Buddhism originated in the Ganges River plain in Northeastern India, sometime around 500 B.C. Its founder was a person called Siddartha Gautama, later given the title “The Buddha,” meaning “The Enlightened One.” He is sometimes also called Shakyamuni (shakya-muni, lit. a muni/monk of the shakya tribe). He was born in what is today the country of Nepal, close to the border with Northern India.
At the time Buddhism arose, there already existed in India a well-developed tradition which we now call “Hinduism.” Beliefs and practices central to this tradition at the time Buddhism arose are known to us by two bodies of writings, (1) the Vedas, originally mostly a collection of hymns to be sung at religious ceremonies, and (2) the Upanishads, containing a great deal more philosophical ideas and also ideas and ideals connected to what I call personal transformative spirituality, aimed at bringing about fundamental changes in a person’s internal psychogical dynamics, claimed to raise a person’s life to a higher state. (Many ideas developed in the Upanishads were later read into the Vedas.)
The earliest portions of the Vedas are thought to have originated around 1300 b.c. The Upanishads were composed and written down over the course of seveal centuries from about 900-600 b.c. Also important for the history of ancient Hinduism is a writing called the Bhagavad Gita, an eclectic mix aiming to combine Indian social customs (the caste system), popular polytheistic religion, and ideas connected with transformational spirituality similar to what is taught in the Upanishads. The Bhagavad Gita was probably written down around 300 b.c., and gives us a good idea of religious tradition in India as it existed around the time the Buddhist Pali Canon (the earliest Buddhist writings) was written down. It is also the most popular of ancient Hindu writings in India today.
Among the main differences between the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and of the Pali Canon.
– In the Bhagavad Gita (BG), meditators prize certain ecstatic and blissful experiences, interpreted as union with one’s True Self (Atman), which is at the same time merging with Brahman, the highest (non-personal) being. Early Buddhists looked upon similar experiences as just another mental state, a possible object of Attachment, which must be transcended in order to reach Nibbana, the highest state. Nibbana is a transformative event brought about by the meditator’s own efforts. It has no relation to any supernatural being.
– The Bhagavad Gita attempts to connect the advanced teachings and spirituality of meditators with polytheistic religion common among the masses of non-meditators in India. It does this by interpreting all the gods and goddesses of popular religion, represented by statues in popular shrines, as many visible representations of the invisible Brahman. Thus worshipers before statues in shrines are said to be “unknowingly” worshipping the same Brahman that meditators might directly experience at deep meditation.
Various kinds of supernatural beings, inhabiting several heavenly realms, also appear in the Pali Canon. But they play no role in the transformational spirituality of Buddhist monks and nuns. And they occupy a realm far below that of the Buddha, who when he reached Nibbana/Enlightenment became the highest being in the universe (a status also achievable by anyone who reaches Nibbana). Some parts of the Pali canon tell stories of the Buddha travelling to heavenly realms to reveal true Buddhist teachings to large groups of divine inhabitants. Thus while the BG tries to establish a continuity between previous popular polytheistic religion and the transformational spirituality of meditators, the Pali Canon pictures no such continuity.
– The BG strongly supports the traditional Indian caste system, assigning different duties to different castes, and equates any breakdown of this system with social chaos. The Pali Canon contains no direct attack on the caste system, but ignores it. (I have heard reports of complaints about later Buddhist monasteries for allowing “the mixing of castes” among the body of monks and nuns).
So Buddhism arose in a religious culture in which there had already existed for several centuries a well-developed “Hindu” tradition. In some ways, the relation of early Buddhism to Hinduism was similar to the relation between early Christianity and pre-Christian Judaism. In both cases, we can observe a great deal of continuity, as well as some important divergences.
The Pali Canon gives us a good picture of the milieu in which Buddhism arose. It shows us that the earliest Buddhists were one among numerous many of wandering ascetics called samanas (most similar to the “desert fathers” of 3rd and 4th century Christianity). These were men (and a few women) who had “left home for homelessness”, and became spiritual seekers, seeking to raise their life beyond what they thought possible among people leading normal family and village life. These samanas apparently had considerable prestige among villagers, who provided them with food when they came begging, and went to them for moral advice.
Thus there was from earliest times a marked division between Buddhist samanas and Buddhist “householders.” Samanas developed many philosophical ideas and engaged in meditation practices we can read about in the Pali Canon, which were unknown to the average householder-Buddhists. Buddhist samanas encouraged householder Buddhists to observe a code of moral decency–the “five precepts,” forbidding killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, and drunkenness. But householder Buddhists were not expected to meditate or learn the more advanced aspects of Buddhist teaching which are the main topics of teachings in the Pali Canon.
