Religious Continuity as Expressed in the Buddhist and Islamic Traditions

I want to briefly explore and compare the notions of historical and religious continuity that are presented by the Islamic and Buddhist traditions. What is each faith’s relationship with its predecessor?

Buddhist texts, it seems, call with some recurrence on the idea that nothing has come in or out of being – that there exists for humans, in some form or another, a spiritual immortality in which time is suspended as a linear or singular entity.

In spite of this fluid and often vague chronology, however, the Buddhist tradition delineates that events do occur as consequences of other events. For example, a new buddha (who will serve the functions of teacher, preacher, leader, etc.) will only come into being “when the teachings of a previous buddha have been lost and when beings will be receptive to his message.” (Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism, pg. 18)

It is also evident that the Pali Nikayas came about, in large part, as a result of what began to unfold societally: cities grew and leisure became the norm. Buddhist teachings didn’t ignore or minimize Hindu ones. Rather, as the masses began to cast aspersions on the ideas presented in the Vedas and the Upanisads, Buddhist teachings acted as a far-reaching counterpoint.

Islamic texts seem to pay similar homage to earlier traditions, the Prophet seeing his faith as an extension of past Abrahamic ones.

In the opening of the the early Meccan Sura “The Most High,” the Prophet calls on references to a God “who created then gave form” and “who made the meadow pasture grow then turned it to a darkened flood-swept remnant.” The former statement is undoubtedly a reference to the biblical story of Adam, the first man, and the latter to Noah, whose family was the sole living human remnant after God flooded the earth. A reader or listener can easily infer that Muhammad’s recitations build on truths of a previously established religion, accepting them as premises or precursors to his own.

At the end of that same passage, the Prophet expresses that a “better” existence is one that follows the guidelines “set down in...the scrolls of Ibrahim and Musa.” Michael Sells, in his Approaching The Qur’an, suggests that the lesson of this text is “the same one that was revealed to (Abraham) and (Moses).” (pg. 73) Islam – like Buddhism – honors the traditions of its predecessors and acknowledges that they may have planted its own seeds.

Does anyone else see these trends in religious continuity?