaith education in the scriptures of Buddhism?
Do the Buddhist sutras and related literature show his awareness of myths, no matter how obscure, that are connected to knowledge of Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Judean, Jaina, Vedism, Brahmanism religions? If such influences were to be uncovered, it would lend credence to Siddhartha Gautama’s career in Babylon. While the Buddha’s worldly interfaith knowledge would constitute a link to the Magi Order of Babylon, it may be difficult for some to imagine that such an important element of the Buddha’s biography could have avoided detection for thousands of years. The reason for it is the virtual disappearance of the interfaith Magi from historical records. Historians know them as a Zoroastrian clergy, but have not figured out how this order came to be exclusively dominated by that faith.
In making the case that he had achieved great prominence in Babylon prior to his Perfect Enlightenment, The Buddha from Babylon undertakes a close examination of archeological, linguistic, historical, and mythological evidence in relation to Buddhist writings and exposes an underlying net of Babylonian influences. Although “adjustments” were made to the record of his oral sermons after his lifetime, if even a small amount of Babylonian influences can be culled out of Buddhist literature, it will be a game-changer in understanding the Buddha’s Teachings as he originally intended.
So why was Western Asia’s influence on Buddhism lost in the records of history? The decision to de-link Buddhism and Babylon may have happened when the Teachings of the Buddha were initially collected in India at least one hundred years or later following his death. At that time Buddhist scribes seeking to popularize Buddhism as a local religion in India may have seen this background as counterproductive to their message of a conflict-free aura surrounding the founder. They appear to have adapted some names and places associated with the Buddha’s lifetime into names and places in India.
Our research has led us to a different story regarding the Buddha-to-be.
The inscriptions of Darius the Great (Per. Darayavaush), the Persian emperor for thirty-five years, boast that the Zoroastrian God Assura Mazda (Per. Ahura Mazda) chose him to take the throne (in 522 BCE) from a usurper named “Gaumâta.” Darius shrouds the short-lived reign of his predecessor in a power struggle involving deceit, conspiracy, murder, and the prize of the Persian throne. He characte
rizes “Gaumâta” as an opportunist who illegally grabbed the throne in Babylon while the sitting Persian Emperor Kambujiya was away in Egypt.
Cyrus the Great first established the Persian Empire by conquering both the Babylonian and Median Empires. His son Kambujiya extended its size by invading Egypt. Kambujiya died on the way back from Egypt after learning of his replacement on the throne in Babylon. Months later Darius and a group of Persian elites took back the reigns of power from “Gaumâta” whom they branded a “usurper to the throne.”
Darius painted “Gaumâta” an imposter and illegal ruler, although the description does not seem to fit the highly educated and beloved leader. Darius identified him as a Magi, and sardonically labeled him as a “stargazer.” If the name “Gaumâta” referred to Siddhartha Gautama, this reference would mean that he held a key leadership position in the Magi Order. Moreover, as the headquarters of the Magi was in the temple complex of Esagila, home of the ziggurat tower dubbed “House of the Raised Head,“ the designation of “stargazer” suggests that Gautama was involved with Babylon’s star observatory.
How then would the “stargazer Gaumâta” have become the King of Babylon in the absence of Kambujiya and presumptive emperor upon his sudden death?
At that time, it was traditional for religious leaders to also hold political positions. Prior to his royal ascent “Gaumâta“ may have served as the Governor of Babillu, the Province of Babylon. As governor he would have taken charge of dispensing food to the needy. This would explain why he appears to have been a popular spiritual leader with political experience before assuming the throne. Once he became the king his kindness became all the more apparent. Described as a compassionate philosopher-cosmologist “Gaumâta” decreed freedom for slaves, lowered oppressive taxes across the board, and inspired neighbors to respect one another in a city known for its diverse ethnic groups and many languages.