Buddhism Projected As One of the Major Religions Of The World.
Buddhism began in India in the Six century as another interpretation of the Hindu
religious system. It resembled in many aspects to Jainism because it rejected the
authority of the Vedas, the caste system and offered a vision of salvation based on
individual effort. The Buddha thought a middle way between worldliness and the
extreme asceticism of Mahavira. In addition, Buddhism developed something completely
new to any version of Hinduism a missionary imperative, sending Buddhist missionaries
into neighboring Asian countries with new philosophies and thus becoming very
attractive to Asian people.
Before we start talking about the development of Buddhism and its different sects
it is very important to talk about the teachings of the Buddha and the life of Gautama who
was the founder of Buddhism. A man named Siddhartha found Buddihism as early as the
Six century. The life of Gautama as came to be known is usually fund to be dated as
early as 560-480, it is said that he may have been a cotemporary of Mahavira. Gautana
was son of a Kashatriya raja called “suddhodana and his wife, Maya. The legends say
that the birth if the child was surrounded by extraordinary events and portents.
According to one story, a soothsayer predicted that the child would become either a great
King, who would rule the entire world, or a great Buddha. When Gautama was born, it
was predicted that he was to become a King, but that if he ever saw the sights of human
misery or the tranquility of a monk, he would grow up to be a religious teacher. His
father did not want this for him; he sought to protect him from the ugliness, and distress
of humanity. The raja specifically sought to keep the young prince of seeing four sights:
a dead body, an aged person, a diseased person, and an ascetic monk. Thus, Gautama
grew up surrounded by youth, beauty and health. He received a normal education for a
prince of the era. When he was nineteen, he married his cousin, had a happy life and
brought to life a child, a son, Rahula. As Gautama neared his thirtieth birthday, he was
becoming more aware of the ugliness of humanity. According to some of the legends,
the Gods, wishing to awaken the future Buddha from a wasteful life, he was leading;
conspire to break through the world of youth that had surround him for so long.
One by
one, he began to see all the things his father has forbidden he saw a wrinkled and bend
elderly person, a man with loathsome disease and a rotting corpse, and a peaceful monk,
who had encountered the world in search of a release from his suffering. As Gautama
reached his mature years and after becoming aware of that life always involved pain and
suffering; it is said that once he entered his harem where there were some of the most
beautiful young woman of the kingdom, there he received a vision that these woman
would soon become old and wrinkle, gray and stooped. These revelations made it
impossible for the young prince to continue to live in his palace surrounded by easy and
plenty; one night he decided to leave his home, leaving behind his young wife and infant.
Gautama was in the need of searching answers to the questions of life. Gutama tried
some avenues in order for him to find the answers he wanted. At first, he studied with a
Guru, and after some time studying, he did not find satisfaction, then he tried a second
avenue, asceticism. Asceticism in the six century was an acceptable pursuit to find
release from the problems of life. Gautama has been recorded in history, as been a
champion on asceticism, he suffered and sacrificed more than anyone else sacrifice, thus
and as unfortunately as it was for him, he did not find the release he expected. One day
after a long period of meditation, Gautama was enlighten and became, Buddha- the
alighted one, in his meditation, Buddha had a vision of the non-ending cycle of death and
rebirth that it is the lot of humankind. When the Buddha ceased to desire to find
enlightenment, he found it.
The Buddha teaching does not indicate that he found a new
religion; he understood life in Hindu religions categories and thought his followers using
those categories and vocabulary. The Buddha accepted many Hindu teaching
concerning the Gods, but considered them mortal beings subject to laws of karma and
rebirth. The Buddha was opposed to many of the various existing forms of sacrifice and
worship. He certainly was opposed to animal sacrifice and in addition, he rejected the
authority of the Vedas. Among the unique teachings of the Buddha, people live in a state
of anatman-(non-soulness), which is known, as a soul is actually the combination of five
mental or physical aggregates: the physical body, fillings, understanding, will, and
consciousness. This combination, which makes up the human personality, is bond up in
the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth that is typical in Indian religion.
