Psychological observations on the life of gautama buddha

Abstract

Toward the beginning of his long Histoire du Bouddhisme Indien, the great Indologist Etienne Lamotte remarks: “Buddhism would be inexplicable if we did not place at its foundation a personality sufficiently powerful to have given it its impetus and to have stamped it with those essential traits which have persisted through history.” Lamotte is referring to the powerful “personality” of Siddhärtha Gautama, and his statement addresses the premier place that the study of this personality–psychology–should have within the field of Buddhist studies. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the psychological study of Gautama Buddha is virtually nonexistent, and studies of the traditional life are generally less common than treatments of what the Buddha taught. Lamotte frankly admits that it is “discouraging” to take up the study of the life. E.J. Thomas, who wrote a classic volume on The Life of Buddha: As Legend and History, also tells us that in the “Triple Jewel the great problem has always been the person of Buddha.” For both of these scholars, and for others as well, the problem is named in the full title of Thomas's work: it is the problem of legend and history