Buddhism
Buddhism After the Buddha
Buddhism spread slowly in India until the powerful
Maurya emperor
Asoka
converted to it and actively supported it. His promotion led to
construction of Buddhist religious sites and missionary efforts
that spread the faith into the countries listed at the beginning
of the article.
After about 500, Buddhism waned in India, becoming a very minor
religion after about 1200. This was partially due to
Muslim
invasions, and partially due to
Hinduism absorbing Buddhist principles. It remained in the
rest of the world, although in Central Asia and later Indonesia it
was mostly replaced by Islam. In China and Japan, it blended with
the native beliefs of
Confucianism and
Shinto, respectively.
History of the schools
Three months after the passing of Gautama Buddha, The First
Council was held by the Sangha. At this point, no conflict
about what the Buddha taught is known to have occurred, so the
teachings were divided into various parts and each was assigned to
an elder and his pupils to commit to memory. These groups of
people often cross-checked with each other to ensure that no
omissions or additions were made.
At the Second Council, one hundred years later, it was
not the dharma that was called into question but the monks' code
of rules or
vinaya. This resulted in the formation of the Sthaviravādin
and Mahāsanghika schools. Opinions differ on the cause of the
split: the Sthaviravādins described their opponents as lax monks
who had ceased to follow all the vinaya rules, while the
Mahāsanghikas argued that the Buddha had never intended a rigid
adherence to all the minor rules. After this initial division,
more were to follow. Schism in early Buddhism was typically not on
points of doctrine (orthodoxy), but in the area of practice
(orthopraxy). So if two schools shared a vinaya, but were in
dispute over doctrinal matters, it was not unlikely that they
would continue to practice together. However, if one group
disputed the vinaya of another, this would often prevent common
practice.
In the
3rd century BC the Third Council occurred, where
small sects called into to question not only the vinaya but the
details of the Dharma. The chairman of the Council, Moggaliputta
Tissa, compiled a book called the Kathavatthu, which was
meant to refute the heretical, false views and theories held by
some sects. Moggaliputta's views were of course disputed by his
opponents. The version of the scriptures that had been established
at the Third Council, including the vinaya and the
Abhidhamma commentaries, was taken to
Sri Lanka by the son of Emperor
Ashoka.
There it was eventually committed to
writing in the
Pali
language. The
Pali Canon remains the only complete set of
Nikaya scriptures to survive, although fragments of other
versions exist.
Between the
1st century BC and the
1st century AD, the terms
Mahayana and
Hinayana were first used in writing, in, for example, the
Lotus Sutra.
During and after the
2nd century, versions of the Mahayana vision became clearly
defined in the works of
Nagarjuna, Asanga, Shantideva,
Ashvagosha, and Vasubandhu.
Around the
1st century, Buddhism spread from India through successive
waves of merchants and pilgrims. It reached as far as Arabia to
the west, and eastward to southeast Asia, where the first records
of Buddhism date from around
400. Mahayana Buddhism established a major regional center in
what is today
Afghanistan, and from there it spread to
China, Korea, Mongolia, and
Japan. In
475,
the Indian monk
Bodhidharma travelled to China and established the
Chan
(Chinese;
Japanese:
Zen),
school. During the
first millennium, monks from China such as
Yijing and
Xuanzang made pilgrimages to India.
At one time, different
Turkic and
Tocharian groups along the northern fringe of
East Turkestan (modern
Xinjiang in western China) adhered to the Theravada school.
However, Buddhism there was supplanted by the introduction of
Islam
around
1000.
Vajrayana also evolved at this stage carried from
India
to
Tibet around
800 by teachers such as
Padmasambhava and
Atisha. There it initially coexisted with native belief
systems such as
Bön,
but later came to largely supplant or absorb them. An early form
of esoteric Vajrayana known as
Shingon was also transmitted by the priest
Kūkai
to
Japan, where it continues to be practiced.
There is still an active debate as to whether or not
Tantrism was initially developed within Buddhism or Hinduism.
Buddhist literature tends to predate the later puranic Tantras,
and there is some evidence to suggest that the basic structure of
tantra depends upon the Mahayana Buddhist philosophical schools.
See also:
Timeline of Buddhism
Scriptures
The Buddhist canon of
scripture is known in
Sanskrit as the Tripiṭaka and in
Pāli
as the
Tipiṭaka. These terms literally mean "three baskets" and
refers to the three main divisions of the canon, which are:
- The
Vināya Piṭaka, containing disciplinary rules for the
Sāṅgha of Buddhist
monks
and nuns,
as well as a range of other texts which explain why and how
rules were instituted, supporting material, and doctrinal
clarification.
- The Sutta Piṭaka (Pāli; Sanskrit: Sutra Piṭaka),
containing discourses of the Buddha.
- The
Abhidhamma or commentary Piṭaka (Pāli;
Sanskrit: Abhidharma Piṭaka), containing a philosophical
systematization of the Buddha's teaching, including a detailed
analysis of Buddhist psychology.
