Buddhism Emerges  

     Around the same period of history (500 BCE), another major religion of India, Buddhism, was born. This is the only religion that originated in India but spread and flourished more outside its borders. Buddhism took strong roots in China, Tibet, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Korea, and Sri Lanka, and it is still very popular in many of these countries. Buddhist monks also went to the West, to far places such as Egypt, Syria, and Greece. It is believed that as many as eighty-four thousand monks were sent out of the country to propagate the spiritual message of the Buddha. According to historian Professor Mahaffy, Buddhist monks preached in Palestine and Syria a couple of centuries before the birth of Christ.76 In the opinion of the learned Anglican priest C. F. Andrews; the ideal of ahimsa (nonviolence) was planted in a holy manner from the Hindu origin.77 The inscriptions in the period of famous Emperor Ashoka’s reign reveal that many Greeks adopted Buddhism; a number of Greek names of donors to Ashoka’s coffers are written in the caves at Karla and Nasik.78 It is also believed that the grand and gorgeous temples built by the Buddhist kings helped spread this religion. In India, however, after the initial period of its rapid rise, there was a sharp decline in the influence of Buddhism, mainly due to the heavy destruction of the Buddhist monasteries by Muslim invaders. The concentration of the Buddhist talent at Nalanda may have been the cause of the abrupt decline, the renaissance of Hinduism brought about by Sri Shankaracharya being another important reason.

      Gautama was the prince born in northeast India. His original name was Siddhartha. After his birth, an astrologer predicted that he would be an ascetic. His father, the king, did not want this to happen, so he prevented the young prince from coming into contact with any sorrowful events, which might turn his mind toward a more spiritual search. The king’s plan failed, however, as the prince did come face to face with the realities of old age, disease, and death. The phenomenon of kaal chakra, or the cycle of time, was impressed deeply upon his mind. Later, this concept of inevitable suffering would become the pivotal point of his teachings to the entire world.

     Prince Siddhartha, who was by now married and had a son, left the palace in search of enlightenment. He performed penance for twelve years by going through extreme degrees of physical austerity and discomfort. Toward the end of this period of penance, he once nearly fainted from hunger and exhaustion. He then realized that by physical torture alone man would not attain the spiritual goal. He therefore gave up extreme degrees of penance, just as he had given up the extreme degrees of indulgence twelve years previously. He adopted the new middle path of moderation. This would be the cornerstone of his spiritual practices in the future. But it was ultimately the process of deep meditation, while sitting under the famous banyan tree at Sarnath that brought him the enlightenment he had been seeking for so long. Later, when asked whether he was a god or an angel, he simply acknowledged, “I am awake, and I know.”79 He came to be known as Buddha—the wise one!

      The middle path of Buddha is, in fact, the path of using one’s own superior mind intelligently and with spiritual compassion and love. Nirvana, which literally translates as “salvation,” refers more to the abdication of the selfish ego than to the material things of life. Buddha’s avowed declaration not to fall before the worldly temptations (mara) and, at the same time, not to succumb blindly to the demands of the extreme renunciation (sanyasin) is truly a major transformation in religious philosophy. The Buddha also asserted the role of free will in human development. Although Buddhism became separated as a new faith, Hinduism adapted the spiritual thinking of Buddha in a positive and effective manner. Free will, from this point onward, became an important issue in Hindu philosophy. There appears to be a misconception that Buddha did not believe in the Vedas. In fact, he rejected only the ritualistic nature of the Vedic teachings. His teachings are otherwise mainly based on the Vedic concepts.

     Legend has it that during one of Buddha’s sojourns in the forests, he came face-to-face with a renowned dacoit—a member of a robber band—who would kill people and then wear a garland of amputated fingers from each of his victims, as a souvenir of his brutality. Thus, he became known as Anglimala, the necklace of fingers! When the dacoit was about to hack at him, Lord Buddha asked him to first bring him a few leaves from a tree. Afterward, Buddha asked him to reattach the leaves back onto the tree. When this could not be done, the dacoit was enlightened that he should not take life when he could not give one. In time, Buddha’s preaching of non-violence became a world teaching. Although non-violence (ahimsa) was earlier preached in the Vedas, it was in the period of the Mahavira and the Buddha when the greatest emphasis was laid on this doctrine of human behavior.

     When anyone insulted Lord Buddha, he simply ignored him, saying, “I do not accept what you offered me. Your gift [of abuses] therefore stays with you!” He introduced a policy of tact in place of arguments and quarrels. Later, his famous disciple Emperor Ashoka laid down his arms after a successful though bloody war, in quest of peace and accord. His reign of forty years is considered unparalleled in history, as he may have been the first ruler to condemn war without qualification. He sent religious peace missions to many lands, such as Burma, Ceylon, Egypt, Syria, and Macedonia. He lovingly advised his subjects that happiness is rooted in morality and goodness.80 Among his many inscriptions of Buddhist teachings on the pillars, one is most notable: “For he who does reverence to his own sect while disparaging the sects of others with intent to enhance the splendor of his own sect, in reality by such conduct inflicts severest injury on his own sect.”81 Buddha taught compassion for all, including those who have caused harm to us. To return good for evil, benevolence for injury, love for hate, and compassion for harm are some of the characteristics of the qualities of the bodhi mind.82 Buddha also pointed out that human happiness is completely interdependent; helping others helps us. The message of the Buddha conquered many lands, without sending a single fighting soldier anywhere.

