Characteristics of History-Centric religions

Characteristics of History-Centric religions:

1. God himself intervenes in History, and it is not merely the mundane history of humans such as Newton, philosophers, yogis, kings/queens, and other humans.
2. God's historical intervention is unique and non-reproducible -- and hence there cannot ever be a substitute to knowing the history. (On the other hand, if Newton never existed or if we dismissed his historical details, we could today derive the gravitation laws empirically from scratch.
3. God's historical intervention resulted in new Laws and Covenants, and the events were not merely a discovery of pre-existing reality.
4. The past must be overriden, eradicated, subjugated or reconstructed to fit the new truth created by such historical events. Hence, the socio-cultural change brought about by the unique historical event is discontinuous. It does not simply add new knowledge to old, but must erase the old for it to be legitimate. It is God vs. God, as he alters and contradicts his own past laws and messages.
5. Because this history is about God, History-Centric religions tend to have draconian laws on blasphemy and unbelief.

Following this characterization, one can see how Dharmic traditions are not History-Centric. Gautama Buddha emphasized that his enlightenment was merely a discovery of a reality that is always there. He was not bringing any new covenants from any God. The history of the Buddha is not necessary for Buddhist principles to work. In fact, Buddha stated that he was neither the first nor the last person to have achieved the state of enlightenment. He also asserted that he was not God nor sent by any God as a prophet, and whatever he discovered was available to every human to discover for himself. This makes Buddhism not History-Centric.

To summarize, history-centric religions are those religions whose core beliefs DEPEND on historical accounts. Abrahamic religions are history-centric religions. Without the support of historical accounts, there is nothing to prop up reveled scriptures.




Sources: 
(1) Rajiv Malhotra's article on Sulekha.com  here
(2)Rajiv Malhotra's article on Patheos.com here