StephenGoranson wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 4:42 am
ABuddhist, I was trying to explain myself to mh, but as you wrote, in part, “…Amitabha Buddha the heavenly saviour figure - who, no Buddhists assert, was ever upon this world..” may I note that very many Buddhists mention several incarnations?
You are profoundly ignorant about both Buddhism and my knowledge of Buddhism.
Standard Buddhist cosmology indeed talks about many Buddhas, but in Mahayana Buddhism (the tradition in which Amitabha Buddha is a figure), there are multiple inhabited worlds, some of which, including our world, have been made repositories of Buddhas' teachings, and some of which, not including our world, have Buddhas living and teaching upon them. Amitabha Buddha is said to live and teach within the world Sukhavati, where all Buddhists throughout the universe can be reborn (his partisans insist) if we have faith in him. According to the Buddhist Scriptures discussing Amitabha Buddha at length, Amitabha Buddha's entire career, from his vows as the monk Dharmākara to achieve Buddhahood billions of billions of years ago through his accumulation of merit over billions of billions of years to his final death billions of billions of years in the future, is never upon this world but always in other worlds.
Our world, according to all Buddhist traditions, has been graced by several Buddhas and will be graced in the future by the Buddha Maitreya (Sanskrit) or Metteyya (Pali). Buddhism as it now exists upon this Earth was founded by the Buddha Shakyamuni.
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha Maitreya is said to have revealed from Tushita Heaven several treatises about reality to Asanga, which Mahayana Buddhists highly revere as scripture.
In Mahayana Buddhism, Amitabha Buddha is said to be not alone in his efforts; Akshobhya Buddha is also said (in the Akṣobhyatathāgatasyavyūha Sūtra) to offer salvation to Buddhists throughout the universe in another world, Abhirati.
So, within Mahayana Buddhism, we have several striking parallels to the mythicist model of Christian origins:
1. A heavenly saviour figure (Amitabha Buddha) whose salvation is based upon his followers' faith in him, but whose salvific deeds are not located upon Earth.
2. A heavenly figure (Maitreya Buddha), who in the future will supposedly come to Earth as a saviour but in the meantime sends messages to devoted followers (cf., the description of how the Revelation to John was received by John).
3. Competing models of salvation associated with different sects (of which I have not even touched upon Bhaiṣajya-guru-vaiḍūrya-prabhā-rāja) (cf., the controversy about works and faith within the Christians' scriptures).