     Buddha was a spiritual teacher with utmost compassion. After his own enlightenment, he first preached his gospel to his five disciples, who moved along with him. Later, he started a monk order, Sangha, to propagate the teachings. He soon created a cadre of five hundred realized souls, who had mastered the techniques of introspective meditation. His teachings spread far and wide to many foreign countries. His teachings attracted many, who later dedicated themselves to the cause of spreading his message. Among such messages carved on the pillars, one stands out:
              Samavaya eva sadhuh (Concord alone is right and proper).
 This   message of advaitya has its roots in the Vedic scriptures. This would be the forerunner for other teachings, such as avoiding sectarian intolerance, violence, war, and persecution of other faiths. The current national flag of India contains a navy blue dharama chakra (wheel of the law), which is the reproduction of a similar design on the Sarnath pillar erected in the third century BCE.

     Buddha also rejected the caste system outright and preached religion without the rituals. After the great enlightenment, Buddha immediately saw the need to propagate this vital knowledge to all humanity. He also met his wife, Yashoda, and son, Rahul, whom he had left earlier. He explained that regardless of any material possessions that a son may inherit from his father, the legacy of spiritual teachings are much more worthy and important in life. He then continued to teach for forty-five years before passing away at the age of eighty, on the auspicious day of the full moon. Up to the time of his death, he had continued to be open-minded in his attitude. Unlike most other gurus and teachers, he stressed that others should adopt his teachings only when they were convinced about the efficacy of his message in their personal lives.

     The essential message of Buddha, the wise one, however, lies in the core philosophy of meditation. In place of fruitless controversies and debates of complicated theories on spiritual subjects, he advocated the simple technique of meditation. When a man sits in deep concentration, awake and focused on his thought processes, undistracted by the din of the world, watchful of all events passing through his mind, he becomes an intelligent witness to all the goings on of his body and thus realizes the truth of life.
     This concept of meditation would strongly influence the world many centuries later. Today, people all over the world sit in the Buddha pose in meditation, in search of salvation—Nirvana. Thousands of meditation centers have appeared all across India, America, Europe, and other countries, many of them in rich and sophisticated surroundings. Modern people look to meditation as a preferred method of solving their physical and emotional problems. They realize the eternal spiritual connection of the higher self. Gautama realized this connection in the spark of his enlightenment. He then passed on this inner knowledge to mankind.
     Modern scientists have discovered that we use only a small fraction of the vast supply of the neurons in the brain. In meditation, we awaken and excite more of these latent neurons into activity. Some of these neuron centers are activated to think and contemplate in more wise and useful ways than the hitherto used lower centers. We then may see the happenings of the world in an entirely different way, realizing the sacredness of life more vividly, as well as perceiving the spiritual purpose in our universe.

     Buddhism was later divided into two main sects, Hinayana and Mahayana. Hinayana, which translates as the lesser vehicle, was propounded in public teachings, while Mahayana, the greater vehicle, was structured for the disciples of a higher level and points toward the higher universal consciousness.83 The Mahayana group mainly stayed in Tibet and incorporated many internal meditation techniques, including the Buddhist Tantras, also called Vajrayana, which are similar in many respects to the advanced teachings of the Upanishads, Raj yoga and many different techniques of the Kundalini chakras of the Hindu order. Hinayana spread to many South Asian countries besides India. The Hinayana, which is also popular as the Theravada (old) sect, believes, much like the Jains, that there were many Buddhas—the enlightened souls—before this last one, the Gautam Buddha.

     There is great amount of overlapping in the teachings and practices of all the religions that originated on Indian subcontinent. Buddhism and Jainism were essentially reform movements in the Hindu spiritual philosophy. The caste-weary people from all classes—barring the upper-caste Brahmins and the women, who also were slighted by the Aryan social structure—jumped onto their bandwagon with great enthusiasm. The priests, who had commanded the highest status, were dispensed with. Human weakness, however, prevailed, with all its faults and foibles. New rituals replaced the old ones. The monks and other holy men came to the forefront in new garb—along with their shortcomings and vulnerabilities. The phenomenon of God, which was rejected by both Jainism and Buddhism, was reinstated in a different form as the devotees worshipped Mahavira and Buddha as gods. Some reforms remained, but many were diluted in course of time.

     Changing the practices that make up the religion may not be so difficult, but changing the hearts of the followers is not as easy. Very often, the followers are not able to keep pace with the high ideals of the founders.

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