During the first few centuries after
Gautama Buddha, his teachings were transmitted orally, but
around the
1st Century
CE they began to be written down. A given school of Buddhism
will generally have its own distinctive canon of texts, which will
partially overlap with those of other schools. The most notable
set of texts from the early period is the
Pali Canon, which was preserved in
Sri Lanka by the
Theravāda school. The sutras it contains are also part of the
canon of every other Buddhist sect. Full versions of the original
text[1]
(http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/palicanon.html)
and partial English translations[2]
(http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/)
are now readily available on the internet.
The appearance of the
Mahāyāna tradition brought with it a collection of new texts,
composed in
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, many of which were also described as
actual sermons of the
Buddha. These include the
Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, the
Avataṃsaka, the
Lotus Sutra, the
Vimalakīrti Sutra, and the
ṇirvana Sutra. Many of the Mahayana sutras were translated
into Tibetan and
classical Chinese and are also now read in the West.
The Mahāyāna canon further expanded after Buddhism was
transmitted to China, where the existing texts were translated,
and new texts were composed for the purpose of adapting the Indian
tradition to the East Asian philosophical mindset. Many of these
works are considered by modern scholars to be spurious. Other new
texts, such as the
Platform Sutra and the
Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment did not pretend to be of Indian
origin, but were widely accepted as valid scriptures on their own
merits. Later writings include the
Linji Lu of
Chan
master
Linji. In the course of the development of
Korean Buddhism and
Japanese Buddhism, further important texts were composed.
These included, for example, in Korea, some of the writings of
Jinul,
and in Japan, works such as
Dogen's
Shobogenzo.
Arguably the most thorough compilation of Mahayana sutras is
found in the Tibetan canon. This is split into those texts
attributed to be authored by the Buddha (Kanjur), and those texts
which are understood to be commentaries by Indian practitioners
(Tenjur).
Vajrayāna practitioners also study distinctive texts such as
the Buddhist
tantras.
Recently an important archaeological discovery was made,
consisting of the earliest known Buddhist manuscripts, recovered
from somewhere near ancient
Gandhara in northwest
Pakistan. These fragments, written on birch bark, are dated to
the
1st century and have been compared to the
Dead Sea scrolls in importance. Donated to the
British Library in
1994,
they are now are being studied in a joint project at the
University of Washington[3]
(http://depts.washington.edu/ebmp/).
Relations with other faiths
Some
Hindus believe that Gautama is the 9th incarnation of
Vishnu, and in the religion of
Shintoism, he is seen as a
Kami.
The
Baha'i Faith states he was an independent Manifestation of
God. Siddhartha Gautama is thought to have been sanctified by the
Roman Catholic Church as Saint
Josaphat based on a mistaken account of his conversion to
Christianity. Some
Muslims
believe that Gautama Buddha is
Dhul-Kifl, one of the prophets mentioned in the
Qur'an
Buddhism in the modern world
According to
statistics from adherents.com (http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html),
estimates of the number of Buddhists vary between 230 and 500
million, with 350 million as the most commonly cited figure.
Modern Asia
In northern Asia,
Mahāyāna remains the most common form of Buddhism in
China,
Japan,
Korea,
and
Vietnam.
Theravāda predominates in most of
Southeast Asia, including
Burma,
Cambodia,
Laos
and
Thailand, as well as
Sri Lanka.
Vajrayāna is predominant in
Tibet,
Mongolia, and portions of
India.
While in the West, Buddhism is often seen an as exotic and
progressive, in the East, Buddhism is regarded as familiar and
part of the establishment. Buddhist organizations in Asia
frequently are well-funded and enjoy support from the wealthy and
influential. In some cases, this has led critics to charge that
certain monks and organizations are too closely associated with
powerful and are neglecting their duties to the poor.
Buddhism and the West
In the latter half of the 1800s, Buddhism (along with many
other of the world's religions and philosophies) came to the
attention of Western intellectuals. These included the pessimistic
German philosopher
Schopenhauer and the American philosopher
Henry David Thoreau, who translated a Buddhist sutra from
French into English. Spiritual enthusiasts enjoyed what they saw
as the exotic and mystical tone of the Asian traditions. At first
Western Buddhology was hampered by poor translations (often
translations of translations), but soon Western scholars began to
learn Asian languages and translate Asian texts. In
1899
Gordon Douglas became the first Westerner to be ordained as a
Buddhist monk.
The first Buddhists to arrive in the
United States were Chinese. Hired as cheap labor for the
railroads and other expanding industries, they established
temples in their settlements along the rail lines.
The cultural re-evaluations of the
hippie generation in the late
1960s
and early
1970s
included a renewed interest in Buddhism, proclaimed by some of
them as a natural path to awareness, and enlightenment. Many
people, including celebrities, traveled to Asia in pursuit of
gurus and ancient wisdom. Buddhism had become the fastest-growing
religion in Australia and many other Western nations by the 1990s,
in contrast to the steady decline of traditional western beliefs
(see
Christianity).
A distinctive feature of Buddhism in the West has been the
emergence of groups that, while drawing on traditional Buddhism,
attempt to create a new form of non-sectarian Buddhist practice.
Examples include the Shambala movement, founded by
Chögyam_Trungpa, and the
Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, founded by
Sangharakshita.
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