Gwynne - Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad : a comparative study

Table of Contents

This edition first published 2014

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Preface

Toward the end of the popular 1971 musical Jesus Christ Superstar, there is a song in which Judas interrogates a condemned Jesus about his personal motives and self-understanding. In the second verse Judas asks:

Tell me what you think about your friends at the top.

Now who d'you think besides yourself was the pick of the crop?

Buddha was he where it's at, is he where you are?

Could Muhammad move a mountain or was that just PR?

Lyricist Tim Rice's choice of Buddha and Muhammad as peers of Jesus at the top is instructive. In the popular imagination, these three are commonly seen to be the most prominent figures in religious history, and this perception is not without reason or solid grounding. In terms of hard statistics, they stand at the head of three major religious traditions, which together boast approximately 3.5 billion adherents approximately half of the entire human race today. Moreover, it is not only about sheer numbers but also about extent in space and time. Buddhism, Christianity and Islam have been missionary movements from the very beginning and, consequently, their membership is now spread across the continents and islands of the world. They are truly global religions, having penetrated and changed thousands of local and regional cultures. In addition, the influence of Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad stretches back centuries, indeed millennia, to the times in which they lived. Countless generations of human beings have found their inspiration, shaped their behavior, and oriented their lives according to the words and deeds of these three men. Their powerful and widespread influence cuts across both geography and history. Therefore, it is no coincidence that they are often also included in more general lists (covering all domains of human enterprise and activity) of the most influential persons who have ever lived.

This book is an attempt to look at these three crucial lives, not in splendid isolation, but in a comparative manner. Needless to say, there already exists an enormous volume of biographical studies on Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad, dating from the earliest times to the current day. In the past century alone, hundreds of attempts have been made to revisit, reexamine and reinterpret their stories, often inspired by fresh discoveries in the fields of archaeology and ancient history or new developments in philosophy and theology. The sheer number of these biographies makes genuinely original contributions more and more difficult. Yet somewhat surprisingly, there have been very few works of an explicitly comparative nature. While the individual stories of Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad have been told and retold innumerable times, on very few occasions have they been told side-by-side. When a comparative study of the founders has been produced, invariably it involves a comparison of Jesus with either Buddha or Muhammad but rarely all three. While Hilliard explicitly acknowledged his Christian bias, the Rivers of Paradise project was more objective, involving multiple authors from respective religious traditions. However, it was inherently restricted by its highly specific theme: namely, the extent to which each of the five figures conformed to Max Weber's definition of a prophet. Such a dearth of literature in this area suggests that there is a serious scholarly gap that needs to be filled.

In order to achieve our aim, we have adopted a threefold approach: phenomenological, comparative and thematic. First, a phenomenological methodology will be used. Although absolute impartiality is an unrealistic ideal in any discipline, nevertheless, it is possible to set aside ideological concerns and to strive for a reasonable level of objectivity. Consequently, this book is not primarily concerned with the veracity or credibility of the claims of each founder or their religious tradition. Nor is it aimed at demonstrating the ascendancy or preeminence of one vis--vis the others, as was often the case in earlier forms of comparative religion. In this sense, our study is more interested in observation and description than judgment and proof. While it certainly seeks to compare the three figures in a fruitful manner, it does not seek to compare one of them favorably against the others. For this reason, the book may disappoint some Buddhists, Christians and Muslims who are convinced that their religious hero stands indisputably head and shoulders above the other two, and that any comparison should bear this out.

Second, the book will unpack the elements of each story within a comparative framework. In other words, the three lives are set alongside each other and that juxtaposition, by its very nature, casts different shades of light on them. This is the peculiar contribution of the comparative method. It highlights aspects that are easily taken for granted or entirely missed otherwise. It reveals both common elements and truly distinctive features. Thus, as the comparison unveils areas of similarity and difference, it simultaneously places the subject more firmly within its proper context and reinforces its undeniable uniqueness. Hopefully, this comparison will uncover hitherto unsuspected or underestimated links between Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad, but at the same time identify what makes each of them stand alone as an incomparable individual. Thus, it is important to ensure that genuine likenesses and differences are protected. It must navigate its way between the Scylla of artificial similarity and the Charybdis of utter uniqueness. As a result, this book may disappoint those whose tenet is that all religious founders are essentially the same, as well as those whose tenet is that these three have nothing in common.