BUDDHISM

According to the beautiful literary legend told

by Ashvaghosha in the first century CE, Prince
Siddhartha Gautama was born in the year 563
BCE from a royal Shakya family in a place
called Lumbini located in present-day Nepal.
 According to this same legend, seers
foretold the fate of Prince Siddharta: he
will either be a great king or an
enlightened teacher.
 He will only become a teacher if he sees the
“four passing sights” namely old age,
sickness, death, and a wandering ascetic. Once
he sees these sights he will renounce his royal
life and withdraw from the rest of society to
seek enlightenment.
His father, the king, was furious to hear about
this prophecy because he wanted Siddharta to
become a great ruler so shielded the prince
from these realities of life and made him live in
an artificial protected environment.
 At age 29 though, Siddharta went out of the space that
confined him and saw the very sights his father made
him to avoid. Like the seers foretold he left the luxury of
the palace and withdrew in the forest to study and live
and austere life with teachers and fellow ascetics.
However, his journey to become a great
teacher did not end here. Living with teachers
and ascetics of his period made him realized
that severe bodily austerities promoted by
these did not help him answer the question of
the source of suffering and the release from it.
Because he was able to experience both self-
indulgence (life in the palace) and self-denial
(life in the forest), he decided to settle on a
“middle way,” a balance between these two
extremes.
From then on, Siddharta pursued the way of
meditation and emerged as the Buddha or
“Awakened One” with the teachings that
would be the foundation of what will become
Buddhism.
It is clear from the history and life of
Siddharta Gautama that the social, political,
and cultural spheres of Indian society shaped
his experience and thoughts on suffering and
the release from it.
1. The rise of the Paurava Empire:
Aryans have established a new empire, the
Paurava Empire in northern India during the
13th century BCE.
2. The writing of the Vedas: The
Aryans’ codified their religion in the
sacred texts collectively called the
Vedas by the 19 century BCE.
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3. The rise of the Brahmins. The
codification of the Aryan religion led to the
establishment of a new socio-religious
structure (“caste”) known as the “Brahmins”
or priests.
4. The decline of the Paurava Empire: In
the 8th century BCE The Paurava Empire declined
after a great flood forced the relocation of the
capital. The once grand empire broke into many
smaller republics and kingdoms. This led to the
advent of a period of philosophical and religious
speculation.
5. The institutionalization of Brahmanism. The
1st century BCE (566-485 BCE) was the period of the
Buddha’s lifetime. During this period the Paurava
Empire have thoroughly declined and major republics
have emerged. These republics functioned through
either democratic (like the Vrji Republic) or autocratic
political institutions (like Kosala and Magadha).
6. Rise of the merchants. Buddha’s lifetime
saw the rise of a wealthy merchant class. The
merchants’ accumulation of money threatened
the kings who became less rich than the
merchants prompting them to bestow more
autocratic measures in commerce and society at
large.
7. The Brahmanas and the Shramanas.
Before Buddha’s enlightenment two paths
were open for the sincere spiritual seeker
looking for liberation from the suffering that
proliferated in ancient Indian society.
The Brahmanas were solitary ascetics
living in the forests. They were part of the
Brahmanic tradition that followed the
Upanishad.
The Shramanas were wandering mendicant
spiritual seekers. They were not Brahmins.
Caste was not a requirement for being a
Shramana. They lived together in forests in
groups called sangha. Budddha joined the
Shramanas during his period of enlightenment.
THANK
YOU!