Talk:Buddha

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i have nothing to add.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Naren pedia (talk • contribs) 17:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

i have been trying to find information on the fat buddha statue that i commonly see in cultural shops. i've heard it refered to as buddha, but does not at all resemble siddhartha so i assume it is a different person. i hope im not being too vague in my description, and what i have in mind is recognised. i advise that this person's article has a link when "buddha" is searched, if it doesnt already; or correct me if im mistaken. considering my ignorance - edit this at will

The 'Fat Buddha' in Chinese tradition is called 'Bu Dai Hu Shan', it's either of a certain monk in ancient China or of Maitreya, the Buddha-to-be or the next Buddha. It's not Gotama Buddha (the historical Buddha). The historical Buddha at the time of his awakening would probably have still been extremely emaciated, as according to the scriptures he had only stopped his extreme fasting a week ago.

Also, I just changed "Nikaya" Buddhism to "Sravakayana" which is the polite name for Hinayana, of which Theravada is the most well known school. "Nikaya" means either a 'division' of the scriptures or a 'school' amongst the early schools. So "Nikaya" Buddhism could mean either: the Buddhism which relies on the Nikayas/ Agamas or 'sectarian' Buddhism, neither of which is probably exactly what whoever wrote it meant. Bhikkhu Santi 09:17, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sravakayana is not a correct term, since the bodhisattva path exists within Theravada.

Can anyone cite an authority for the statement that many Mahayana & Vajrayana Buddhists recognize 3 types of Buddhas? Peter jackson 12:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Requested move 2 "celestial buddha" 3 Budha 4 Notice: Requested renaming of Buddha (general) 5 This is a dab page 5.1 Article? 6 Current Prose 7 External links 8 Siddharta ? 9 Disambiguation 10 Snapshots of former "Buddha" page 10.1 Inception of Buddha (disambiguation) (Nov. 8, 2004) 10.2 Instantiation upon move from Buddha (disambiguation) to Buddha (Nov. 11, 2007) 10.3 Prior to merging of Buddhism-related bullets into prose paragraphs (Jan. 25, 2008) 11 ??????? 12 About fixing links to this page 13 Religion 13.1 Bath, Batha, Tabaath 13.2 Buddha (Arabic)

[edit] Requested move

[edit] "celestial buddha"

In the line regarding Amitabha, it references a "celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism." Does "celestial buddha" here refer to those Buddhas described in the Five Dhyani Buddhas article? If so, can we wikipipe "celestial buddha" to that article (and perhaps a redirect page would be of benefit)? Thanks for any edification! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 13:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think "celestial Buddha" is a more generic term than that, and probably a somewhat vague, modern English term, with no direct equivalent in Sanskrit or Pāli. The contents of Jan Nattier's recent book on the Ugraparipṛcchā mentions both "celestial buddhas" and "celestial bodhisattvas". After I read it, I'll let you know if those chapters have something specifically to do with the five dhyani buddhas, but I suspect it normally just refers to the (typically Mahāyānic) concept of the buddhas as supramundane entities.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 00:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks so much Nat! & Happy New Year :-) Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 02:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This Sucks

(............)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.57.71.246 (talk) 03:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC) 

[edit] Budha

I have removed the option

* Budha, in Hindu mythology, is the name for the planet Mercury

from the text, as this has nothing to do with Buddha. NikNovi (talk) 15:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm restoring such an entry, since it is a mistake that will occasionally be made: If you see "Budha" and intend to look it up later, there's an excellent chance you'll misspell it. And that's what "See also" sections on Dab pages are for.
--Jerzy•t 06:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notice: Requested renaming of Buddha (general)

This is just FYI; we would like that renaming be the last one, so we decided to ask more people. — Sebastian 07:38, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This is a dab page

Starting back in October 2007, there was extended discussion and a series of inter-dependent votes that resulted in making this a disambiguation (dab) page. See, for instance, Talk:Gautama_Buddha#Proposed_Buddha_dab_page for a snippet of the lengthy discussions.

Back on 2008 Jan. 25[1], someone bundled together this dab page's introductory material that was Buddhism-specific into prose form. Perhaps unfortunately this bundling gave this page the appearance of a hybrid prose-dab page.

Consistent with the prior discussions and votes, I can live with this hybrid prose-dab page or with reverting the 2008 Jan. 25 bundling so that it is a "pure" dab page. However, if someone intends to convert this to a pure prose article (as has been tried twice recently), then please first review all the archived material (e.g., Talk:Gautama_Buddha#Name and at Talk:Buddhahood/renaming) and then post to the pertinent WP Buddhism pages to indicate that you want to overturn the existing consensus and start a new discussion and yet another vote. Otherwise, based on the prior lengthy discussions and consensus, any edits that attempt to replace this dab page with a prose article will be reverted.

I hope the desirability and benefits of maintaining group consensus and wisdom are apparent. - Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 18:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

• I suggest that editors interested in this page look at WIKI:MOSDAB to discover what a dab page should look like ... and then, if you want this page to be a dab page, look at this version of Buddha (disambiguation) to see what it should look like. I don't mind which is the dab page but, as it stands, this page is one of the worst examples I have seen. Abtract (talk) 23:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

User:Abtract is the second editor in the last two weeks who has confused this current page for an article-wannabe (not to mention the recent addition of a cleanup tag). Perhaps we should return to the pure dab-page style of prior to 2008 Jan 25 at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddha&oldid=186939976. Would anyone mind if I revert the prose paragraphs to this bulleted style? I'd like to let this query sit here for a week or two before actually implementing such (assuming no one objects to such a change). Thanks for any feedback, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Even that version confuses dabbing with imparting information and the latter has no place in a dab page which is purely for navigation purposes. Look at the two links I suggested above to see what I mean. Abtract (talk) 01:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Wow! I see we're comparatively a wordy group! (Or perhaps it's mostly me.) I guess we have some time to digest it but I think you points are good ones.

