QUICKLINKS

Resources and Tools

Florida Nature and Culture Center

Women's Activities

Men's Activities

Youth Activities

Soka Spirit

Contributions

Leadership Resources

Zone and Regional Sites

Early Buddhism

Buddhism generally is believed to have arisen in what is now India during the sixth or fifth century B.C.E. from the teachings of the historical Buddha, or “enlightened one.” Shakyamuni [1] (literally, “sage of the Shakya tribe”) was kept in isolation during his youth by his father, but excursions beyond the palace walls led to one of his most fundamental realizations: Life inevitably manifests suffering and impermanence. This is represented in Buddhism as the four sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death which affect every living being, without exception. Choosing to confront this dilemma, Shakyamuni renounced his claim to his father’s throne and embarked on a search for a way to transcend the sufferings of life. After years of practicing the most extreme forms of asceticism and no closer to an answer, he concluded that the path to understanding lay neither in self-denial nor in the pleasure-filled life of his youth, but in between them, in a Middle Way. Abandoning his ascetic practice and meditating deeply through the night, he “destroyed his remaining impurities, eliminated his false views, and experienced the goal of Buddhahood (literally ‘the state of being awakened’).” [2]               

Thus began the career of one of the great religious figures of history. By all accounts he was a man of boundless compassion and peace, “a thinker of giant proportions who, for the sake of people in ages to come, persisted in his efforts to ... free human existence from all impediments.” [3] By the time of his death, thousands had been converted to the new wisdom he propounded. Some joined his monastic order, renouncing the secular world; but many did not, remaining as “householders” amidst the flows of society.

Within a year of Shakyamuni’s death, most scholars agree, the first of four Buddhist councils was held. It apparently was highly successful in solidifying the teachings, unifying the Buddhist order and providing a practical foundation for the conduct of its affairs. Approximately 100 years later a second council was convened to resolve a dispute over rules of monastic behavior. Over the ensuing century and a half, as Buddhism continued to spread, further doctrinal disputes arose. By the third council, circa 250 B.C.E., sponsored by King Ashoka [4] , the one thousand monks in attendance sought to clear up confusion and to correct misinterpretations of the Buddha’s teachings.    

Within a century of that third council a major new movement had developed, called Mahayana (literally, “greater vehicle”). Rejecting what they perceived as isolationism and exclusivism in the traditional schools, its adherents introduced the idea of a practice exemplified by dedication to the salvation of others as well as the self—the Bodhisattva way—which they believed more accurately reflected the intent of Shakyamuni than the self-oriented practice of the traditionalists. Mahayana spread rapidly along the Silk Road into China, then into Korea and Japan. The schools of the earlier tradition, collectively called the Nikaya sects because they are based on the Nikaya sutras, spread into Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. [5] Tantric Buddhism, also known as Vajrayana or Esoteric Buddhism, developed around 600 C.E. and became a formalized stream within Mahayana that spread to Central Asia, China, and Tibet, where it has remained an important influence. In India itself, Buddhism was gradually absorbed into Hinduism, virtually ceasing to exist as an independent faith.