The Unknown Buddha

The further we go down the river of time from the sage of the Shakya clan, the louder the discord about the historical Buddha and his primordial teachings. To our contemporary, the life of the Buddha and his teachings are presented in a certain, commonly accepted way. Archaeological excavations, iconography, epigraphy, and ethnography paint a different, yet no less non-trivial portrait. They shed light on the pre-Buddhist culture and the native religion of the man whom the Vedic Brahmins called Siddhartha Gautama. The environment in which the historical Buddha lived tells about his personality: the cult of the sacred grove and bodily remains, the psychophysical techniques of the ascetics-shramanas, as well as the veneration of Indian deities in which future Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can be recognized. The cult of the Buddha was as mystical as the culture of that time. For a wide readership interested in the East.