A succession of Buddhas

According to 7D/1 Mahāpadānasutta the Buddha that we know is only the most recent out of a succession of past Buddhas.

The key characteristics of these Buddhas are:

Characteristic	Vipassī	Sikhī	Vessabhū	Kakusandha	Koṇāgamana	Kassapa	Gotama (Current Buddha)
Time of Arising	91 eons ago	31 eons ago	31 eons ago (same eon)	Present fortunate eon	Present fortunate eon	Present fortunate eon	Present fortunate eon
Birth Class	Aristocrat	Aristocrat	Aristocrat	Brahmin	Brahmin	Brahmin	Aristocrat
Clan	Koṇḍañña	Koṇḍañña	Koṇḍañña	Kassapa	Kassapa	Kassapa	Gotama
Lifespan of beings (years)	80,000	70,000	60,000	40,000	30,000	20,000	Short (100 years or a little more)
Awakening Tree	Patala tree	White-mango tree	Sal tree	Sirisa tree	Cluster fig tree	Banyan tree	Peepal tree
Chief Disciples	Khaṇḍa & Tissa	Abhibhū & Sambhava	Soṇa & Uttara	Vidhura & Sañjīva	Bhiyyosa & Uttara	Tissa & Bhāradvāja	Sāriputta & Moggallāna
Disciple Gatherings & Sizes	3 (6.8M, 100K, 80K)	3 (100K, 80K, 70K)	3 (80K, 70K, 60K)	1 (40K)	1 (30K)	1 (20K)	1 (1,250)
Chief Attendant	Asoka	Khemaṅkara	Upasanta	Buddhija	Sotthija	Sabbamitta	Ānanda
Father	King Bandhumā	King Aruṇa	King Suppatita	Brahmin Aggidatta	Brahmin Yaññadatta	Brahmin Brahmadatta	King Suddhodana
Mother	Queen Bandhumatī	Queen Pabhāvatī	Queen Vassavatī	Brahmin lady Visākhā	Brahmin lady Uttarā	Brahmin lady Dhanavatī	Queen Māyā
Capital City	Bandhumatī	Aruṇavatī	Anoma	Khemavatī (King Khema)	Sobhavatī (King Sobha)	Varanasi (King Kikī)	Kapilavatthu

The clear pattern is that successive Buddhas has existed in an era of declining lifespans and declining size of followers, but they have all followed the same path to understanding.

This is almost certainly a synthetic sutta created some time after the Buddha’s death, in order to link his achievements to a line of previous Buddhas. The regularity and consistency in the description of past Buddhas are too structured for this to be an organic text.

The sutta is followed by a detailed biography of the first Buddha, Vipassī.

The sutta is clearly fanciful, as all the Buddhas seem to be Indians and living in a culture very similar to the most recent Buddha, and yet we know the society that the Buddha lived in has evolved dramatically before and after his lifetime, so the stories of these Buddhas can hardly be credible. We do know the system of castes was not prominent in the Greater Magadha region in Buddha’s time, so could hardly have been dominant in previous eons.

So what can be say about the supposed biography of Vipassī? The narrator obviously very much wanted to write a biography of Gotama Buddha, but lacked any details about his life, so decided to write a completely made up biography supposed of a former Buddha through the mechanism of remembrance of past lives.

Of course, generations of Buddhists have confused between this supposed biography of Vipassī and the life of Gotama.

What is interesting is that from a soteriology perspective, this sutta claims that Vipassī decided to renounce after encountering an old man, a sick man, and dead man, thus giving a motive for the quest to understand and end suffering. This sutta also claims that Vipassī discovered the soteriological path through contemplating dependent origination and the 5 khandhas, thus signifying that these represent the core concepts of the understanding. The notion of the 4 noble truths is not explicitly stated, but intervowen into the narrative.

The last few paragraphs of 7D/1.11 Bodhisattaabhinivesa concludes with a brief summary of the awakening process:

135. Then indeed, monks, this (thought) occurred to Vipassī the Bodhisatta — ‘Indeed, this path for full awakening has been attained by me, namely: from the cessation of name-and-form, the cessation of consciousness; from the cessation of consciousness, the cessation of name-and-form; from the cessation of name-and-form, the cessation of the six sense bases; from the cessation of the six sense bases, the cessation of contact; from the cessation of contact, the cessation of feeling; from the cessation of feeling, the cessation of craving; from the cessation of craving, the cessation of grasping; from the cessation of grasping, the cessation of becoming; from the cessation of becoming, the cessation of birth; from the cessation of birth, old age and death, grief, wailing, pain, suffering and trouble cease. Thus is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering’.

136. ‘Cessation, cessation!’: indeed, monks, for Vipassī the Bodhisatta, concerning things unheard of before, vision arose, knowledge arose, wisdom arose, true knowledge arose, light arose.

137. Then indeed, monks, Vipassī the Bodhisatta, at a later time, dwelt observing the arising and passing away in the five aggregates subject to grasping — ‘Thus is form, thus is the origin of form, thus is the cessation of form; thus is feeling, thus is the origin of feeling, thus is the cessation of feeling; thus is perception, thus is the origin of perception, thus is the cessation of perception; thus are mental formations, thus is the origin of mental formations, thus is the cessation of mental formations; thus is consciousness, thus is the origin of consciousness, thus is the cessation of consciousness’, and for him, dwelling observing the arising and passing away in the five aggregates subject to grasping, not long after indeed, the mind was liberated from the taints without grasping.