The Legendary Story of the Buddha in Iran

Despite the fundamental dissimilarities between Islam and Buddhism, the two traditions have intermingled, often to the surprise of their adherents. The appearance of the legendary story of the Buddha in Muslim sources shows the exchange of wisdom between Buddhism, Islam, and Iran, even if that exchange was an accidental one. In Muslim historical and Shi‘i writings, Buddha (Budāsef) is introduced as a saint and a wise man alongside the Islamic Prophet and holy figures. The legend of the historical Buddha was presented chronicling his life, his spiritual search, and his enlightenment. However, the early transmitters of the legend avoided mentioning directly that the story was from the Buddhist tradition, instead manipulating and Islamizing it. The traditional story of the Buddha as a prince subsequently appeared in Islamic and Persian literary sources, as well as in the Christian and Judaic traditions. The infiltration of this exemplary legend in Iran points toward the crystallization of a type of asceticism and morality that exploited Buddhist models. In the first part of this chapter we will put the transmission of the Buddha legend in perspective chronologically and expose the exploitation of this Buddhist story, which has symbolized the teaching of wisdom in the Shi‘i and Persian literature. In the second part of this chapter a story of one of the Buddha’s previous births, a jātaka , will be paraphrased in an abridged version and put in perspective. It is a story that is told by the Buddha about his past life, which was adapted to the Iranian pre-Islamic religious culture and written in the Soghdian language, one of the Iranian languages of Central Asia. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.