Jesus, Buddha & Krishna the same Entity?

buddha existed before jesus.

I thought about this before...could be...

I know...perhaps I should have phrased it differently. I was wondering what folks thought about the possibility that Krishna, Buddha & Jesus were sort of the same entity, appearing in a different time and place to benefit humanity and reduce suffering.

em, Buddhism and christianity are completely different concepts of 'religion.' Christianity has a god that supposedly created this world. Buddhism has no creator or gods. Followers try to become buddha.

CI,
I know that some of their message appears to diverge greatly. I was thinking a bit more of along the lines of an absract possibility...

---

em, Religious teachings by its very nature is going to have corresponding ideas. What jesus or buddha said are fictional; nobody followed these people day and night and recorded every word they supposedly pontificated to his followers. Buddha's attainment of "salvation" is much different from the "salvation" belief of christians. Any human endeavor that has a 'leader' will be termed in the highest respect - or "father." I think I read someplace that "buddha" also means father.

I think the real question is not whether all these prophets were one and the same, but whether or not their message was the same, and then polluted and/or misunderstood by stupid people and/or politicians.

The apparent differences in the messages only relates to the cultural differences in the countries where the message was being spread. The parables reflect what the prophets thought the locals could relate to best.

Thank you cav,
you have succintly stated what I was trying to get at.

I am interested in the concept of this entity/prophet appearing from time to time, in different cultures. Perhaps their messages aren't as radically different as we imagine.

No, I don't think the message has changed much since the first messengers. It's when the fable/example becomes accepted as truth that we get problems. It's like Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper. Let's say we take it literally, and decide that ants are superior, because they plan ahead for the better of their kin and colony, and grasshoppers are evil because they are flippant and don't contribute to society. The lesson is ignored, and the Orkin man makes a ton of money exterminating grasshoppers at the behest of the newly self-righteous ants.

I can't tell if you condone or condemn this approach.

1. Krishna was not a historical personage, but is rather the personification of the creative forces. The primary Hindu work that gives its gods personality, traits and describes their dynamic is the Mahaborata. This is one of the world's great pieces of literature, but there are no good translations into English that I know of. Most English versions are greatly abstracted from the multi-thousands of pages that would be necessary to print the original.

Hinduism personifies universal forces and, though there are cults for each of the primary gods, holds that the universe is balanced between them. Krishna, the creative force, is balanced by Shiva, the destructive force, and Vishnu, the preserver is the fulcrum between them. Each of the primary gods is a projection of Brahma, but Brahma enters the Indian pantheon somewhat later than the other more ancient gods. Brahama is the closest Hindu analog to the Buddhist notion of Ultimate Reality underlying an illusory perceptual world. Hinduism, the root religion from which Buddhism and Jainism sprang, holds that individuals have a soul. Buddhism and Jainism flatly deny the existence of souls.

2. Siddhartha was a historical figure, and we actually do have pretty good records of his teaching in the pali Canon of the Theravada School of Buddhism. The Deer Park Sermon was written during the historical Buddha's lifetime and is almost certainly an accurate depiction of his teachings. The later Sanscrit texts, though composed using the traditional format of having the Buddha preach and answer questions from his followers, are based more upon the philosophical/religous investigations into the implications of the Buddha's message. Even so, there is little contradiction in the fundamentals between the Pali and Sanscrit texts. The importance of the Sanscrit texts and the Mahayana School that developed from them is that Buddhism became much more accessible to ordinary people who did not abandon mundane life for the discipline of the monastery. That made the spread of Buddhism much easier, and was largely responsible for Buddhism becoming a "world class" religion.

3. Jesus was also a historical personage, whose teachings sprang from the Abrahamic traditions. The Abrahamic god is a distinct personality that lords it over finite time and space. Individuals have souls that are eternal dwelling within mortal bodies. Good and evil are defined by how well one fits themselves to the Will of god, and god's Will is written into holy scripture. Jesus lived during a time of great political turmoil, and his charismatic teaching may have been greatly influenced by the political climate of the time. In the case of Jesus we have very little contemporaneous material. We have nothing written during the lifetime of the historical Jesus about his teachings, nor is there any reference to him in the Roman record (the short passage in Josephus, excepted). The Gospels were written long after the events portrayed, though they almost certainly drew upon oral recollections and writings that no longer exist. There were many versions of the Jesus story/teachings in circulation until the Council of Nicea, when Constantine and the Church Fathers bowlderized the Canon to fit their own needs. Some of those writings survived the fire and were rediscovered some years ago, others are said to exist within the Papal Library.

Now directly to your question. Perhaps.

The Awakening experience that lies at the heart of Buddhism has been widely reported in other times and cultural settings. It is possible that Jesus had that same experience and was transformed by it. The problem was that Jesus could only communicate his experience using the cultural/religious context of his audience, and so the message was terribly polluted from the beginning. If one searches the bibical accounts of what Jesus is supposed to have taught, there are some clues that he was indeed talking about something similar to that which found a more fertile field in the Indian cultural set.

Ahserman, very impressed by yr knowledge of Hinduism !! One of th ebest translations of Mahabharata which I have read is by William Buck - you might to check it out,

It is often claimed that mythological persons and events did not exist, until evidence is found that they did.
Troy is the best known example.
There is no reason that Krishna should not have actually existed. Even in the manner described in the Mahabarata.
There is a tradition that says that all Holy Scriptures and all Holy Messengers come from the same source.
This tradition says that G-d gives His messages to a particular people at a particular time in a particular language. And that the "message" therefore loses a lot in translation.
Which is why G-d keeps on sending "messengers" to different peoples in different times in different places in different languages.