Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Open Questions

When Did the Threefold Refuge Formula Originate?

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Open Question

Tradition places its first use at the very start of the Buddha's teaching career, but the Buddha's own chronology is unsettled among historians, and no source assigns the formula a specific year.

What would resolve this A firmer scholarly resolution of the Buddha's own chronology, or textual evidence dating the formula's earliest use independently of the traditional narrative that carries it.
OpenBuddhist studiesRupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism
Cross-Tradition Connections

Question On

Sources
The Foundations of Buddhism
Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press, 1998View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.