Was Jesus a Buddhist?
- olivierbranford
- Jan 15
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 24
Jesus and Buddha were both human beings, historical figures, who were Enlightened. Did Jesus have knowledge of Buddhism and other eastern religions? Was Jesus a Buddhist monk?
Historical evidence would seem to indicate that Jesus could have known about Buddhism, because it was present in Judea at the time he lived. There are similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. There are 18 years missing from Jesus' life in the Bible from age 12 to 30. When he returned he was a fully awakened man.
All the things that Jesus taught were already taught by Buddha. Buddha taught to lose the self and attain Nirvana. Jesus taught to lose the self and gain eternal light. Buddha taught the path to Enlightenment, which would end suffering. Jesus taught the path to Heaven, which would end all suffering. Both Buddha and Jesus taught meditation.
To be sure, there is no credible evidence that Jesus ever traveled to India. There are, however, many circumstantial reasons to suggest he might have been influenced by Buddhist missionaries and traders traveling through Palestine during his formative years.
Was Jesus a Buddhist?
It is known that prominent early Christians were aware of Buddha and some Buddhist stories. Saint Jerome (4th century AD) mentions the birth of the Buddha. The early church father Clement of Alexandria (died 215 AD) was also aware of Buddha.
In the 19th century, some scholars began to perceive similarities between Buddhist and Christian practices. In 1878, T.W. Rhys Davids wrote that the earliest missionaries to Tibet observed that similarities have been seen since the first known contact. In 1880, Ernest De Bunsen made similar observations in that with the exception of the death of Jesus on the cross, and of the Christian doctrine of atonement, the most ancient Buddhist records had similarities with the Christian traditions.
Late in the 20th century, historian Jerry H. Bentley also wrote of similarities and stated that it is possible "That Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity" and suggested "Attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus". Some high level Buddhists have drawn analogies between Jesus and Buddhism, e.g. in 2001 the Dalai Lama stated that "Jesus Christ also lived previous lives", and added that "So, you see, he reached a high state, either as a Bodhisattva, or an Enlightened person, through Buddhist practice or something like that." Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh affirmed core Christian beliefs such as the trinity, and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in his book 'Living Buddha, Living Christ'. Bokin Kim, similarly, sees Christ as the Buddha Dharmakaya, and Jesus as similar to Gautama who was just a historical manifestation of the transhistorical Buddha.
The timeline of history supports this possibility: There is sound evidence that Buddhism pre-dates the gospels. Wikipedia tells us that, “The history of Buddhism goes back to what is now Bodh Gaya, India, almost six centuries before Christianity, making it one of the oldest religions still being practiced.” We are also told that, “The origins of Christianity go back to Roman Judea in the early first century. The four canonical gospels date from around 70–90 AD, the Pauline epistles having been written before them around 50–60 AD.”
What’s more, turning once again to Wikipedia, we find that Diogenes Laërtius’s biography of Pyrrho reports that the Greek philosopher traveled with Alexander the Great’s army on its conquest of India (327 to 325 BCE) and based his philosophy on what he learned there. Diogenes, said Pyrrho, “Even went as far as the Gymnosophists, in India, and the Magi.”
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy also tells us that there are reports of other meetings between Indian and Greek thinkers during Alexander’s expedition.
Thus it seems very highly likely that knowledge of India and its religions was known in ancient Greece some three centuries before the birth of Christ. And if this knowledge was known in Greece, it was almost certainly known in Judea and Palestine as well.
It is a well known fact that Judea was not a pastoral, ethnically isolated place at the time Jesus was alive. Non-Jewish political and cultural influences permeated Judea, and the area was an important shipping center for trade between India and the West and the military gateway to invade Egypt via land. Land and sea trade routes had run through Jerusalem for centuries. Overland routes extending to Persia and western India were especially active after Alexander’s invasion of western India 360 years earlier. Most of the routes, whether connecting to wealthy cities in Egypt or in Greece and Rome, came through Jerusalem, where goods for Greece and Rome were shipped via the Mediterranean.
So the historical evidence seems to allow for the possibility that Jesus certainly could have been aware of the tenets of Buddhism. There is a period of Jesus' life that is not accounted for. When he returned he was a fully Enlightrened BEing.
Was Jesus Christ a Buddhist?
Though they do seem to share some characteristics, there are deep and fundamental disparities between Buddhism and Christianity. One of the most significant differences lies in the fact that Christianity is monotheistic, while Buddhism is non-theistic, rejecting the necessity of a God-created world. Buddhist scholars also point to the centrality of the crucifixion in Christianity as an irreconcilable gap between the two belief systems.
But if we turn to textual evidence, we find that many stories and ideas in the gospels are quite similar to stories and ideas attributed to Buddha. Some commonalities between the two philosophies include:
Both were founded by spiritual Masters who accepted disciples
Both believed in the Golden rule. Jesus preached: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). Similarly, Buddha stated: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful” (Udana-Varga 5:18)
Both offer their followers a concise list of moral directives — the Ten Commandments for Christianity and the Five Precepts for Buddhism
Both preach peace and humanity
Both held that spiritual values are more important than worldly success
Both eschewed the ownership of material things
Both Jesus and the Buddha taught through parables
Both practiced compassion
Both preached pacifism and nonviolence
What then, if anything, should we conclude? Certainly, the possibility exists that Jesus may have known about Buddhism and eastern religions. And there do appear to be some similarities between the teachings of both great spiritual thinkers.
Namaste.
Olly
Dr Olly Alexander Branford MBBS, MA(Cantab), PhD.
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