FWIW, I think the main thing that we stumbled on is that "Buddha" actually means different things to different schools of Buddhism. Thus, perhaps for all Theravada Buddhists and some others (e.g., Indologists?), "Buddha" means Gautama Buddha (or Gotama Buddha). For many (but not all) Mahayana Buddhists, it refers to many different Buddhas and even potentially you and me. (Then, based on a review of various other encyclopedias, we found that "Buddha" has the tertiery meaning of a "Buddha statue.") So I think it was deemed confusing to simply have something like:

Buddha was Gautama Buddha or other Buddhas or a Buddha statue.

We saw a benefit in educating people immediately about the Gotama/other Buddha references. Perhaps too much of our own baggage?

Thanks again for the additional feedback,

Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

While we're on this topic, I thought I'd add that I left a talk page post for the editor (here) who added the cleanup-tag to this page, asking that they add some words on this talk to explain why they did so. (Otherwise we might never appropriately address their concerns and waste a lot of time and effort.) Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 02:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It's true that this page—paragraphs or bullets—is not the average disambiguation page. However, I don't really see what is problematic about it. It's necessary to impart some information in this case in order to properly disambiguate the term.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 03:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Intuitively, I agree with you Nat and, as always, am grateful for your guidance.

I think I'm beginning to see better where User:Abtract is coming from though. FWIW, for me, the link WIKI:MOSDAB suggested by User:Abtract lead to a blank page, so I went to WP:DAB which did not seem to provide explicit material pertinent to our concerns here; but I just came upon WP:MOSDAB and I think this is what is driving User:Abtract. Check out WP:MOSDAB#Introductory_line and WP:MOSDAB#Individual_entries. An example they use is:

Interval may refer to: Interval (mathematics), a certain subset of an ordered set Interval (music), the relationship between two notes

For us to do something like this it might look like:

Buddha may refer to: Gautama Buddha, historical founder of Buddhism Anyone who has attained Buddhahood Buddha statue

If we want to keep the current (or even the 01/25/08 version) structure and prose of this page, I can understand why WP dab page afficionados would have a problem with this. In my mind, this page is currently a hybrid: too much exposition for a dab page, and too few paragraphs for a Summary or multi-stub page. I support Nat's assessment that this page as it currently is structured likely best meets the needs of WP readers looking up "Buddha" (e.g., someone wanting to know what it means when they read "the Buddha said this" or "we are striving to be buddha" or "it resembles the Gandhara Buddha"). But I'm not sure this page structure and prose meets any WP guidelines for a page. So, for instance, if it is assessed that this is not a true WP dab page and the dab-tag is removed, how do we prevent it from morphing into a full-blown replica of Gautama Buddha, etc.? I'd be happy to turn it into a multi-stub page but I didn't think there was communal will for such an effort the last time we broache this matter.

Can dab page specialist confirm or disconfirm this? Can this page's current format be maintained in a manner that is consistent with WP categories for pages? If not, what's the best move forward?

Way past my bed time. Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 05:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this page needs to stay as a dab page (the term "Buddha" is much too vague), but we need to cut down on the prose and the links (Sanskrit, Pali, nirvana, etc. all linked unnecessarily), and add more relevant links (you keep mentioning Buddha statue, but it's not even there right now!). I usually tag these things when there's too much for me to wrap my head around to clean it up myself. I wouldn't know where to start here, apart from some delinking.
--Closedmouth (talk) 07:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Closedmouth - Thanks for the follow-up. FWIW, I can understand and even agree with your desire to thin out the dab page previously agreed upon. (As for the omission of Buddha statue, I think that was primarily due to the appropriate text not being split off of Buddhahood yet. We tend to be slow moving on WP Buddhism :-) ) Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 15:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm a dab page specialist. Initial note: Gautama Buddha has a hatnote that says that Buddha redirects there, which I assume was true in the past. Depending on how things are resolved here, we'll want that hatnote (by its presence or absence) to reflect the consensus. If this is to be a base-name dab page (Buddha does not redirect to Gautama Buddha), then the prose needs to be eliminated or reduced to a single simple line. If more prose is needed, then this needs to be an article, and Buddha (disambiguation) can disambiguate other meanings from the topic of this article. I'm not sure about the hypothetical WP readers looking for the prose here who aren't really looking for Gautama Buddha or one of the other articles. My recommendation would be to make this a redirect to Gautama Buddha again and leave the WP:MOSDAB-formatted dab page at Buddha (disambiguation). -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Howdy JHunter! Thanks for your expert feedback. I do think a slow-moving consensus-building discussion regarding whether this should be a dab or multi-stub or redirect or article page is worth pursuing for this page's stability. FWIW, if this were to redirect to Gautama Buddha it would be considered POV by many. This was already discussed and voted upon and rejected in the previously referenced talk pages. In particular, it would most likely reflect the view of Theravada Buddhists and perhaps Indologists but would be confusing, misinformative and perhaps insulting to many perhaps most Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhists (that is, the majority of Buddhists). For this same reason, the current words at Buddha (disambiguation) (which I guess is now User:Abtract's offical sandbox?) is also POV and problemmatic. I still recommend that, per WP:CONSENSUS, these pages (Buddha and Buddha (disambiguation)) should be reverted to the last consensually agreed upon versions. And while I want to be helpful, I am honestly concerned that I'm abetting an effort that has disregarded the WP Buddhist community's views and wisdom, beyond reservations about participating in an effort that for various reasons are unstable given their POV and confusing status. I am grateful for your good will and efforts. All the best, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 15:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I glossed over a potential conflict of the Buddhist redirect target possibilities. So I'd stick with the current set-up (a short article at the base name, a dab page at Buddha (disambiguation). Although {{otheruses}} should be hatnoted here, rather than the See also at the bottom. (And call me Hunter for short, if you like; JHunter just looks weird -- an idiosyncrasy on my part, no doubt.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

