The Middle Way

From the beginning Buddha's new religion was called "the Middle Way" because it avoided two extremes:

A Hinduism that enabled those with means to obtain whatever they wanted by offering sacrifices to whichever god would condone or encourage it.
A Jainism that required its ascetic practitioners to live in abject poverty, begging for every meal, owning nothing but a robe and sandals, and facing starvation and overexposure to the elements while they meditated continually in a search for inner truth.

Buddha was repelled by Hinduism's galaxy of deities, and he became disillusioned with extreme self-denial after practicing Jainism for six years. His new path would be secular. It must be reasonable, not fanatical, in taming the self. Given this frame of mind, the thorough system of secular ethics Solomon laid out in his proverbs would have been a solid foundation upon which Buddha could construct key facets of his new religion.

There is much evidence of considerable traffic, not just of trade but also of travel and migration, between the Middle East and India during the centuries surrounding the lives of Solomon (950 B.C.), Buddha (525 B.C.), and Christ (A.D. 30).

Various historians have commented on the Middle East-India connection. Historian Will Durant offered this assessment of the antiquity of East-West trade: "The foreign trade of India is as old as her history; objects found in Sumeria and Egypt indicate a traffic between these countries and India as far back as 3000 B.C. Commerce between India and Babylon by the Persian Gulf flourished from 700 to 480 B.C.; and perhaps the 'ivory, apes and peacocks' of Solomon came by the same route from the same source."¹ And according to English archaeologist John A. Thompson, "there are some Hebrew legends and traditions that there were Jews in India in the days of King Solomon."² The Legends of the Jews, a collection of tales from rabbinic writings compiled by Jewish scholar Louis Ginzberg, contains an intriguing occult reference saying that Solomon "could grow tropical plants in Palestine, because his ministering spirits secured water for him from India."³

Evidence of travel and trade to and from India and the Middle East in the centuries between Solomon's death (930 B.C.)⁴ and Buddha's birth is plentiful. Rawlinson observed that, "on the obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 860 B.C., are apes, [and] Indian elephants."⁵ Shalmaneser III⁶ was the King of Assyria to whom Jehu⁷ of Israel sent tribute in 841 B.C., soon after Assyria had devastated the territories around Damascus.

Rawlinson also noted that Babylon overthrew the Assyrian empire in 606 B.C. and, "in the crowded marketplaces of that great city met the races of the world-Ionian traders, Jewish captives, Phoenician merchants from distant Tarshish, and Indians from the Panjab, who came to sell their wares."⁸ Around 550 B.C., there were "Chinese silks known in Athens."⁹ In addition: "The carrying of goods along the Silk Road [from China] to the Mediterranean began in the 6th century B.C. . . . At the same time traders began to take advantage of the monsoons for sea-borne trade with India and beyond."¹⁰

Trade clearly involves an exchange of goods, yet it inevitably creates opportunities for the exchange of ideas and culture. Regarding the extent of contact between the cultures of the world around the time of Buddha, Durant offered these comments: "It has often been remarked that this period was distinguished by a shower of stars in the history of genius: Mahavira and Buddha in India, Lao-tzu and Confucius in China, Jeremiah and the Second Isaiah in Judea, the pre-Socratic philosophers in Greece, and perhaps Zarathustra in Persia. Such a simultaneity of genius suggests more intercommunication and mutual influence among these ancient cultures than it is possible to trace definitely today."¹¹

The first settlement of Jews in India was established in Cochin in 562 B.C.,¹² a year after the birth of Buddha. This colony would have been at least thirty-four years old at the time that Buddha became enlightened.

The precepts of Jainism,¹³ which can be traced to Parshvanath¹⁴ (877-777 B.C.) or earlier, parallel those of Buddha in most respects. For the same reasons noted earlier in this chapter, it is quite possible that the Jains were influenced in their tenets by the wisdom of Solomon, who died in 938 B.C., sixty-one years before Parshvanath was born.

The fundamentals of Buddha's philosophy were clearly evident at the start of his forty-five years of teaching and changed little during his lifetime. "Unlike Hinduism," wrote Huston Smith, "which emerged by slow, largely imperceptible spiritual accretion out of an invisible past, the religion of the Buddha appeared overnight, full formed."¹⁵

Two dozen events of historical significance are highlighted in the following chronology.



