Vajrarāṣṭra dan repost
The Norse Saga of Gautama Buddha!? or On how the Buddha arrived to Nordic Lands
While we usually tend to focus on some specific populations, regions, and eras, such as Ancient Gandhāra and the Tarim Basin, thanks to their rich history of Indo-European Buddhism, a follower recently asked us about a place and time usually not pondered by us: Nordic lands.
This is an easy oversight to do. After all, even if several ancient Indo-European populations came into contact and adopted the doctrine of the Śākya prince, what could Scandinavians, of all peoples, have to do with him?
Well, apart from a certain statuette found in Sweden that is unmistakably a devotional representation of the Buddha, and another certain statuette found in Norway that is certainly NOT a devotional representation of the Buddha, it may come as a surprise that the Norse knew the life story of the Buddha, or, at least, a Christian retelling of said story, since the 13th century!
We have talked before about the history of Barlaam and Josaphat, legendary Christian martyrs and saints whose story was based on that of Gautama Buddha. However this Christian retelling wasn't limited to the Eastern and Southern Roman Catholic and Orthodox spheres, since around the year 1250, King Haakon Haakonsson the Young of Norway, would translate the story into the "Barlaams saga ok Jósafats" or the Saga of Barlaam and Josaphat, with multiple Old Norwegian, Old Swedish, Middle High German and Anglo-Norman translations based on different sources subsequently appearing.
So while this was not a "direct" syncretism like that of the Greco-Buddhists and Scytho-Buddhists, to say that the Scandinavians of the late Middle Ages venerated the Buddha and read about his life story, albeit in a Christianized interpretation, is not as far fetched as one may think at first glance.
While we usually tend to focus on some specific populations, regions, and eras, such as Ancient Gandhāra and the Tarim Basin, thanks to their rich history of Indo-European Buddhism, a follower recently asked us about a place and time usually not pondered by us: Nordic lands.
This is an easy oversight to do. After all, even if several ancient Indo-European populations came into contact and adopted the doctrine of the Śākya prince, what could Scandinavians, of all peoples, have to do with him?
Well, apart from a certain statuette found in Sweden that is unmistakably a devotional representation of the Buddha, and another certain statuette found in Norway that is certainly NOT a devotional representation of the Buddha, it may come as a surprise that the Norse knew the life story of the Buddha, or, at least, a Christian retelling of said story, since the 13th century!
We have talked before about the history of Barlaam and Josaphat, legendary Christian martyrs and saints whose story was based on that of Gautama Buddha. However this Christian retelling wasn't limited to the Eastern and Southern Roman Catholic and Orthodox spheres, since around the year 1250, King Haakon Haakonsson the Young of Norway, would translate the story into the "Barlaams saga ok Jósafats" or the Saga of Barlaam and Josaphat, with multiple Old Norwegian, Old Swedish, Middle High German and Anglo-Norman translations based on different sources subsequently appearing.
So while this was not a "direct" syncretism like that of the Greco-Buddhists and Scytho-Buddhists, to say that the Scandinavians of the late Middle Ages venerated the Buddha and read about his life story, albeit in a Christianized interpretation, is not as far fetched as one may think at first glance.