Talk:The Buddha

Requested move 31 March 2023

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The Buddha → Gautama Buddha – I have gone through the previous two RM requests but I fail to understand how we still arrived at this conclusion. Although. Dwayne Johnson is more popularly known as The Rock, we can clearly see how the Wikipedia page is titled. And while I'm not advocating for the name change to Buddha, someone correctly said in a previous RM that there are many moons but the wiki page refers to our Moon. While, a case can be made that Captain America (please note, the lack of The) is a title for many characters but the page references to the character that is primarily known by that name (Steve Rogers), another case can also be made that Ant-Man is a title and many of the characters using that title have their own separate pages. So, what I'm trying to say is while Buddha would make sense, Siddhartha Gautama would make even more sense but The Buddha makes the least amount of sense. Since, Siddhartha Gautama was previously denied during a RM and the title of the article was not changed for over 15 years, I would suggest a RM back to Gautama Buddha. Wikipedia:If it ain't broke, don't fix it. CaseNotClosedYet (talk) 12:00, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - I'm not sure what the rationale for the RM is. The RM proposal does not say why the current title is problematic, nor why the proposed title should be used, nor is any evidence provided to show why the article should be renamed. Wikipedia:If it ain't broke, don't fix it is cited, yet the RM is an attempt to fix something that isn't broken. As was made clear in the previous RM that changed the title to its current one, English-language sources do not support "Gautama Buddha" as the WP:COMMONNAME for the subject, and this subject is the overwhelming WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for this title. Apples-to-oranges comparisons to articles like Dwayne Johnson (who perhaps was as one point more commonly known by The Rock but his career as an actor has overshadowed that) are not a sufficient rationale to try to overturn a recent move simply because the proposer "fail[s] to understand". Consensus can certainly change, but we just had this discussion and it's only been a few months. The nom brings forward no novel argument that would warrant reopening this topic so soon. - Aoidh (talk) 12:36, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

  Every other Buddha's in this portal has similar naming structure, so I don't see how this needs further reasoning how or why English-language sources do not support this. Eg- Kassapa Buddha, Sumedha Buddha, etc.

  Also, this is relating to a cultural and religion topic, why you are looking for English-Language sources only, is quite ignorant and probably very offensive to people who are not primarily English speakers, hence why, I have read many people citing other Wikipedia language pages for Gautama Buddha as the preferred naming structure.

  I compared with a wrestler and fictional superhero as that's what this naming structure has brought Siddhartha Gautama down to. You are treating him like fictional character, a superhero or a person trying to go by the stage name for a profession. He is a person yet his article is referring to him by the title that was most associated to him. Let's not forget this article is related to Siddhartha Gautama. Please give example's where title has only been used to refer to a person.

  A few examples for my reasoning.

  1) Mahatma Gandhi - Mahatma is a title not a name yet the title is mostly if not only used for Mohandas Gandhi.

  2) Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother - First of all, Queen Elizabeth is the most popular queen at this age and according to the logic of why The Buddha should be used, perhaps Elizabeth II should have her page renamed to The Queen. Anyway, to avoid confusion with Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth is most popularly known as The Queen Mother and her page reflects that. But somehow, here we are trying to create confusion than trying to educate people and remove confusion.

  3) Mansa Musa - Same reasoning as above.

  4) Jesus - No one could say, if Christ is more popularly known or Jesus. And, while Christ is a title that is only used to refer to one person, it is not the name for the page. In fact, the title has a separate page - Christ (title).

  It is quite ignorant and blasphemous to make light of the subject. People need to know about the person in this article not the title. According to me, this naming structure is encouraging a mindset that this is a fictional or mythical person. I could then understand why some people would be against the idea for change to create confusion and spread misinformation or rather the lack of proper information. The core principle of Buddhism is that every person can and probably someday will achieve the state of Buddha, so referring to Siddhartha Gautama as The Buddha is quite against the idea of what Buddhism is about or what he taught. Which from a religion standpoint I presume is very offensive to non-English speakers, some might see this as a win but I consider this as a disrespect to the person behind the title and mystifying title itself. CaseNotClosedYet (talk) 18:34, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: What Aoidh said. Overall, a somewhat baffling RM. The message seems to be "Siddhartha Gautama" would be best, which is consistent with the Dwayne Johnson material further up, but failing that, since it was already tried last year, a default back to the previous poorly supported page title would suffice ... hang on, what? Setting aside the general comparisons with fictional super heroes and pro-wrestlers, umm, sourcing? "Gautama Buddha" went the way of the dodos because it was a total flunk of a common name. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:06, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

