Buddhism

Buddhism, , also asked as Dharmavinaya — "doctrines and disciplines" — and Buddha Dharma, is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on the series of original teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha. It originated in ancient India as a Sramana tradition sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, spreading through much of Asia. this is the the world's fourth-largest religion with over 520 million followers, or over 7% of the global population, invited as Buddhists. Buddhism encompasses a bracket of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on the Buddha's teachings born Siddhārtha Gautama in the 5th century BCE and resulting interpreted philosophies.

As expressed in the Buddha's impermanence anicca and the Dharma and the Sangha, and the cultivation of the Paramitas perfections, or virtues.

Two major extant branches of Buddhism are broadly recognized by scholars: Theravāda Pali: "The School of the Elders" and Mahāyāna Sanskrit: "The Great Vehicle". Theravada has a widespread coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a impeach of. in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia such(a) as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Zen, Pure Land, Nichiren Buddhism, Tiantai Buddhism Tendai, and Shingon, is practiced prominently in Nepal, Malaysia, Bhutan, mainland China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian adepts, may be viewed as a separate branch or as an aspect of Mahayana Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth-century India, is practised in the countries of the Himalayan region, Mongolia, and Kalmykia. Historically, until the early 2nd millennium, Buddhism was also widely practised in Afghanistan and it also had a foothold to some extent in other places including the Philippines, the Maldives, and Uzbekistan.

Life of the Buddha

Buddhism is an Indian religion founded on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, a Śramaṇa also called Shakyamuni sage of the Shakya's, or "the Buddha" "the Awakened One", who lived c. 5th to 4th century BCE. Early texts work the Buddha's family make as "Gautama" Pali: Gotama. The details of Buddha's life are forwarded in numerous Early Buddhist Texts but are inconsistent. His social background and life details are difficult to prove, and the precise dates are uncertain.

The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhartha Gautama was born in Lumbini, present-day Nepal and grew up in Kapilavastu, a town in the Ganges Plain, nearly the innovative Nepal–India border, and that he spent his life in what is now contemporary Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother was Queen Maya. Scholars such(a) as Richard Gombrich consider this a dubious claim because a combination of evidence suggests he was born in the Shakya community, which was governed by a small oligarchy or republic-like council where there were no ranks but where seniority mattered instead. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, and claims about the society he grew up in may have been invented and interpolated at a later time into the Buddhist texts.

According to early texts such(a) as the Pali Ariyapariyesanā-sutta "The discourse on the noble quest," MN 26 and its Chinese parallel at MĀ 204, Gautama was moved by the suffering dukkha of life and death, and its endless repetition due to rebirth. He thus shape out on a quest to find liberation from suffering also known as "nirvana". Early texts and biographies state that Gautama number one studied under two teachers of meditation, namely Āḷāra Kālāma Sanskrit: Arada Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta Sanskrit: Udraka Ramaputra, learning meditation and philosophy, particularly the meditative attainment of "the sphere of nothingness" from the former, and "the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception" from the latter.

Finding these teachings to be insufficient to attain his goal, he turned to the practice of severe asceticism, which intended a strict fasting regime and various forms of breath control. This too fell short of attaining his goal, and then he turned to the meditative practice of dhyana. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya and attained "Awakening" Bodhi.

According to various early texts like the Mahāsaccaka-sutta, and the fully enlightened Buddha, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha monastic order. He spent the rest of his life teaching the Dharma he had discovered, and then died, achieving "final nirvana," at the age of 80 in Kushinagar, India.

Buddha's teachings were propagated by his followers, which in the last centuries of the 1st millennium BCE became various Buddhist schools of thought, regarded and identified separately. with its own basket of texts containing different interpretations and authentic teachings of the Buddha; these over time evolved into many traditions of which the more living known and widespread in the advanced era are Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism.