Re:is buddha indian or chinese?

可能英文的buddha有點誤導，我是說彿祖釋迦牟尼的人種…

人种,当然是homo sapiens...智人...^_^..

那时候青藏高原可能还没成为绝对的地理屏障呢. 估计怎么算都行.

因为远东人种本身跟高加索人种有过太多次的混血经历.

I am no expert in this. But I read that Asian Indians are categorized by Anthropologists as Caucasian. Nowadays, they are considered Asian probably because of Geographical reasons. But I read that their skull structure falls into Caucasian category.
Anyway, I agree that all humans on Earth, even extra-terrestrials should just all be one big family, living happily and peacefully together and forever.

way off topic. lol

there are two forms of buddhism. Theravada and Mahayana ... wow can't believe I still remember this from freshman asian religion class haha

Theravada is what they consider buddhism in India.. it is the oldest form of buddhism and Mahayana is the form that is considered to be moved to the north eastern asia, like china, korean and japan.

originally, buddha is from India, his teachings have traveled and changed slightly as it went to china/korea/japan. As you'll notice from even the statue will look different in the southeast buddhism, to chinese buddhism.

cheers,

alright, since i study Buddhism in university and also had to do a lot of research on Buddhism in china specifically, i kinda just can't let this slide.

what does it matter, what ethnic the Buddha had? yes, he was born in what today is Nepal, to that time widely influenced by Indian culture and religion. the whole buddhist religion and early texts are all purely of Indian origin and you won't find any Chinese influence in them at all. imagery, metaphors, allegories - all in typical Indian style, while NOT originally written in Sanskrit, which was the language of the sacred texts of Hinduism. actually it is a fact that the Buddha never wanted his words to be translated into the Hindu language, fearing, his teachings could be swallowed up by this powerful religion. powerful because Hinduism has a huge pantheon of gods and such and it willfully adds more gods to it, if it seems convenient. this is pretty much the reality of Buddhism in India today, as someone already pointed out. the same applies by the way for Christianity, Jesus is also seen as one avatar of Visnu in some Hindu circles.

Buddhism only made it's way to china around 100dc, almost 600 years after Buddha lived. it needed several hundred years to establish itself in china and was strongly depending on the indogenic religions there at first. early Chinese Buddhist texts were strongly influenced by taoist and Confucian views, which had a certain influence on Buddhist religion itself and led to a Chinese transformation of it. some centuries after Buddhism first reached china a Buddhist school called Chan originated, which was widely influenced by originally Chinese thought and later exported to japan under the name Zen and underwent further transformation there under different cultural influences.
the forms of Buddhism that you can find in other countries are also widely influenced by the religions that were indogenic to that region. for example in Tibet shamanic religions and the bön tradition were what the Buddhist monks found in the beginning and in a long fusing process Lamaism evolved, which has up until today still a lot of features of those old Tibetan religions.

so what does it matter, what ethnic Buddha had? Buddhism is not a religion that concentrates on such things anyways and it is always widely influenced by it's surroundings. this has nothing much to do with genes or ethnics at all, more with cultural and political influences. this is the curse and blessing of this religion too. it is widely open for new influences and thinking, which can either enrich it or distort it, depends on the point of view. religion also always was a play-ball of the mighty, who often enough decided to either push a religion forward and invest lots of money and laws in it, or to hunt it down and like this lead to it's decline. in the case of India for example you completely left out taking a lot at its caste system, which is deeply interwoven with Hinduism and gives great advantages to few parts of the population and great disadvantages to huge parts of the population. Buddhism did not know a construct like castes and was therefor always a thorn in the side for mighty Brahmans and other Hindu and it suffered greatly under Hindu efforts to suppress it. actually in the last century, many Buddhists took an attempt to escape this caste system in mass converting the poorest people of Indian state, you maybe know them under "the untouchables" to Buddhism, because this was a way to escape their cruel lives.

but oh well uhm. i will stop here.

How could he be either when neither existed in his lifetime?

At the time of his birth, there was no India or China, nor were there Indians nor Chinese. There wasn't Nepal either.

India didn't become a country until after the British occupation. Hinduism is passed down by heredity, not just culture. Siddhartha came from a dharmic tradition so he might have some Hindu blood lineage on his father's side... but once again, "Hindu" does not equal Indian. Also, while the Buddhist texts were written in Palli, there is no proof he spoke any Sanskrit derived language or even an Indo-European one. He is even less Chinese, since China did not exist as a concept until westerners coined the name. Furthermore, in his lifetime, China was in its first dynastic period, the Shang dynasty. These "Chinese" are not anything like the Han we know today, in their culture, language, and most likely appearance. The land was a giant melting pot of cultures, except instead of remaining independent states like in Europe, China was unified through milennia of war, genocide, and inter-mixing (not just among themselves but with Westerners who traveled along the Silk Road). The closest concept of a China during the early days was the idea that the central plains （中原） surrounding the rivers were the best places to farm and get rich. So all the warring nations of peoples that occupied China were constantly running up in each others' spots to capture the "middle kingdom". Even so, they were all different ethnicities/nationalities. No one called themselves "Chinese".

As for Nepal, there was no Nepal period. Not 2600 years ago.

You can't say that Buddhism didn't flourish in India. Buddhism did actually flourished in India before it got into far eastern countries like China, Japan, Korea, Thailand etc
I would like you to read the history of Indian subcontinent which will tell you that how did Buddhism travelled to the countries of far east.
Buddhism didn't reach Far Eastern countries through Nepal or Tibet but mainly through present day Pakistan. As for centuries "Taxila" (a city in Northern Pakistan) remained a centre of Buddhist learnings in ancient times. The ancient Buddhist civilization which flourished in that area was called Gandhara civilization. All the area from Taxila to Afghanistan was under Buddhist infulence for many centuries.
It was an Indian Emperor "Ashoka" who was a key figure in spreading Buddhism from Pakistan to Afghanistan to far eastern countries.
Ashoka was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian Sub-Continent from 269 BC to 232 BC. He is regarded as one of the greatest Indian emperors. His empire streched through present day Pakistan, Afghanistan to Bangladesh and Indian state of Assam and as far South as Kerala and Andra Pradesh.
After doing much of a bloodshed in the war of Kalinga, Ashoka who was basically a Hindu converted into Buddhism and took the path of non violence.

Ashoka played a critical role in making Buddhism a world religion. During his reign he sent missionaries to different far Eastern countries. Also huge buddhist stupas or buddist monastories were built throughout India specially in Northern part of Pakistan to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the two huge statues of Buddha in the city of Bamiyan which were destroyed by Talibans tells us Buddhist influence in that area in the past. As Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan falls on the silk route with China, it was from there the Buddhism travelled to far Eastern countries.
Later Buddhism vanished from India as India had always been a ground for foreign invaders who kept on Invading India through centuries. The invaders brought in their own cultures and religions to India. After Muslim invaders came to India, India remained under the rule of Muslim rulers for centuries who came from central Asia. During course of centuries Buddhism faded away from this region.
Also Hinduism which was a much older religion than Buddhism had much stronger roots in India as compared to Buddhism and the Hindu politics didn't let Buddhism flourish in India after the fall of Mauryan Dynasty.

Indian

or

he is not Chinese

Buddha is an Indian, well actually he was a Indian Prince and that time he wanted to promote peace and he wanted the inner peace within himself. Therefore, he ran away from the palace where he had a great life and no worries for food, women, entertainment and his life. However, he wanted to know the citizens' lives and by ran away from palace, he saw a lot of people who were hunger and faced famine and died because of disease and hunger. So, when he went to search his inner peace, he found a tree that suited him to do his meditation and he prayed, he faced hunger and starved for not eating, he faced cold when the rains and winter came, he felt all the problems faced by the citizens, and soon later he found the inner peace within himself and he was worship for being the Buddha by the people.

And the Buddha philosophy and religion been taking up by the people and spread the spirit, passion and right to other countries which the Asia countries mostly picked up the religion by the prophets and spread it to their citizens. Buddhism doesn't count the race, Buddhism suits everyone because everyone is Bodhisattva of Earth, just like Christian.

Everyone has 8 senses which we all didn't realize them. As we all know the first 5 senses are (sight, taste, hearing, touch and smell), the following 3 senses are (6th sense is the vision/ six sense, 7th sense is karma or good will or known as the energy of one had; and the 8th sense which is the Buddha hood or Christian hood or God Status.)

Well technically Buddha can be anything if you take in to account reincarnation. For all we know he could even be Somalian