Buddhism Buddhism is a religion. The unique thing about Buddhism is that Buddhism doesn’t have a god. Buddhism is based on people who had reached enlightment, mainly Buddha. Buddhism believe that to reach enlightment you Buddhism began when a prince named Siddhartha Gautama began to question his sheltered, luxurious life in the palace. He left the palace and saw four sights: a sick man, an old man, a dead man and a monk. These sights are said to have shown him that even a prince cannot escape illness, suffering and death.
The sight of the monk told Siddhartha to leave his life as a prince and become a wandering holy man. Siddhartha spent many years doing many religious practices such as praying, meditating, and fasting until he finally understood the basic truths of life. This realization occurred after sitting under a Poplar-fig tree in Bodh Gaya, India for many days, in deep meditation. He gained enlightenment and was given the title of Buddha, which means Enlightened One. The sacred book of Buddhism is called the Tripitaka. It is written in an ancient Indian language called Pali which is very close to the language that the Buddha himself spoke.
The Tripitaka is a very large book. The English translation of it takes up nearly forty volumes In the 3 d century B. C. the Indian emperor Asoka greatly strengthened Buddhism by his support and sent Buddhist missionaries as far afield as Syria. In succeeding centuries, however, the Hindu revival initiated the gradual decline of Buddhism in India.
The Essay on Gautama Buddha
The celebration of Wesak which is the annual ritual celebrating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death (parinirvana), provides an opportunity for adherents to reflect on the Buddha’s life and teaching. The Wesak festival is extremely important to the Buddhist adherent and the Buddhist community. The Wesak festival or Buddha’s Day celebrates the birthday of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who ...
The invasions of the White Huns (6 th cent. ) and the Muslims (11 th century) were also significant factors behind the virtual extinction of Buddhism in India by the 13 th century. The affect of buddhism on society is that members of this tradition conceive of Buddha as an eternal being to whom prayers can be made; other Buddhas are revered as well, adding a polytheistic dimension to the religion. Numerous sects have developed from the Mahayana tradition, which has been influential in China, Korea, and Japan. The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the “four noble truths”: existence is suffering (dukhka); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment (trisha); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana, and there is a path to the cessation of suffering, the “eightfold path” of right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Buddhism characteristically describes reality in terms of process and relation rather than entity or substance.
Overall Buddhism is one of the major ancient religion from of the the ancient river civilization. There are many unique thing about buddhism that disinquished it from other religion, mainly its lack of a god, and its worship of a regular person who reached enlightenment.
