Open Questions

When Did the Threefold Refuge Formula Originate?

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General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "When Did the Threefold Refuge Formula Originate?." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/when-did-the-threefold-refuge-formula-originate.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). When Did the Threefold Refuge Formula Originate?. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/when-did-the-threefold-refuge-formula-originate

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-when-did-the-threefold-refuge-formula-or,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {When Did the Threefold Refuge Formula Originate?},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/when-did-the-threefold-refuge-formula-originate},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

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

The Threefold Refuge (Tisarana)

Source The Foundations of BuddhismRupert Gethin

Sources

The Foundations of Buddhism

Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press, 1998View the Source

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