5 results for “spread of Buddhism”
Buddhism spread from northern India to Sri Lanka, Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and Tibet. Royal patronage, trade routes, monasteries, travelling monks, translation movements and local adaptation all played major roles in this expansion.
Siddhartha Gautama was a historical religious teacher associated with the Shakya community. Buddhist tradition connects his birth with Lumbini, enlightenment with Bodh Gaya, first sermon with Sarnath and Mahaparinirvana with Kushinagar. His path rejected both sensual indulgence and extreme self-mortification in favour of the Middle Way.
Major Buddhist teachings include the Middle Way, impermanence, dukkha, not-self, dependent origination, karma, rebirth, Nirvana, ethical discipline, meditation, wisdom, loving-kindness and compassion. Buddhism analyses experience as a changing process conditioned by causes rather than as the expression of an eternal unchanging self.
Buddhism developed into many schools and traditions. Hinayana is a later polemical term and is not an exact synonym for Theravada. Theravada preserves the Pali canonical tradition, while Mahayana strongly developed the Bodhisattva ideal, additional sutras and major philosophical traditions.
Around the sixth century BCE, the growth of states, towns, trade, crafts and new social groups coincided with major religious and philosophical questioning. Shramana traditions, including Jainism, Buddhism and the Ajivikas, developed within this wider social and intellectual transformation.