  Kindly refer to the above comment for any confusion you have. Also, Gautama Buddha is quite a common name in non-English speaking communities or people who actually follow Buddhism. It gives respect to both the person and also his status as a Buddha. Hence, the case with Mahatma Gandhi. CaseNotClosedYet (talk) 18:43, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: per the above, and previous discussions. पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 14:11, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose move and snowclose. This request is nonsensical. O.N.R. ^(talk) 18:42, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose and WP:SNOWCLOSE per other editors comments. – CityUrbanism 🗩 🖉 19:04, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
• Neutral. It's not inherently wrong or bad, but it makes infinitely more sense to me to have this page at Buddha, following Britannica. — kashmīrī ^TALK 19:47, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Typo

In the other religions section at the end of the first paragraph it is stated that "Nevertheless, while his inclusion has been rejected by some traditionalists, many modern Hindus with to include the Buddha into Hinduism", I think the word "with" is meant to be "wish" 202.7.251.26 (talk) 05:57, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I went ahead and fixed that. Thanks for the heads up. JungleEntity (talk) 06:06, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Citation doesn't support claim made in the article

In the third introductory paragraph, there's a sentence that says, "A couple of centuries after his death, he came to be known by the title Buddha." A citation is given to page 8 of Rupert Gethin's "Foundations of Buddhism," page 8. There is no mention on page 8 of that book to the Buddha not having been given that title until two centuries after his death. Nor would you expect there to be. I am not aware of any scholar who would argue that the Buddha wasn't known as "Buddha" during his lifetime. If any scholar did make that claim they would be a bizarre outlier and wouldn't represent scholarly consensus.

TwaWings (talk) 13:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

In the Nikayas, the Buddha refers to himself as 'the tatagatha'. The article says "While the term Buddha is used in the Agamas and the Pali Canon, the oldest surviving written records of the term Buddha is from the middle of the 3rd century BCE, when several Edicts of Ashoka (reigned c. 269–232 BCE) mention the Buddha and Buddhism." Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 15:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

80 years lifespan

The article needlessly complicated matters by stating (emphasis added):

The "long chronology", from Sri Lankese chronicles, states the Buddha was born 298 years before Asoka's coronation and died 218 years before the coronation, thus a lifespan of about 80 years.

I changed this by removing the word "about" as 298-218=80. Another editor objected, insisting on "about 80 years", first arguing with some alleged "the classic off-by-one errors" (which in fact is actually quite common inclusive reckoning) and then with "If you were born in november 1950 and die in june 2030, how old are you". I don't see that as a valid counterpoint because not only do these sources not give any exact dates, they are clearly set out to give a round number like 80 years. In any case, even if B. had not yet reached his 80th birthday (which we cannot assert) he would have been in the 80th year of his life.

I tried to looking up the source but to no avail. Our article pretty much copies the article word for word but the "thus a lifespan ..." subclause was added by Wikipedia.

Str1977 ^(talk) 15:13, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I come from the same supposition to the opposite conclusion. As we're not given precise dates, it seems best here to make that imprecision explicit. It would be different if the level of precision were more clear in context—e.g. via placement amid a series of similarly imprecise figures. That's clearly the case with the dates in the following paragraphs, but not presently the one this 80 year figure is in. Remsense ‥ 论 15:27, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

As I vaguely recall, the lifespan is attested earlier and more firmly than any dates - whether it was "about" or not I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Scholarship has mostly proceeded by trying to work out a death date, then taking off 80 for a birth date. So the text at the top here has it the wrong way round. Johnbod (talk) 03:33, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

User:Johnbod is correct, the lifespan of 80 years is consistently given by all the traditional sources. What the Sri Lankan chronicles (Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa) have also stated is that 218 years passed between the Buddha's parinibbana and Ashoka's coronation. I couldn't find any actual specification of 298 years, so I'm pretty certain that it is simply being inferred. This is also, it seems, the case for the "short chronology" alternatives: 100 (or somewhat more) years from the death year till Asoka is stated by those sources, and then 180+ years is accordingly being inferred for the birth year. -Avantiputra7 (talk) 06:33, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Suggested correction for the claim "Siddhartha Gautama founded Buddhism"

In my opinion, the statement "Siddhartha Gautama, .... 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism." should be reformulated as "Siddhartha Gautama, .... 5th century BCE whose teachings later formed the foundation of Buddhism." Varun.rd.goyal (talk) 16:36, 13 April 2025 (UTC)