Harvey Kraft - The Buddha from Babylon: The Lost History and Cosmic Vision of Siddhartha Gautama

Praise for The Buddha from Babylon

Harvey Krafts ambitious and groundbreaking book, The Buddha from Babylon, challenges conventional beliefs about who the Buddha actually was and shows how Buddhism began just as the military might of the Persian Empire arises. The author has made a compelling case for a socially-engaged Buddha who will take the reader on a mind-expanding journey in search of lifes deepest meaning and purpose. Harvey Kraft has written a well-crafted historical thriller based on years of research that will entertain, engage, and raise consciousness.

David Rasch, PhD, Psychologist/Ombuds at Stanford University and author of The Blocked Writers Book of the Dead

The history of the Buddha is compelling. To know the truth of where and how Buddhism all began still holds mystery...The Buddha from Babylon could be the answer to many questions...This is a fascinating and hugely informative read.

Mariel Hemingway, actor and producer, starred in films Manhattan, Star 80, Lipstick, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. She is host of Spiritual Cinema, a monthly television show dedicated to spiritual films. She is co-author of Running with Nature:Stepping into the Life You Were Meant to Live.

Harvey Krafts perspective as a spiritual archaeologist allows him to merge his keen understanding of Buddhism and ancient religions into a unique perspective that is at once insightful and revolutionary.

Dan Shafer, author of The Power of I AM, and the international best-seller, HyperTalk Programming

The Buddha from Babylon is wonderful. It is really a seminal research work that at the same time I couldnt put down. Highly interesting. For all the wisdom it gently delivers, I will have to re-read it many times.

The Buddha from Babylon appears at a critical time. Answering our most burning questions about existence and purpose, the book provides extensive and profound insight through the weaving in of numerous stories that simultaneously keeps one craving to learn more. Fully aware of the crossroads of destruction and evolution at which humanity currently stands and the difficulty for humanity to change course, Harvey Kraft offers yet clear and simple transformational strategies through the teachings and example of Siddhartha Gautama. Turning common understanding of who Buddha is on its head, I believe, this is the most comprehensively written and researched piece intertwining cosmic, religious and political history. As essentially a theory of everything, this seminal work offers interfaith scholars and spiritual activists a new understanding of Buddhas role, our origin, our interconnectedness and thus the transformational strategies we need to truly shape our shared future.

Wanda Krause, PhD, former assistant professor at Qatar Foundation and Qatar University, is the author of Spiritual Activism: Keys to Personaland Political Success and Civil Society, and Women Activists in theMiddle East: Islamic and Secular Organizations in Egypt

Mr. Kraft will take you on a roller coaster of historical information; describing the cycle of religions in ancient times that were based on power and greed. Then in the second half of the book, our Hero appears and begins to make sense of it all. The Buddha from Babylon is a creative combination of fact and imagination. Buddha challenges everyone, including the reader, to re-evaluate themselves. As Mr. Kraft so apply writes, It would require of them an awakening to the possibility of awakening.

Robyn Lebron, author of Searching for Spiritual Unity, a guide to forty of the worlds religions

The Buddha from Babylon offers an excellent depiction of Axial Age visionary knowledge, rationality, and aphoristic thinking, as it applied to the journey of the Buddha.

William Bauser, Professor of Philosophy (retired) Dean College, Maine

Copyright 2014 by Harvey Kraft

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

This edition published by SelectBooks, Inc.

For information address SelectBooks, Inc., New York, New York.

First Edition

ISBN 978-1-59079-143-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kraft, Harvey, 1950

The Buddha from Babylon : the lost history and cosmic vision of Siddhartha Gautama / Harvey Kraft.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: Presents an alternative biography to the traditional recounting of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, and shows Babylonian influences on his cosmology. Author proposes that before his Enlightenment in the Indus forests, Buddha was a renowned visionary and philosopher in ancient Babylon, becoming briefly the Emperor of the Persian Empire before a coup by Darius the Great-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-59079-143-1 (pbk. book : alk. paper) 1. Gautama Buddha. 2.
Cosmology, Ancient. I. Title.

BQ894.K73 2014

294.363--dc23

2013041868

Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the voices of light

in my Universe

Andrew, Lani, Jaime, and Desiree

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author wishes to thank history researcher and ancient linguistic analyst Dr. Ranajit Pal for inspiration and his breakthrough in connecting Siddhartha Gautamas origin with Northern India and Persia.

CONTENTS

Preface

THE BUDDHA FROM BABYLON

Scholars have estimated that the historical Buddha lived in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. Traditionally his date of birth is given as 563 BCE and his date of death as 483 BCE. There has been a general consensus that he lived and taught exclusively in an area known today as India, which during this era was composed of sixteen independent kingdoms.

At the same time, however, a vast empire dominated the region west of India. The militant Achaemenid Persian dynasty, after overtaking the former Babylonian and Median Empires, had expanded its sovereignty from Egypt to the Indus. Central to their territory was Babylon, the worlds largest and most cosmopolitan city of that period and the energetic hub of spiritual and intellectual explorations. By the lifetime of the Buddha, Babylon had been exposed to a wide assortment of religious views from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus Valley.

This book will offer the view that Siddhartha Gautama, the name of the person who became the Buddha, had been born outside of India, and had become an important leader in Babylon prior to the event known as his enlightenment. This book further explores how this background and experience was instrumental in shaping his cosmic visions.

The legendary biography of Siddhartha Gautama written 2,000 years ago recounts that before becoming the Buddha he was born a prince of the Sakya clan and was raised in his fathers cloistered royal estate. According to the story of his younger years, he was married and had a son before venturing out into the world. Once outside of his sheltered paradise he was shocked to learn that people suffered from birth until death. His deep compassion for others set him on a quest to solve the cause of suffering.

Choosing to depart his princely domain, he entered the mendicant lifestyle to learn the skills of trance meditation. After some ten years of spiritual searching he finally found a path to salvation. One day while sitting under a tree in a forest, the Buddha attained Perfect Enlightenment. Immediately he embarked on a journey followed by growing numbers of disciples. Through oral sermons and cosmic visions he set forth his enlightened views about the scope, nature, and essence of life. These teachings became known as Buddhism.