• I think two things are important to say re the PoV issue:

1. Our job is not to satisfy the majority PoV, nor any particular one, but to be even-handed, and to take care of the needs of readers (most of whom, by the way, will not be typical of the world's Buddhists, but of Web users, and are probably seeking either introductory information, or clarification of fairly basic concepts). This is not a matter of matching those users' PoV(s), but of accommodating, briefly, their offhand, innocent of subtlety, use of the word they are at the moment using with one vague or specific meaning in mind. When the characters they typed are "Buddha" or "buddha", they probably want our Gotama article. Too bad they're so ignorant, but that problem is secondary to getting them where they intended, which is the job of a Dab.
2. It's a mistake to fixate on a question like "what is the primary use of 'Buddha'?", bcz every answer to that is going to reflect a PoV. Every article needs a name, but not every name needs an article. My stab at Buddha (disambiguation) (still available in that page's history) put first (since something has to be first) the sense that is probably in the mind of most English-as-first-language speakers, "the guy himself", the "Bob" (see below) of Buddhism, since they are likely to think of him as the fundamental meaning of the word. (I know they're wrong -- and i still favor that sense first, believing that trying to correct their understanding while they are trying to get to the bio of Gotama is distracting and annoying, both of which make it counterproductive.) IMO the correct view is that Gotama and/or his first-hand disciples knew the word ("buddha"? "bodhi"?) or coined it from a common root, and that the sense of buddha or Buddha that describes the state of one or more individuals, rather than primarily specifying one individual, is the meaning from which all the other senses flow. And tho i don't think making it the first sense on the Dab is expeditious, that IMO is a close second or third to making Gotama the first sense. Keeping the hybrid in place until every last participant in a perhaps very narrow consensus of x months ago is willing (if only in light of the "hybrid Dab" blunder) to give it up, would be far, far worse than either of those two approaches. As i say, not every title has to have an article; in this case, i think i've already outlined (lower on the page) a plan where Buddha is a Dab along the general lines of the current Buddha (disambiguation) page. Yes, it could logically be what it is at this moment, an exegesis of one word and the concepts associated with it by the various schools. My own opinion is that discussions of a word in isolation are seldom necessary, and except where necessary, it is more encyclopedic to fold them into discussion of, in this case, the similarities and differences of the various Buddhist schools, which puts those characteristics into a richer context(s) than an article on a word (not even a person, not even a concept) and makes the richness of Buddhism sound like a millenia-old intellectual property dispute: who owns the service mark "Buddha^(SM)"?
   --Jerzy•t 08:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
   

• LR may be asking me to comment in saying "Can dab page specialist confirm or disconfirm this?" Even tho i just this week noticed the Cat that is populated by the {{disambig-cleanup}} tag, i've been working on Dab pages long enuf to have initially misunderstood the implications of MOSDAB when it was put up for consensus.

I think that MoS pg is clear about the hybrid not being a suitable Dab pg, and my experience supports conversion of such content into (at least one) article and (almost always at most one) Dab. (One of WP's strengths is making the editing learning curve less steep, by the clarity of the distinction among (prose) articles and navigation pages (including Dabs, Rdrs, and IMO lists), and every page that tries to stand between or on two stools invites disorder that has to be cleaned up. The avoidance of multiple lks on dab entries, and of more information than is needed to distinguish senses of the title (or its unparenthesized portion), is in service of the single purpose for the existence of Dabs, which is also nearly the only function they can serve well: namely, getting a user who has a word in mind for what they want to read about to the article that covers that topic; keeping prose out of Dabs serves the same purpose.

In fact, this also comes down to a matter of injecting PoV. Jack Spratt for one reason or another types in "Buddha", not into a dictionary, but into an encyclopedia. He wants information on something he has in mind, and odds are it's "the guy that Buddhism is named after". (Do you remember Bob, who named "Bobism" after himself instead of his wife Judy as he initially intended, when he realized that "Judyism" was already taken?) In rarer cases, he may have heard a term like "buddhahood" or "buddha nature", and the buddhahood article or enlightenment (Buddhism) (ah, a Rdr to bodhi) may be ideal. I'm not concerned about which is most frequent, bcz my point is that a hybrid Dab beginning with a prose 'graph (let alone two) is implicitly preceded by

(Never mind right now what you had in mind, you probably don't know what it means, and the most important thing now is for you to get a moderately nuanced grasp of the buddha concept, viz.:)

I know it's well intentioned, but frankly, in that user's situation, it's insulting. And more important, IMO, it's PoV. Situated elsewhere, it may be part of a good WP article (perhaps titled Buddha as a buddha) whose lk belongs on the Dab page (and not necessarily exiled to the Dab's "See also").
--Jerzy•t 23:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Reading most of the comments above, it seems to me that you are (as one said) bringing too much "baggage" to this page and are not standing back and acting in accordance with wp guidelines. the simple fact is that dab pages are for one thing only and that is to help readers navigate to the article they want when they think it may be called (in this case) "Buddha" or something like that. Dab pages are not for imparting any information at all ... none! Once you realise that, it becomes obvious what the solution is ... two pages. One as a dab and one to offer the information that you guys think would make in interesting and useful article. IMHO Buddha should be the article and Buddha (disambiguation) should be the dab page, this is common practice throughout wp. By following this route nothing is lost, all the info you want can be put in the article and disambiguation is made easy by not cluttering the dab page with all the surplus verbage. If you persist with things as they are, you are going to attract many editors who specialise in dab cleanups and this will take your energies away from where you should be concentrating, which is on improving the content of wp. I will make my edits again so that you can see what I mean ... and this time I suggest you leave it for 24 hours so that everyone has a chance to view it. Stand back and look at it dispassionately and as wikipedians not as Buddhists. Don't forget to look at both pages :) Abtract (talk) 10:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