Buddhism as one of the major religions of the world gained a lot of popularity in
all the Asian countries; it received its greatest impetus when imperator of India, Asoka,
converted himself to the new religion. This was a great step for the expansion of this
religion. Asoka became convinced that, unlikely other religion of India, Buddhism, was
potentially the religion for all the people of the world. Thus, he was also the first
Buddhist to send missioners to carry out Gautama’s teachings to other countries and
urged non-Indian to accept them. Despite the enormous unifying efforts of Asoka and
others to carry out the Buddha’s teaching by the first century, many minor and major
sects existed within Buddhism.
The most distinct split was along the lines of differences between Theravada and
Mahayana.
Theravada Buddhism is the more conservative of the two major divisions within
this religion. As such, it believes itself to be closer to the original teachings of the
Buddha. According to Theravada Buddhism, people must achieve enlightenment by
themselves without reliance on the Gods or any other force beyond themselves. For this
reason the Monk is the ideal figure, it is he who shaves his head, puts on the yellow robe,
takes up a begging bawl and seeks release from life through meditation and self denial.
Theravada Buddhism, like the Buddhism of Gautama teaches that the goals of religion
are reached through the efforts, meditation and achievements of the individual. The Gods
sacrifices and prayers are considered to have minor consequence or impact. These
principals underlined the Theravada Buddhism. While the King Asoka was spreading the
teachings of Buddhism through his missionary efforts, certain subtle changes began to
occur in his religion. One of the basic assumptions underlying these new developments
was that in addition to what the Buddha had originally taught to his disciples, there were
there were other principles he had secretly taught, but only to a select group who actually
could understand the meaning of these principals. An example of the Mahayanist
teaching is when the Buddha picks up a handful of leaves from the forest floor and
explained to his disciples that as the leaves in his hands were less than the total leaves of
the forest. He meant that he had given them less than the total amount of truth that could
be imparted in secret. A second principal that stared developing within the Mahayana
Buddhism was that Gautama was more than a man; they stared teaching that the Buddha
was a compassionate, eternal and almost divine being who came to the earth in form of a
man because he loved humankind and wished to be of assistance. The third principal of
the Mahayanist is that Gautama was not the only Buddha to whom people could appeal.
If Gautama was an ethereal being that came to earth in form of a human being, the
Mahayanist maintained that there could be many other Buddhas located in many parts of
the cosmos, all of whom are acceptable of helping people on the path of enlightenment.
This new idea did more than anything else to expand the appeal to Buddhism.
Mahayana Buddhism spread quickly; the teachings of the Buddha were into China
soon after they became popular in India. Buddhism became one of the three major
religions of China, alongside the native Confucianism and Taoism. From China,
Mahayana Buddhism spread to other East Asian nations. Because it’s close tight to
China, Korea was brought under the influence of Buddhism as early as the fourth century.
The spread continued in the sixth century when Buddhism entered Japan. Japanese at
first they rejected the new religion, but within a little frame of time they embraced it to
the point where it came to share religious leadership with the native Shinto. Buddhism
was also spread to the Indonesian Islands of Java, Sumatra and Bali.
There were different sects that arose with Buddhism like Mahayanist Sects, they
began a religion open to innovation and change. The Pure Land Sect, One of the most
popular, the goal of its adherents after death is a paradise called “the Land of Bliss”. The
Intuitive Sects (Ch’an, Zen), they have emphasized that the truth of religion do not come
through rational thought process, study of scripture, or faith but rather through a sudden
flash of insight. The rationalist sects (T’ien-t’ai, Tendai) They taught that in addition to
meditation one should use reason and study the scriptures to discover the truth about
Buddhism. The sociopolitical Sect (Nichiren): from time to time the various sects of
Buddhism have come to great effect on the social and political life of various nations.
One such sect is the so-called Nichiren, Buddhist group, which is a purely Japanese P
pantheon.
Buddhism as one of the major religions of the world has gone through majors
developments. The different sects and practices of Buddhism, the life of Gautama
himself, and the path he had to follow until he discovered how to find release from the
sufferings of life are a huge part of the development and origins of the religion as well as
a primary stage as the main principal of the Buddha’s teachings.