Buddhism

Foundation and life of Siddhartha Gautama

Buddhism was founded by Gautama Buddha or Siddhartha Gautuma who was born in 1624 AD in
Lumbini, near Kapila Vastu, an ancient city in Northern India. The traditions of China Nepal and
Ceylon differ in describing his birth, actions, etc. but in general, sources indicate that he was a
Kshatriya prince (Son of King Sudhodhana and Queen Maya) and was the Sakhya Muni of the
Sakhya tribe. Despite living in a world of luxury, he saw a lot of death and disease was disgusted
by the pomp and vanities of life, and thus chose a path of ascetism. He eventually grew to become
one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the time.
A few Buddhist texts also mention Kapila, who was a friend of the parents of Siddhartha. He was
a founder of a school of atheist philosophy in Hindu philosophy and was called the bodhisattva of
that age. He is considered to have influenced the founding of Buddhism.

Siddhartha’s tendencies towards spirituality were evident from his childhood. As per an old
folktale, Siddhartha Gautama is believed to have been conceived when his mother dreamt of a
white elephant with six tusks (image 1) piercing her womb. This elephant is believed to be a
symbol of the Buddha. When Siddhartha was born, the King and Queen took him to the great sage
Asita who predicted that he would either be a “king of kings” or a great sage. A week after his
birth, the Queen passed away. His father wanted to ensure that Siddhartha became a “king of kings”
and not a sage, but he became concerned as Siddhartha would spend most of his time alone, under
the Jamba tree. Siddhartha grew to be a compassionate child. Unlike the other Kshatriya princes,
he was against harming other life forms and hence was considered incapable as a fighter. He
proved this statement wrong when he exceeded expectations in the test held by Dandapani to win
his daughter, Yashodhara’s hand in marriage. They eventually got married and a son was born to
them. One day, during his rounds of the kingdom, Siddhartha was perturbed by the sights of an
old man, a diseased man, and a dead man. On his way back to the kingdom, he saw a sage with an
extremely calm demeanor. This piqued his interest. He thus learned that everything about the world
as he knew it was changing, and he sought a way out of this sorrow. He then traveled to the
kingdom of Magadha (which at the moment was under the rule of King Bimbisara). Siddhartha
went to Rajagriha in search of the great sages of those days, but unable to find his answers, he
went to the thick jungles of Urubilva, near Gaya today. He took abode under a Bodhi tree and
refused to move from there until he found the answer to end the sorrows of the world - to find the
truth. It is believed that he then saw light and became enlightened - he was now Gautama Buddha
(image 2). After spending seven weeks in a state of perfect happiness, he went out into the world
to teach what he had learned. He first went to Banaras to teach the five ascetics who had been with
him in Urubilva. These five eventually became his disciples.
The accounts of his search assume the Jain tradition since Gautama was once a follower of extreme
austerity and came dangerously close to starvation. However, he concluded that self-torture
weakens the mind and does not lead to enlightenment. As a result, he adopted a gentler kind of
renunciation and focused on practicing advanced meditation techniques.

Basic teachings and core principles of Buddhism

His foundational teaching was that the biggest cause for sorrow was desire and curbing desire
would be the way to live a sorrow-free life. The Buddha, when giving a diagnosis of life
predicament, has come up with Four Noble Truths: (i) life is dukkha (usually translated as
“suffering” or “dissatisfaction”), (ii) all sufferings are caused by tanha (usually translated as
“desire” or “craving”), (iii) when one ceases to have all these desires and cravings, his/her
sufferings will cease; and (iv) finally, Buddhism offers the escape path out of this predicament
through the Eight-fold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood,
right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (Smith and Novak, 2004, pp. 31–49;
Gethin, 1998, pp. 59–79). According to Buddhism, man is this universal spirit's conscious
modification or representative. The concept of man's infinite perfection and the attainment of the
highest happiness through the practice of moral deeds are asserted and exalted; moral deeds are
given a theurgic quality, and their performance establishes the individual’s essence as the ultimate
ruler over all things material and immaterial, terrestrial and spiritual. Buddhism preaches the unity
of mankind from the standpoint of the “oneness of nature”. As per this: man is the transition point
between organic life and the primal essence.
While Buddhism doesn't specify a soul it does inculcate metempsychosis - where practices aim to
bring the person’s being closer and closer to its original primal essence. This original essence is
the substratum of all things in nature. The process of attaining Nirvana (becoming the primal
essence or absorption into the primal essence) involves loss of consciousness.