WP actually has some profound policies. I just found WP:CONSENSUS which I think is a fine example of such far-reaching thoughtfulness, caring and civility. To the right is a flowchart from that article. It seems to me that, if we were to be abiding by this WP policy and flowchart, then (given that we've taken this to the talk page) we'd return to my first reversion of the User:Abtract's first edit and then hold off on future edits concerning this issue until a "reasonable (if temporary) compromise" is made. I wonder if you have the same reading of this flowchart and the accompanying WP policy article? Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 16:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that the most important factor is that the dialogue has improved. Consequently, i prefer not devoting energy to remedying any impatience on Abtract's part, but focusing on the longer-term choice between a hybrid page on one hand, and separate pages comprising a conventional Dab and a (fairly) conventional prose article on the other, and details of those alternatives.

BTW, LR in starting this section referred to 3 months' previous discussion. I hate to ignore that, but length of time and text are both daunting. No one is obliged to refactor such discussions, but in this case there is so much that seems clearly to call for change that i for one am unwilling, in the absence of a refactored version, to ignore the problems until i can make time for a long and potentially repetitive read .
--Jerzy•t 23:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Abtr's desire to separate the prose onto a separate pg from the Dab structure, and find their version an acceptable stage along the way to doing it right. I think the current prose on Buddha is not well described by that title, and that either of two schemes would be better:

1. Buddha as a Dab with the content presently at Buddha (disambiguation) (first renaming "Buddha" to some other title, then renaming "Buddha (disambiguation)" to "Buddha"), or
2. Buddha as a Rdr to Gautama Buddha (first renaming "Buddha" to some other title, then overwriting the lk in the Rdr created by the move tool, and adding a "Rdrs here"-style ToP dab lk'g to Buddha (disambiguation) ).

("See also" sections in articles (as opposed to Dabs) are always suspect (their lks normally should be in-line within the prose), and if there is ever a place for a Dab in "See also" section, this one is not it. Leave it only until we have a good idea where we are going with this.)
--Jerzy•t 23:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article?

I'm afraid I don't really understand the logic of setting this version of Buddha up as a separate article as opposed to a dab page. There already is an article on this topic; it was moved to Buddhahood explicitly so this current page could become a disambiguation.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 20:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nat -

You know I'm a hundred per cent behind you.

Just to recap, in violation of WP:CONSENSUS and despite two reverts on my part, as identified above, the consensus-created dab page here has been overwritten. Personally, here are some options I see:

1. a continued revert war (perhaps encouraging other WP Buddhism community members to participate, presumably creating a good amount of ill-will antithetical to our path)
2. an escalation to higher WP powers (which personally I assess to likely entail time and energy to produce a dubious outcome)
3. try to persuade the WP dab community of the benefit of our former "hybrid" prose-dab page (which I attempted to do in fits and spurts above and on talk pages but soon became impressed with their sophisticated worldview justifiably necessitating the rectification of self-proclaimed non-standard WP dab pages)
4. call upon the WP Buddhism community for discussion about solutions
5. create a more detailed rationale for whatever option we decide is best for this page (and perhaps Buddha (disambiguation)).

At this point, I'm inclined to pursue the latter two. In the next two days I'd like to create a table of options, perhaps similar to what the admirable User:SebastianHelm did at Talk:Buddhahood/renaming#Table_of_options. It might look something like this:

Option	Example	Advantages	Disadvantages
pure dab page	Buddha_%28disambiguation%29&oldid=193053345	prior consensus
hybrid prose-dab page	Buddha&oldid=192494761	evolution of prior consensus	non-standard dab page
multi-stub article	Sila; headers: Gautama Buddha, Buddhahood, etc.	non-dab intro to other pages	too wordy?
traditional article	Gautama Buddha, Buddhahood		conflict with Gautama Buddha and Buddhahood
redirect to Gautama Buddha	#REDIRECT [[Gautama Buddha]]		previously discussed and not agreed upon
redirect to Buddhahood	#REDIRECT [[Buddhahood]]		contrary to prior consensus

And post to the WP Buddhism project page. Your thoughts? GTG now. With metta,

Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 15:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

"Pure dab page":

Let me preface my critical remarks on this by saying that i favor this solution, and my concerns are with the process rather than the suggested result.

(The example text does have several IMO serious faults, but IMO they should be easily correctable, and certainly should not delay solving the basic problem.)

I hope the reason for omitting mention of the first line of the example is bcz it seems obvious. But it is not obvious. The lk in the first line would become a self-lk & must no longer be a lk; that tiny change of markup needs mention bcz it amounts to moving the whole edifice to a new foundation, and no one should pretend that is a tiny change of meaning. (Even tho it's a good change of meaning, and probably a change back closer to the meaning in the previous consensus.)

It is indeed an advantage that this approach complies with the previous consensus. I also am sympathetic with Larry's sense of being bullied, and have rv'd in support of his dissatisfaction with the initial lack of discussion. But citing "prior consensus" when no statement of the rationale for that consensus is referenced, or has even been offered in this discussion, is a practical barrier to extending/preserving consensus by putting the cart before the horse, and an interpersonal one by inviting the interpretation "because i can preserve the version of the prior consensus by passive intransigence".

A disadvantage is omitted, namely that someone found the pure dab page inadequate enuf to create the "hybrid Dab" monstrosity, and no one has made clear in the current discussion what purpose it was supposed to serve and how that purpose is to be met, or (as an alternative to that) why that purpose (as opposed the (unacceptable) proposed means of achieving that purpose) is unworthy of attention.

