From: Bruce Burrill <brburl@mailbag.com>
Subject: SRB censored msg?
Date: Friday, July 24, 1998 7:15 AM
The following was posted to SRB in response to a question about the book
mentioned. Looks like it never made it to the list. What are Baha'i afraid
of?
As for MAITREYA, THE FUTURE BUDDHA, ed. by Alan Sponberg
and Helen Hardacre, pub by Cambridge University Press, 1988, it might
be useful for Baha'is in showing them their claim that Baha'u'llah is
Maitreya is really not supported by the Buddhist prophetic texts.
Despite the contortions of Jamshed Fozdar and Moojan Momen in their
writings on the subject, when you let the texts speak for themselves, the
conditions for the Maitreya's decent to earth has not come to pass. You
can find Fozdar/Momen's take on this on Joel Smith's prophecy website.
Be warned that this site if full of inaccurate and very misleading
information. In instance quoting a text as being a Buddhist text that is
not. This has been carefully spelled to Joel Smith, but he has opted not
to change it.
The earliest such text, and the only one that can even be remotely
attributed to the Buddha, is found in the Pali Canon, Digha Nikaya
(Long Discourses) 24. A lengthy study of this and related material, from
a traditional point of view by Sayagyi U Chit Tin who has done a
thorough survey of the Pali, can be found on line at
https://www.webcom.com/~imcuk/welcome.html
The Baha'i claim that Baha'u'llah is the supposed 5th Buddha rests on
very shaky ground.