Growth and spread of Buddhism

Buddhism was actively cultivated in Behar ( Magadha ) and spread through the Indian
subcontinent because of the agency of the Mauryan Empire. This is because of how Gautama
Buddha’s teachings on acquiring peace and avoiding ritual worship, appealed to King Bimbisara,
of Magadha. After attaining enlightenment, Gautama Buddha spent the next 45 years of his life,
wandering around the Indian subcontinent and spreading his teachings. After his death, his
followers in the Sanghas propagated his teachings of Dharma to places outside the Indian
subcontinent as well. 2000 years later it became the national religion of Ceylon and the Indian
Archipelago. From the start of the rise of Buddhism as a religion that people converted to - it was
always contested by Brahmanism or the religion followed by the Brahmins- which eventually led
to the expulsion of Buddhism from India. After being expelled from India - it propagated in central
and eastern Asia. Thus, Buddhism is found to exist in China (image 5), Tibet, Siberia, Japan (image
6) , and parts of India, viz., Nepal, Gujarat Rajasthan, and Ceylon. It has established itself in these
different countries with different modifications, though the general concurrence in all essential
points is the same. After about thirty years of Untouchable, or Dalit, agitation, a significant turning
point was reached in 1956 when Bhimrao Ramji (B.R.) Ambedkar, the head of the Untouchable
wing of the Congress (see Glossary), declared that he was turning Buddhist to get rid of the caste
system's restrictions (see Varna, Caste, and Other Divisions, ch. 5). He carried a large number of
Untouchables, also called Dalits, Harijans, or Scheduled Caste members, who were primarily from
Maharashtra, the border regions of nearby states, and the Agra region of Uttar Pradesh into the
same movement.

Through the years, Buddhism has propagated to other parts of the world and has in the process
acquired certain region-specific modifications. In Tibet, Mahayana Buddhism came to be known
as Llamism. In Nepal, In Ceylon, its observations are mixed with demon worship. In China and
Japan, it has undergone further modifications due to existing religions before this. In China, there
was the religion of Confucious, Fo, and Taoism.
The Chinese modification of Buddhism is a commixture of Hindu Buddhism and the pre-existing
three religions via assimilation rather than absorption. It varies from Hindu Buddhism in terms of
its understanding of nirvana. While Hindu Buddhism believed Nirvana to be “absorption into the
essence”, Chinese Buddhism believed it was the elimination of ignorance. To them, nirvana was
a contemplation and was not a progression, but a repose for the soul. In Japan, Buddhism is largely
derived from Chinese Buddhism. However, it did face strong opposition from the native Shinto
religion during the Meiji Period.

Culture
For many years, Indian royalty and merchants supported Buddhist monasteries and built stunning,
hemispherical stone buildings known as stupas (image 3) over the Buddha's relics as a sign of
respect for his memory. Archaeology has demonstrated the enormous influence of Buddhist
iconography, art, and building in India from the 1840s. Up to the thirteenth century, the monastic
complex at Nalanda in Bihar, which was reduced to ruins in 1993, served as a global hub for
Buddhist philosophy and religion. However, during the thirteenth century, when the last of the
plains' monasteries was destroyed by Turkish invaders.

Buddhists believe in the existence of multiple heavens, each differing in glory and of course, hell.
The world of form consists of eighteen heavens, the world of desire has six heavens, and the world
of formlessness has four heavens. These are listed in ascending order. The quality of these heavens
is determined by their elevation. Samsara refers to the cycle of rebirth, mundane existence, and
death - which occurs in six realms, three good and three evil.

There are two main schools of Buddhism: Mahayana Buddhism, which is a later development and
is practiced by laypeople, and Theraveda Buddhism, which is older and more conservative and is
practiced by monks in India who claim an exclusive understanding of its concepts. Most Western
studies focus on the Theraveda canon, which has been fully translated into English. Worldwide,
Mahayana Buddhism is the most widely practiced and has the greatest number of followers. The
Vajrayana, also known as the "Way of the Lightning Bolt," is a branch of Mahayana (Great Path)
Buddhism that originated after the seventh century A.D. and is practiced by Tibetan refugees and
Himalayan communities. The Vajrayana places a strong emphasis on the intercession of
bodhisattvas, or enlightened beings, who stay in this world to assist others on the path while
maintaining the basic value of individual spiritual growth. The Himalayan kingdoms up until the
20th century maintained a social system in which Buddhist monks—some of whom were born as
bodhisattvas—held the highest ranks.
The sacred languages were Pali and Prakrit. Buddhist priests are expected to renounce the material
world, live off alms (in kind), be clad in robes and tonsure, and devote themselves to meditation.
Buddhas are beings who descend to this world from time to time to rescue imprisoned souls from
nature and finitude. These Buddhas are stated to have undergone multiple transmigrations and
acquired an increased degree of merit in each till their last incarnation - where they achieve such
a degree of purity - thus entitling them to become teachers of mankind - to show them the path to
ultimate bliss. Their teachings were recorded in literature and were called Banas, or preachings.
It is believed that 24 Buddhas (image 4) existed before the birth of Gautama Buddha - he is the
last of this series and his systems will continue for 5000 years, after which another Buddha will be
born (as per the beliefs of Buddhism).