"A hybrid prose-dab page":

Remove this option. The third point on CONEXCEPT means that any consensus reached here would be just a preliminary to a slow process at MOSDAB of reaching a consensus that the apparently unique problems (Buddha, Śīla, and perhaps others) that Buddhism raises require the creation of another species of page, beyond the article (including lists and multi-stub articles), and the two existing navigational species, clearcut Dab pages and ultra-clearcut Rdr pages. Don't hold your breath.

"Multi-stub article":

Remove this option. To find this term, other than on user pages, talk pages, and an inactive page, see Summary or multi-stub pages. There you will learn that such pages (St. Diomedes is a pretty good example) cover "Several small topics...", which does not describe either Śīla or what is proposed here. Śīla is, and Buddha would be, a hybrid prose-dab page masquerading as a multi-stub page, because the topics are not small topics (treatable in about a paragraph): the only things that small are the prose passages that introduce and summarize the (presumably) full-size articles on the respective overgrown, non-compliant Dab pages. If you have a main-article on the topic to lk to, you're not creating a multi-stub article. (The impulse toward prose on differences, too subtle to capture on a Dab page, in application of the same term to different outgrowths of a original single concept is IMO a good thing for WP, and can be dealt with, without recourse to new structures. My straw-man title Buddha and buddhas is a intentionally naive approach to such a topic; a more scholarly candidate title might be Ramifications of the buddha concept. Either one can appear near the top of a Dab page, in a line like

* Buddha, family of continuing ramifications of the buddha concept from early usage

without deviating from MOSDAB.)

The lousy status quo solution should not be omitted from the list, even if the process of getting it to be status quo is questioned or resented. But i'd rather not be the one to try to give it a name, or try to speak for it.
--Jerzy•t 12:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether to plead guilty to haste, ardor, tunnel vision, or all three, re my assertion that Śīla is a bad Dab. In my ignorance, i've no real reason (my continuing conviction that it's not a multi-stub is no reason) for thinking it's a dab at all. And having said it so confidently, perhaps vehemently, feels and seems pretty dumb (maya-ridden), and i'm glad for the colleague who took my Dab-cu tag off it.
--Jerzy•t 16:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

(After edit conflict) If Buddhahood was meant to hold the brief prose intro, what was the impetus for evolving the pure dab page into the hybrid article/non-article-dab? If the pure dab page is acceptable, it looks like moving that back to the base name would solve the problem. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I was just about to say that myself, after noting that Abtract, who i believe did the breakup, said in the 2nd contrib in #This is a dab page, on 23:06, 19 February 2008,

I don't mind which is the dab page ...

which suggests that they did the split as they did bcz it gave them a place to put the prose, instead of throwing it away. I haven't heard anyone say anything else, except listing alternatives presumably out of an excess of caution, nor criticize my earlier proposal to move the current Buddha text elsewhere. I'm moving it without prejudice (i.e., just tell me where you want it instead, and i'll delete any Rdr standing in the way if you can't by yourself), to Ramifications of the buddha concept, just bcz i've just already worked out the Dab line for it. And that will permit me to move the Dab to the un-sfx'd title, and make the (small but fundamental!) markup change back to treating Buddha as not a target of a Dab.
--Jerzy•t 12:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

In regards to Hunter's question about the past consensus and the resultant hybrid prose-dab page (to summarize some information from Talk:Gautama_Buddha#Proposed_Buddha_dab_page and elsewhere), the original consensus was for a "dab page" (or our generic, non-technical understanding of such). Prior to a firming up of this prior consensus, a prototype for such a dab page was provided; a second iteration of that prototype was:

Buddha usually refers to Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. "Buddha" may also refer to: any person who has achieved buddhahood. a statue of Gautama Buddha or another Buddha.

For the sake of clarity (and perhaps to avoid Theravada POV [which I write as a Theravadin practitioner]), it was proposed and agreed that some important buddhas other than Gautama Buddha be identified, so a third prototype was created:

Buddha usually refers to Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. "Buddha" may also refer to: any person who has achieved buddhahood, such as Amitabha or one of the 28 buddhas of the Pali Canon. a statue of Gautama Buddha or another buddha.

It was only at this point that it was introduced that there was an existing Buddha (disambiguation) page (which now can be found here); so, instead of re-inventing the wheel, it was proposed that we simply move that page to Buddha. No one objected. When all the changes went down related to this multi-page consensus, the move of Buddha (disambiguation) to Buddha was one of the consensually agreed upon changes. (One of the mid-process summaries of the rationale for these changes can be found at Talk:Gautama_Buddha#Proposed_post_to_Talk:Buddha.)

As can be seen (here), the pre-consensus Buddha (disambiguation) page was what we are here calling a hybrid prose-dab page. About a month ago, someone (not a member of WP Buddhism Project) took all the Buddhism-related dab-bullets on this page (Buddha) and combined them into two paragraphs, making this even more prosy (see here). My personal inkling was that this was problemmatic but, given my limited time and knowledge, I decided not to pursue it. In retrospect, I think that aggregation of dab-bullets only added fuel to this fire.

So, in summary:

• the original consensus included the desire for a dab page at Buddha
• being unsavvy about WP:MOSDAB, we perpetuated a hybrid prose-dab from Buddha (disambiguation)
• that hybrid prose-dab evolved to include even more prose
• those familiar with WP:MOSDAB have now, as of this moment, created a more WP-compliant dab page here

Sounds like this shoe fits. I'm fine with it. User:Abtract has written above that he is fine with it. Nat has edited this page in a manner compliant with WP:MOSDAB suggesting implicit support. Hunter has proposed this very solution above. Jerzy has implemented this. I'm inclined to shake hands, slap backs and dance out the door. Sound good? Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 19:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Especially the dancing part will be really welcome.

