5.并非上帝
A great number of religious founding figures have claimed to be either gods, manifestations of gods, or prophets of gods. The Buddha, on the other hand, never claimed to be a god. He never claimed to be a prophet or an agent of the gods, either. He merely claimed to be a man, convinced of the supreme position of humans. He claimed that knowledge and personal effort, not devotion to the gods, are the true means of salvation.
很多宗教创始人都声称自己是上帝、先知或者上帝的化身，但是佛祖却从未说过自己是上帝。他自称是一个普通人，相信知识和努力能救赎自我，而非对神的奉献。
Although he insisted in the equality of all humans, the Buddha has become almost a “super-human” in popular religion.
虽然他坚持众生平等，但是佛在信众心中几乎是一个超人。
4.并非素食主义者
There is a widespread image of the Buddha being a strict vegetarian. This is also a claim with no historical support. Not even the early Buddhist sources mention the Buddha being a vegetarian in any way.
很多人认为佛陀是一个绝对的素食主义者。这是完全没有历史依据的。早期的佛教资料也没有说过佛陀是一个素食主义者。
Moreover, many accounts describe the Buddha eating meat and also advising on meat broths as a way to treat some illnesses. There are also some accounts mentioning that the last meal of the Buddha was wild boar. Even the earliest followers of the Buddha were not strict vegetarians.
此外，许多书中提及佛陀吃肉，甚至把肉汤当作治病良方。也有书中提到，佛陀最后的晚餐是野猪。甚至早期的佛弟子也不是绝对的的素食主义者。
Vegetarianism became attached to Buddhist practices years after the Buddha passed away.
佛陀去世多年以后，素食主义才变成了佛门戒律。
3 Belief In Previous Reincarnations
3.轮回
As previously mentioned, during its early days, Buddhism had to “compete” with several traditions that supported their authority by claiming to have originated a long time ago. In order to claim a level of credibility similar to these older traditions, early Buddhists created a number of literary works about “past Buddhas.” The goal was to stress the idea that what the Buddha taught was nothing new but rather a timeless truth.
如上所述，早期的佛教与传统的权威教派分庭抗衡。为了证明佛教的传统源远流长，早期佛教徒创作了大量“过去七佛”的故事，意在告诉世人如来佛祖教的东西并不是什么新思想新理论而是永恒的真理。
Interestingly, the general outline of many of these stories is identical: All the past Buddhas sit cross-legged in their mother’s womb. They all take seven steps to the north immediately after birth. They all renounce the world after witnessing an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a mendicant. They all attain a state of enlightenment seated on the grass. They never die before their teaching is complete. And finally, they all die after eating meat.
这些故事大体相同：诸佛在母胎时便已呈双腿盘坐之态，出生时皆能向北走七步。他们在目睹了生、老、病、死世间百态后都放下了世俗。他们都坐在草地上证悟到真理。他们都在教学完成之后逝去的。他们最后的晚餐都是肉食。
2.视如来为神
How ironic is it that a person who based his teaching on the oneness of mankind and the equality among people eventually came to be regarded as a god? Many of the flexible and tolerant circles of Hinduism, with their ever-growing pantheon of gods and goddesses, consider the Buddha to be a deity, one of the multiple manifestations of the god Vishnu.
一个宣扬人类同一性和平等性的人最终被视为神，这就有点讽刺了。印度教派别林立，神和女神非常多，他们认为佛陀神毗湿奴的化身之一。
Even more ironic is the fact that by elevating the Buddha’s status over the human realm, his image did not become more powerful in any way: In a tradition like Hinduism, filled with countless deities, turning the Buddha into a god also made him ordinary, just one more god among thousands.
事实上，即便把佛当做一位神邸，他也并没有因此变得更神圣。传统的印度教，有成千上万的神，如果佛果真是神，也不过是成千上万神中的一个。
1 The Remains Of The Buddha
1.佛陀的遗骸
The Mahaparinirvana Sutra (an ancient Buddhist text on the last days of the Buddha) describes how his followers cremated the Buddha after he passed away. The remains were divided into eight portions. Each of these portions were sent to eight different states visited by the Buddha during his lifetime. A stupa was erected in each state in order to house the remains. Other sources claim that during the third century BC, Ashoka ordered these eight stupas to be opened, the cremated remains of the Buddha redistributed into a higher number of portions, and more stupas to be built all over the expanding Buddhist world to house the relics.
《大般涅盘经》（佛陀去世前的教诲录）中描述了佛陀的弟子在他涅槃后将他火化，得到了一块头顶骨、两块指骨、四颗牙齿、一节中指指骨舍利和84000颗珠状真身舍利子。摩揭陀国、毗舍离国等八位国王将佛舍利平分八份,建塔安奉。也有说，公元前三世纪，阿育王把这八座佛塔打开取出舍利子，把它们分成许多份，大范围建塔供养，广泛传播佛教。
The Buddhist relic-cult has been an important dimension of Buddhist ritual. Even today, there are several temples and museum that claim to hold “relics” of the Buddha. Two famous examples are the “Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic” in Sri Lanka and the “Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum” in Singapore.
佛教文物是佛教仪式的一部分，一直以来备受追崇。即使在今天，也有一些寺庙和博物馆宣称供奉着佛的“遗物”，像斯里兰卡的“佛牙塔”、新加坡的“佛牙寺及博物馆”。
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