Date(s)	Events

3000 B.C.	"Objects found in Sumeria and Egypt indicate a traffic between these countries and India."
2600-2250 B.C.	"An axe head of white jade, which could only have come from China, has been found in the second city of Troy."
1700-1100 B.C.	Rig Veda text refers to trade from the Persian Gulf to India in large ships.
1500-1300 B.C.	"Trade between the Indus valley and the Euphrates is . . . very ancient. The earliest trace of this is . . . to be found in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Hittite kings."
1271 B.C.	Death of Moses, author of the Torah (first five books of the Bible).
930 B.C.	Death of King Solomon (author of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes).

Events Between the Death of Solomon and Buddha's Enlightenment

860 B.C.	Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, King of Assyria, shows Indian elephants.
841 B.C.	Jehu of Israel sends tribute to Shalmaneser III, king of Assyria.
877-777 B.C.	Life of Tirthankar Parshvanath, founder of Jainism.
722 B.C.	Jews are expelled from northern Israel by the Assyrians and migrate to many foreign lands.
686 B.C.	Death of Hezekiah, king of Israel. Proverbs 25:1 states that Chapters 25-29 of Proverbs were copied by the men of Hezekiah.
700-480 B.C.	"Commerce between India and Babylon by the Persian Gulf flourished."
606 B.C.	Crowded marketplaces of Babylon sell the wares of Indians from the Panjab.
588 B.C.	Jews are expelled from Judea by the Babylonians and migrate to many countries.
563 B.C.	Birth of Buddha.
562 B.C.	First colony of Jews settles in India.
550 B.C.	Chinese silks are known in Athens.
599-527 B.C.	Life of Mahavira, an Indian sage who established the central tenets of Jainism.
528 B.C.	Buddha attains enlightenment, begins public teaching ministry.

Events After Buddha's Enlightenment

528-483 B.C.	Public ministry of Buddha.
484-425 B.C.	Life of Herodotus, who described a sect in India like the Buddhists.
252 B.C.	Dhammapada (Buddha's proverbs) published.
4 B.C.	Birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
A.D. 27-30	Public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

Return to Interrelationships.

Continue to Precursors to Buddha's Four Noble Truths.

Footnotes

¹Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Part I: Our Oriental Heritage (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), 479.
²John A. Thompson, "India," Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, edited by Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1988), 1:1,030.
³Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 4, Bible Times and Characters from Joshua to Esther, translated by Henrietta Szold, Philologos Religious Online Books, retrieved April 12, 2010. The Legends of the Jews was originally published in 1909-1938. On Solomon, Ginzberg wrote: Never has there lived a man privileged, like Solomon, to make the demons amenable to his will. God endowed him with the ability to turn the vicious power of demons into a power working to the advantage of men. He invented formulas of incantation by which diseases were alleviated, and others by which demons were exorcised so that they were banished forever. As his personal attendants he had spirits and demons whom he could send hither and thither on the instant. He could grow tropical plants in Palestine, because his ministering spirits secured water for him from India.
⁴Elwell, Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, 1:975.
⁵Rawlinson, Intercourse Between India and the Western World, 3 (emphasis added). Rawlinson commented, "Evidently from early days the Indian seamen built ships larger than those usually employed even at a much later date in the Mediterranean. . . . In the story of the invasion of Ceylon, probably in the sixth century bc . . . we hear of a ship large enough to hold over 700 people."
⁶"Shalmaneser III, King of Assyria (858-824 bc), British Museum, retrieved April 12, 2010.
⁷Ibid.
⁸Rawlinson, Intercourse Between India and the Western World, 7 (emphasis added).
⁹Richard Overy and Geoffrey Barraclough, eds., The Times Complete History of the World, 7th ed. (New York: Metro Books, 2008), 78.
¹⁰Ibid.
¹¹Durant, The Story of Civilization, 422.
¹²"History of the Jews in India," Wikipedia, retrieved April 12, 2010.
¹³"Jainism," New World Encyclopedia, retrieved February 22, 2011.
¹⁴John Bowker, ed., "Parsva," in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (Oxford: University Press, 2000), OxfordReference.com, retrieved October 22, 2009.
¹⁵Richard Salva, "The Gurus of Sergeant Pepper," Hinduism.About.com, retrieved April 12, 2010.
¹⁶Subhamoy Das, "Harrison and Hinduism: The Spiritual Quest of George Harrison," Hinduism.About.com, retrieved April 12, 2010.