Do others have a sense that we might have laid some foundations for supplementing some of one another's resource gaps on some of the probably much less complicated details? (I'd mention some of my own gaps, just to suggest how easy i think it'll be to fix the details nagging me. But i'd much rather meet here, for a quick dance and some business, a week and a day from now, having had the breathing space that'll offer.) I'd love to hear others' assessments.
--Jerzy•t 20:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Current Prose

In the current two paragraphs of the accompanying prose article, i bypassed the Rdrs and unlkd the subsequent rdrs to Gautama Buddha, which should always be done in articles. Alert to sensitivities, i neglected two matters:

1. The article bodhi is lk'd twice, once piped as "enlightenment". That is disconcerting at best to the user who follows both of them, but the remedy is not quite a no-brainer, and i wanted to stick to no-brainers. The natural solution is with no lk:

   ... bodhi (meaning "enlightenment"), ...

2. The current piping [[Gautama Buddha in religions other than Buddhism|Buddha (other religions)]] is the result of my converting the name of the Rdr lk to piping that hides the lk to the target of the Rdr, preserving the displayed text. The displayed text is clunky, confusing, and (by using a Dab-sfx'd title) cryptic. The probably remedy is to reverse the order of the two lks in that sentence, and change the piping from "Buddha (other religions)" to "Buddha in other religions" -- even tho what we're doing is presumably to hide either the fact that the target also covers Hindu views, or the fact that the target is mistitled. This is another non-no-brainer.

--Jerzy•t 09:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I hesitate to remove them, but aren't these basically self-promotion? --Michael White^T·C 14:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Siddharta ?

A recent anon edit — which appears to have been more mischievous than well-intentioned — replaced "Gautama" with "Siddharta." Given the overall appearance of mischief (or perhaps nonsense? e.g., replacing "Buddhahood" with "Buddhism") and the anon editor's prior vandalism in another article, I reverted this change. Nonetheless, I think the term "Siddharta" should be represented on this page given its high recognition value (e.g., based on my limited experience, I think that most Theravada/vipassana-oriented readers would likely recognize this name instead of "Buddha Gautama," not to mention the Herman Hesse crowd). As an example of how it might be done, here's how the on-line Encyclopedia Britannica does it:

Buddha

founder of Buddhism

clan name (Sanskrit) Gautama or (Pali) Gotama , personal name (Sanskrit) Siddhartha or (Pali) Siddhatta

(Sanskrit: “awakened one”)[2]

Pertaining to this item, we currently have:

• Gautama Buddha or Buddha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism

How'd y'all feel about something like:

• Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, clan name Gautama (Sanskrit; Pali: Gotama) and personal name Siddhartha (Sanskrit; Pali: Siddhatta)

(I see we have something similar in the prior incarnation of this page here.) I'm concerned that such a line might be considered too verbose for WP:MOSDAB. Thus any other suggestions on how to incorporate "Siddharta"/"Siddhatta"? Any objections from our MOSDAB experts on the suggested change?

Thanks! Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 00:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It's been a week and no objections have been raised, so I'm going to implement the above momentarily. If anyone subsequently has any concerns, please discuss them here. If there is a concern (e.g., due to the modified line's length), please attempt to identify an alternate manner in which the above desire for the inclusion of "Siddhartha" can be accommodated. Thanks so much, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 07:04, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

Now that there appears to be a consensus that Buddha should be a disambiguation page, that implies that most links to Buddha on other pages are ambiguous, and should be corrected. Editors interested in and knowledgeable about this topic are invited to help correct these links to point to the correct substantive article. For more details, see WP:DPL. --Russ (talk) 13:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Snapshots of former "Buddha" page

On Feb. 26, 2008 (per this history page), the prior Buddha page was moved to Ramifications of the Buddha concept. On Mar. 8, 2008, it was suggested that that page be deleted for "insufficient scope." Then, on Mar. 18, 2008, it was suggested that that page be merged with the current Buddhahood article and, presumably, afterwards be deleted.

While I can understand the desire to do away with the current Ramifications of the Buddha concept article, a lot of thought and effort had gone into it since its inception as the Buddha (disambiguation) page on Nov. 8, 2004; and, if Ramifications of the Buddha concept is deleted, my understanding is that that history will be deleted as well. Since I think an article's history can help inform future decisions (e.g., about this current Buddha page), I would like to preserve here three "snapshots" from the history of the prior Buddha/Buddha (disambiguation) and current Ramifications of the Buddha concept page. (To avoid confusion with other threads on this talk page, I've nowiki'd out TOC related information from these copied pages. Also, if others feel it is best to simply archive these snapshots on a separate sub-page to this page, please do so!)

[edit] Inception of Buddha (disambiguation) (Nov. 8, 2004)

Buddha can refer to several things: A Buddha, someone achieving spiritual enlightenment. Gautama Buddha, an Indian Buddha, and a key figure Buddhism. Buddha, a record label. Buddha (album), an album by Blink-182. This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

[edit] Instantiation upon move from Buddha (disambiguation) to Buddha (Nov. 11, 2007)

Buddha usually refers to Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, often referred to simply as "the Buddha." The Buddha is also identified as Tathagata. Within Buddhism, "buddha" may also refer to: any person who has achieved buddhahood, such as Amitabha or one of the 28 buddhas of the Pali Canon. Many Buddhists in the Śrāvakayāna, Mahayana, and Vajrayana traditions consider there to be three types of Buddha: Samyaksambuddha (generally referred to simply as "Buddha"), Śrāvakabuddha, and Pratyekabuddha. a statue of Gautama Buddha or another buddha. Outside of Buddhism, "buddha" may also refer to: In arts: Laughing Buddha, the common English reference to Budai, an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya Buddha (album) by blink-182 Buddha (manga), by Osamu Tezuka Buddah Records, a record label (note spelling, though since 1998 spelled "Buddha") In film: Buddha (1961 film), a Japanese film Buddha (2007 film), an Indian film on the life of the Buddha Buddha (2008 film), a film to be based on the book Old Path White Clouds by Thich Nhat Hanh Other: Buddha, from the Hindu perspective, is an Avatar of Vishnu. Budha, in Hindu mythology, is the name for the planet Mercury, a son of Chandra with either Tara or Rohini. Buddha, Indiana, a U.S. town Buddha Air, a Nepalese airline Buddha, slang for a type of marijuana Buddha Brand Rice, a type of jasmine rice This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. et:Buddha fr:Bouddha (homonymie) ja:ブッダ sv:Buddha (olika betydelser)