Gautama Buddha is considered the highest spiritual representative of this Buddhist philosophy. He
is reverenced as a glorified remembrance of these virtues that aim to support and guide the spiritual
struggles and aspirations of mankind.

Buddhist texts are works of religion that are related to or part of the Buddhist tradition. Buddhism
is not contained in a single textual collection. Rather, there are three primary Buddhist canons: the
Tibetan Buddhist canon, which is used in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, the Chinese Buddhist canon,
which is used in East Asian Buddhism, and the Pāli Canon of the Theravāda branch. Tripiṭaka,
which means "three baskets" in Sanskrit, is the term used to refer to the Buddhist canon. It took
several centuries after Gautama Buddha's passing for the earliest Buddhist writings to be
composed. An additional collection of lore, which includes encounters with the Buddha, is
contained in a collection of books known as the “Jataka Tales”.

Idol worship began in China with the advent of Buddhism as the doctrine of humanity being the
transition between organic life and primal essence took such a hold on the Chinese minds that they
started worshiping images of the Buddha. This idol worship may be traced to the Mongol
inhabitants in China who focused on “petty detailing”. Image worship began a century before the
Christian era, a large gilt figure is reported to have been brought to China from central Asia. In
subsequent ages, this practice increased and was encouraged by emperors. Today, it is shunned.
Another point of difference from Orthodox Buddhists was that killing animals isn't considered a
sin among Chinese Buddhists. They eat meat and also sacrifice animals on occasion. Buddha was
given the name Fo, in China, thus the kind of Buddhism practiced in China is called Foism.
(because the same symbol was pronounced as Fut and But (Buddha) depending on the dialect.
Jainism

Foundation and life of Mahavira

About 2500 years ago, in the kingdom of Vaishali (now Bihar), a son, Vardhamana, was born to
King Siddhartha and his wife. Before his birth, an astrologer in the King’s court had prophesied
that the son born to them would be a great prince. As predicted, Vardhamana grew to be an
extremely intelligent boy who impressed all his Gurus with his quick ability to learn. Over time,
he became strong and brave and earned the title of “Mahavira” because of his valorous feats. Many
lore exist in folk literature that describe his bravery. One such instance is when a rogue elephant
charged through the city, scaring the inhabitants, but Mahavira who calmly stood his ground, was
able to calm the elephant by simply touching it. Other instances involve when he could comfort a
snake to send it away and also confronted a bully who targeted him out of jealousy. Unfortunately,
despite all the love and praise he received for his intellect and valor, Mahavira was unhappy and
felt mentally bogged down by the divisions in society and the superficial factors that caused the
world's sorrow. He then decided to ask his parents if he could renounce the world and become an
ascetic in search of the truth. Greatly grieved by this, his parents refused and said he must not leave
for as long as they were alive. At the age of 28, he lost both his parents. Two years later, he decided
to give away his wealth and hold a feast for the poor and needy. He then went to a park in the
vicinity, where he removed his ornaments, and princely clothes, shaved his hair, and started his
life as an ascetic under the Ashoka tree.

Following the teachings of the guru Parshvanatha, for 12 years, he endured hunger, thirst, harsh
weather, and harsh treatment from locals who thought he was a beggar. Yet he stayed composed
and persevered to find his truth. Finally, at the banks of the Rijuwalika river, near the Parshvanath
Hills, he attained enlightenment or “Kevala Jnana” (complete knowledge). He became a Jina.
(image 7) He is believed to be the 24th and the last of the Tirthankaras (Ford makers). (image 8)
Core teachings

