It is indeed curious that any sense of history developed in Buddhism because there are unambiguous statements within the sutras declaring that exerting efforts on the usual materials employed in the historic project, was a waist of time. Further, the use of memory for the creation of history, ought to have been questioned in ancient times because the Indian Buddhist were quit aware of faulty memory.This paper will proceed to investigate the praxis oriented approach that Buddhism has employed in the use of history by first presenting information on faulty memory based on modern research. Second, documenting that in ancient times the Buddhist were aware of some of these problems. Third, discussing the prohibition placed on the historic project by Wakyamuni. Fourth, arguing for a praxis oriented understanding of the development of histories in Buddhism, Finally, how this was understood and interpreted within the context of Chinese Buddhism with a comparative analysis between Pure Land history and Ch’an history will be presented.