[edit] Prior to merging of Buddhism-related bullets into prose paragraphs (Jan. 25, 2008)

{{TOCright}} Usually Buddha (or "the Enlightened One") refers to Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. He is usually referred to simply as "the Buddha", but also known as Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama). ===In Buddhism=== Gautama Buddha (Sanskrit; Pali: Gotama Buddha). a Buddha, anyone who has become fully awakened (enlightened), and has experienced Nirvana, such as: Amitabha, a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism The 28 buddhas of the Pali Canon In a broad sense, it refers to two or three types of Buddha: Samyaksambuddha, "a Buddha" as described above Pratyekabuddha, one who achieved enlightenment on his own, without teachers or guides Śrāvakabuddha (a rare term), an enlightened 'disciple of a Buddha' a statue of Gautama Buddha or of another buddha. ===In Hinduism=== Buddha from the Hindu perspective ===In other religions=== Buddha (other religions) ===In the arts=== Laughing Buddha, the common English reference to Budai, an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya Buddha (album) by blink-182 Buddha (manga), by Osamu Tezuka Buddah Records, a record label (note spelling, though since 1998 spelled "Buddha") ===In films=== Buddha (1961 film), a Japanese film Buddha (2007 film), an Indian film on the life of the Buddha Buddha (2008 film), a film to be based on the book Old Path White Clouds by Thich Nhat Hanh Little Buddha, film ===Other=== Buddha Air, a Nepalese airline Buddha, slang for a type of marijuana Buddah Records, now spelled as Buddha Records for spelling correction on "buddha" ==External links== Buddha's Teaching Access to Insight What the Buddha Taught Insight Inside This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. et:Buddha fr:Bouddha (homonymie) ja:ブッダ (曖昧さ回避) sv:Buddha (olika betydelser)

Given the pending likely deletion of Ramifications of the Buddha concept, I hope no one sees this as an unwarranted usage of this Buddha article's talk page space. Best wishes, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 03:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit]  ???????

this sucks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.140.84 (talk) 09:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About fixing links to this page

Quick question that I think I know the answer to, but just need some clarification on. In a sentence like "blah blah blah statues of Buddha", would that go to Gautama Buddha, or Buddharupa? I'm thinking the former, but I guess it could be either. --Closedmouth (talk) 13:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Quickly: it depends on the context.

Not so quickly: I think it depends what is being emphasized in the article. If it has a picture of a statue, then a link to Buddharupa might be most helpful to readers. In addition, if the article is about a Buddha statue in East Asia or Tibet, then the Buddha being represented might not be Gautama Buddha. (Frankly, the work you're doing now [thanks for doing it, BTW] I've done sporadically in the past and I found that there were times when it was just unclear what "Buddha" actually refers to in some articles.)

Very slowly: One of these days (probably after I merge a designated section of Buddhahood into Buddharupa), I'm gonna likely suggest that the bulk of Buddharupa be moved to Buddha statue (which is currently a redirect to Buddharupa) because my gut feeling is that buddha-rupa (which is Sanskrit/Pali) is a Theravadan term and question its generalization to Mahayana representations of the Buddha. (If anyone has any knowledge about this last item, I'd appreciate your sharing it. Thanks!)

Sorry if this just totally wasted your time. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 06:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

No, that helps. I find it's easier to just make some basic rules, like if it's "the Buddha" then it goes to Gautama, if it's "a Buddha statue", it goes to buddharupa, Buddhahood is a nice each-way bet for the really ambiguous ones, and if I'm wrong, the blame is ultimately on the person who wrote the sentence for not being clear enough in what they were referring to. That's usually how this stuff works. --Closedmouth (talk) 14:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

The following information about Buddha in Islam has nothing to do with Buddhahood. Its content is from the Qu'ran which is about an Text found in the Sura. It belongs in the religion section as seperate from all religons and own creteria view.--Mujahideen54 (talk) 19:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mujahideen54 -

Are you talking about the recently inserted, reverted, inserted, reverted, inserted following text:

In Islam, the Arabic text Bath, Batha and Tabaath is found in the Qu'ran 62:2 Sura Al-Jumua [1] [2] and is believed to be refering to Buddha.[3] The origin of the word Buddha in Arabic is; of descent, or he roused him, and put into action. [4]

First, let me say that, as a Buddhist, I find what you write to be very interesting and I am grateful for your sharing it with us on Wikipedia (WP). Beyond additional knowledge per se, your sharing cross-religious and cross-cultural insights is a thing to be applauded. Thank you so much again.

I was wondering if you would mind if I did explore the issue of where this text might best serve the WP community. I see the highly praiseworthy User:Nat Krause has expressed concern when reverting this text. I'd like to see if we could discuss some of this matter more fully here, with the hope of reaching communal consensus.

1. I think Mujahideen54 that you raise an interesting point about the "Religion" header being perhaps problemmatic. While I think it was initially thought to apply largely to "Buddhism," clearly it should allow for the inclusion of non-Buddhist material. Thus, if one wanted to keep this section of the article simply Buddhist, might it be worthwhile changing the sectional header to "Buddhism"?
2. This article, as indicated by its structure and the above talk page entries, is a WP disambiguation (dab) page. Thus, given it's title, it should only reference major denotations of the word "Buddha." For me, intuitively perhaps, I would think that all secondary, derived or tangential information should be included in the referenced articles, not here. Thus, for instance, does the above text have clear WP significance unto itself or is its significance really related to the notion of "the Buddha" (Gautama Buddha)?
3. The core of this dab page -- referencing Gautama Buddha, Buddhahood and Buddharupa -- is based on a survey of multiple external (external to WP) reliable resources (e.g., Encyclopedia Britannica) to see what they refer to when they define "Buddha." Most (if not all?) of theses sources are identified at Talk:Gautama_Buddha#Other_on-line_encyclopedia.27s_.22Buddha.22_entries. Please review the findings here. If I may ask, can you see that Qu'ran reference cited in the above text does not seem to be identified as significant by these sources when defining the word "Buddha" per se.