The very first principle he laid down, or his foundational teaching was Ahimsa, or nonviolence -
that one should not harm or hurt any living beings in thought or action. Mahavira taught that one
must possess the three jewels: Right belief, Right conduct, and Right knowledge. Under “Right
belief”, Jainism has these principles: Jiva, Ajiva, Asrava, Bandha, Samvara, Nirjara, and Moksha.
Under Right conduct, it enlists the Mahavrttas or “Big Vows” of Ahimsa (nonviolence), Satya
(speaking the truth), Asteya( refraining from thievery and falsehood), Brahmacharya (chastity),
and aparigraha (nonpossession). Jainism also believes in “Anekantavada”, which means that
reality is complex and no single statement can describe the entirety of the reality or truth. Jain
monks take on the Big Vows, or the Mahavrttas (mentioned above) while the other practitioners
of Jainism take on the Anuvrttas, the simpler vows: to abstain from violence, falsehood, and
stealing; to limit one’s possessions and to be content with one’s own life. The beliefs of the Jain
system lie based on the workings of karma and its effects on the living while also incorporating
the conditions to be followed for the soul’s release. According to Jain philosophy, the soul is a
living substance that accumulates particles of nonliving matter through action, which ultimately
determines its fate. As per this, any action has consequences that cause accumulation of such
matter but the worst accumulations of matter come from violence against other living beings. The
basis of Jain discipline lies in complete inactivity, preventing attachment, and absolute
nonviolence (ahimsa). The final goal is “extinguishing of the self” or eliminating the individual
form (nirvana).

Culture
By the first century A.D, the Jain community evolved into two main divisions: the Digambaras
(“sky-clad” monks who owned no clothes nor material possessions, and collected donated food in
their hands, and Svetambaras (“white-clad” monks and nuns who wore white robes and carry
bowls for donated food). While the Dhigambaras don't accept the possibility of women achieving
liberation, the Svetambaras do. Jainism spread across north and south India. In the 1990s, there
were around 7 million Jains, mainly in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Gujarat (Svethambaras).
Karnataka held a sizable community of Digambaras. (image 9)

The Jain community practices a lot of ritual activities ( including sacramental rituals) that resemble
Hindu traditions. They practice a form of idol/image worship where particular shrines house the
images of the Thirthankaras, who are not worshipped but are remembered or revered. They may
also worship local deities and celebrate local festivals as long as they do not compromise on their
fundamental devotion to the path of the Jinas. There are five main Jain festivals and each of them
celebrates the conception, birth, renunciation, enlightenment, and final release of Mahavira.
Jainism and Buddhism now
The Jain community, with its extensive textual legacy and money acquired via trade, is well-known
for its charity, particularly its support of education and learning, in addition to its opulent shrine
patronage. Most large cities have prestigious Jain schools. There are significant Jains in Gujarat
and Madhya Pradesh, but the biggest concentrations are in Maharashtra (almost 563,000) and
Rajasthan (nearly 965,000).

In the thirty years that he preached as a Jina, he succeeded in propagating Jainism to most of the
powerful states of Northern India, while his teachings still spread to the South. The inclusiveness
of his teachings was what helped popularize Jainism.
Jainism records the largest number of nuns in history and to date, many people undergo a ritual
called “Dhiksha”(image 10), where they renounce the world and continue their life as monks/nuns.
The religion with its emphasis on nonviolence and respecting fellow beings, has helped raise

While Jainism did appeal to many sections of Indian society, its strict rules made it slightly
inaccessible to individuals from other parts of the world. Buddhism on the other hand, turned out
to be more accessible to individuals from other cultures because of the relatively lenient structure
that they have. (for example: Gautama Buddha believed that one could attain enlightenment if well
fed and focused on the right kind of meditation, rather than depriving the body of nutrition).
Today, Buddhism has majorly contributed to the world of psychology by spreading awareness
about practices such as meditation and mindfulness. It has also contributed to defending oppressed
classes from the injustice of the caste system. To date, many individuals have converted to
Buddhism to escape the Varna or caste system in India.

Jainism and Buddhism are now such strong monastic religions because of the foundational
teachings of Mahavira and Gautama Buddha respectively.
Images
1)

White elephant

2)

Siddhartha
Source: https://oneminddharma.com/siddhartha/
3)

Sthupa, source: https://hindiarise.com/stupa-architecture-in-hindi/

4)

24 Buddhas, source: https://histence.blogspot.com/2015/12/buddhas-

samsara-or-cycle.html

5)
Buddhism in China
Source: https://www.pulse.ng/bi/politics/inside-shaolin-monastery-the-
home-of-kung-fu-and-zen-buddhism-where-thousands-of-boys/0gn54pn
6)

Buddhism in Japan
Source: https://www.businessinsider.in/24-photos-that-will-make-you-
want-to-visit-Japan/The-Daigoji-temple-in-Kyoto-a-temple-of-the-
Shingon-sect-of-Japanese-Buddhism-is-a-designated-world-heritage-
site-and-a-favorite-destination-to-visit-in-the-autumn-when-the-leaves-
offer-an-array-of-vibrant-colors-/slideshow/47507339.cms
7)

Mahavira, Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahavira

8)

Jainism: 24 Tirthankaras, source:

https://gokultraditions.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_1.html
9)

Two sects of Jainism, Source: Quora

10)

Dhiksha, source: Times of India

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