Theme 1:A: Hagiography and myth

In Buddhism, the quest for the historical Buddha has never been a major pursuit. For Williams, it is not the historical Buddha that is of significance, but rather what the Buddha discovered. It is the sasana (teaching) or the Dharma that are the reason the life of the Buddha has any significance at all.

The study of Buddhism involves the study of Buddhist thought rather than the study of the historical Buddha, so the life story of the Buddha becomes a hagiography (religious biography). The purpose of a hagiography is to illustrate that if the person is who we think they were, then what they were is an exemplification of what they represent. 

The Buddha, hagiographically, is not a person at all, but more of a principle. As the Vakkali Sutta states, 'Who sees the Dhamma, sees me, and who sees me, sees the Dhamma'. In other words, the Buddha and the Dharma are the…