For these reasons, I'd like to suggest two things:

1. Consider rewording the aforementioned header from "Religion" to perhaps "Buddhism"?
2. Identify the best WP space in which to insert this valuable reference you have provided from the Qu'ran. Nat has suggested Buddhahood. I'm wondering if the Gautama Buddha article might be a worthwhile alternative.

Any thoughts?

With metta,

Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 17:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

If I may share an additional thought: It might be worthwhile considering the aforementioned inserted/reverted text as two separate statements. For instance, my personal intuition is that the first sentence (re: Qu'ranic references to Bath, Batha and Tabaath) might best serve our WP community in the Gautama Buddha article (unless, like Nat suggests, it refers to the general notion of "a Buddha" in which case it should likely go in Buddhahood). The second sentence (re: the Arabic word "Buddha") might best stay here on this dab page, perhaps under a header "In Islam" (assuming a parallel header of "In Buddhism" is created for the other material to go under); or, for such to be justified here, would a separate WP article (e.g., "Buddha (Arabic)") first need to exist? Just some more thoughts. Best regards, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 17:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

If any changes in my opinion would be to change the (Religion) section into (In Buddhism) and for other views an seperate column could be discoverd. However it leads to the same meaning --PadmaDharma101 (talk) 18:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

On my talk page, PadmaDharma writes: "You perhaps do not understand ? That article Buddha is an Disambiguation and could refer to anything that means Buddha. If you want to change the section by adding (In Buddhism) go for it however if it's under (religon) then the text of Islam goes under Religion its common sense." The point here is that disambiguation pages are supposed to link to other articles. The text in question is not a link to another page. So, if this material were fit for Wikipedia, we would need to figure out which article it belongs in and then link to it from this page. I don't think it's necessary to discuss the layout of this page until we get to that point.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 00:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Padma and Nat!

Padma, I can understand your desire and, frankly, I see that there is precedence for it. At a prior instantiation of this dab page (here), there was in fact a header, "In Buddhism." I also agree with Nat insomuch that I think there is value in only making changes to articles when merited (e.g., to foster long-term stability) and I guess Nat is focusing us again on the merit of the inserted/reverted/inserted/reverted/inserted text. I apologize then for my perhaps putting the cart before the horse.

I think the inserted text contains two significantly different types of information, so I'd like to explore their merits independently. I'm gonna create two subheaders below to facilitate this. Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bath, Batha, Tabaath

The first inserted/reverted sentence reads:

In Islam, the Arabic text Bath, Batha and Tabaath is found in the Qu'ran 62:2 Sura Al-Jumua ^{[1] [2]} and is believed to be refering to Buddha.^[3]

The (hidden) references are:

1. The Qu'ran, Sura 62:2
2. http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/quran/06201.htm
3. Maulana Abdul Haque Vidyarti, Muhammad in World Scriptures Vol 3 pg.1007

So, it appears to me that the reason that this sentence is pertinent to the word "Buddha" is because it identifies a possible referent in the Qu'ran to the Buddha (or a buddha?). Since this article is about definitions of the word "Buddha" per se — and not about the historical/mythic Buddha or other buddhas — it seems to me that this sentence is inappropriate for this article. It should go in the appropriate article (e.g., possibly Gautama Buddha or Buddhahood). Right? Does this make sense? This dab page is about the word "Buddha" and contains pointers to articles that then provide meanings to this word. The above sentence alludes to the meaning of "Buddha" as Gautama Buddha (or, again, perhaps Buddhahood, still not clear to me from the sentence :-) ). Perhaps in terms of semantic cohesion, it would best fit in Gautama Buddha in world religions? What do y'all think? Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Buddha (Arabic)

The second inserted/reverted sentence reads:

The origin of the word Buddha in Arabic is; of descent, or he roused him, and put into action. ^[4]

The (hidden) reference is:

4. Buddha Foretels The Advent of Muhammad

Here this sentence does in fact provide a new instance of the word "Buddha," separate from the existing denotations (of Gautama Buddha, Buddhahood, Buddharupa, etc.). I think the next question becomes whether or not every instantiation of this word is worthy of an entry on this WP dab page. For example, I previously mentioned one prior suggestion, that an entry be identified as a noteworthy instance of the word in another reliable source, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Columbia Encyclopedia, dictionaries from Oxford University Press, etc. Nat mentioned the matter of each entry on this dab page being associated with an individual WP article (e.g., Buddha Records, Buddha Air, etc.). This sentence appears to fail to meet either of these suggested standards. Perhaps if not worthy of an entry in the WP encyclopedia, might it be worth an entry in the Wiktionary (here)? Does the need for encyclopedic significance make sense? Thanks for your continued civil discourse, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 01:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The text from the Qu'ran still belongs into the Buddha Disamb cause its an summary of the text found in the Qu'ran Sura Al-Jumua (62:2 and in the end Tabath) theres also an next text in the Quran. The book Muhammad in World Scriptures is available online in PDF [[3]]. Plus theres references for claims in that book cause its under religion studies and is an information book. Theres another book from my library its more useful and also provides references from Sanskrit University graduates/scholars/teachers. Leads to almost same information. --PadmaDharma101 (talk) 01:39, 14 June 2008 (UTC)