Wandering Buddhist samanas gradually settled down into monasteries and convents, though there still existed hermits living by themselves or in small communities. But the division between the “advanced” Buddhism of monks and nuns, and the “Buddhism lite” of householder Buddhists, persisted until the late colonial period, when for example educated householder Buddhists in Sri Lanka sought to learn the more advanced Buddhist teachings and meditation practices, as part of an independence movement reviving elements of traditional Sri Lankan against the cultural dominance of British colonialists. This was the beginning of movements to adapt advanced teachings and meditation practices to the lives of people living normal family and social life outside of monasteries and convents. This is in fact the kind of modernizing lay Buddhist spirituality which Buddhist teachers eventually spread to the US and Europe, brought to the West by Buddhist teachers which were part of this movement, and by a few Westerners who traveled to Asian and brought back similar ideas to their own countries.
The earliest Buddhist writings were written down around 300-200 b.c. in a large collection of writing which we call the Pali Canon. Material in these writings was handed down orally for at least two centuries between the time of the Buddha and the time of the writing down of the Pali Canon.
In the first century b.c. there began to develop a major and enduring split between two groups of Buddhists, a “conservative” group who admitted no teachings beyond those taught in the Pali Canon, and a different group who incorporated into Buddhism many writings and teachings developed only later (but who still attributed these to the Buddha.)
There were initially a number of different Buddhist sects belonging to the conservative group, but for historical reasons, one group calling themselves Theravada (literally “elder-path”) is the only one that survived. Non-conservative groups are commonly grouped together under the name “Mahayana.” But in effect, Theravada is really a single uniform tradition, while “Mahayana” is really the name of a large group of sects which differ greatly among themselves. (Sometimes one hears the Buddhism is divided between “Mahayana” and “Hinayana” Buddhists. But “Hina-yana” means “the lesser path” and is a derogatory term that Mahayana Buddhists use to refer to Theravada Buddhists. Maha-yana means “the greater path”.)
Conservative Buddhists, Mahayana Buddhists, and devotees of Hinduism, coexisted in India side by side for over a thousand years. Muslim invaders were responsible for the demise of Buddhism in India in about 1000 a.d., so that there are few significant communities of Buddhists in India today (except in the far north of India where the Buddha lived). Theravada Buddhism escaped this destruction because it had meanwhile become established with royal patronage in Sri Lanka and then in other countries of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and what is now south Vietnam.)
The earliest evidence for Buddhism in China comes from the second century a.d. Various forms of Mahayana Buddhism took hold there and in other countries under the influence of Chinese culture (Korea, Japan, north Vietnam). This is where there developed beliefs in many Buddhas, and the practice of praying to particular Buddhas for special kinds of help. In Theravada Buddhism there is only one Buddha, Gotama the Buddha, who is owed great reverance, but (in official teaching) offers no help in response to prayers.
The Mahayana sect that we call Zen Buddhism first developed in China in about 800 a.d. where it was called Ch’an, a Chinese term derived from the Sanskrit dhyana, meaning “meditation”. “Zen” is the Japanese pronunciation of Ch’an.
But many other sects developed in these East Asian countries which are quite different from each other, though we find them all grouped under the general name Mahayana. For example, Zen Buddhism teaches pure self-reliance, rejecting dependence on supernatural beings of any kind to help reach enlightenment (the basis for the saying “if you see the Buddha on the road, kill him”). But another popular Mahayana sect is called “Pure Land” Buddhism, which teaches that it is useless to rely on one’s own efforts, that one has to rely instead solely on aid from a particular Buddha called Amida Buddha. If a person entrust herself to Amida Buddha, this Buddha will bring her to a heavenly “Pure Land” after she dies. (This sole reliance on divine help led some Catholic missionaries to complain of “Protestant” influence.)
One common mistake I think many Westerners make today is thinking that the Buddhism popular in Western countries today is the same as Buddhism as it exists among large numbers of Buddhists in Buddhist communities in Asia today. This I think is completely mistaken. The kind of Buddhism most Westerners are familiar with today is basically an adaptation of advanced Buddhist ideas and transformational spirituality traditionally taught in Buddhist monasteries and convents, but now adapted to the lives of people leading normal lives outside of monasteries. In some cases this adaptation was done by Asian-born individuals who first had formal traditional training in Buddhist monasteries in Asia. They then came to the US or Asia to teach some form of traditional monastic Buddhism they learned in Asia, adapted to people living outside monasteries. But there have also been a number of Westerners who traveled to Asia to learn what is essentially monastic Buddhism taught by Buddhist teachers there, then adapted this Buddhism to modern life in Western countries, for people not living in monasteries.
But, just as was true of the monastic tradition in medieval Christianity, monastic Buddhism has always been practice by a tiny minority of individuals compared to the wider community of Buddhists in Asia. I believe that the vast majority of self-identified “Buddhists” in Asia are not familiar at all with advanced Buddhist teachings studied by monks and nuns, and familiar to many Westerners interested in Buddhism. Especially in traditional times, very few Buddhists outside monasteries and convents studied advanced Buddhist teachings studied by monks and nuns, and even fewer regularly practiced Buddhist meditation. Despite some movements in Asia to adapt monastic Buddhist teachings and practices to live outside monasteries and convents, my impression is that these movements are relatively small compared to the masses of self-identified Buddhists in Asia.
