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The religion evolved as it spread from the northeastern region of the Indian subcontinent throughout Central, East, and Southeast Asia. At one time or another, it influenced most of Asia. The history of Buddhism is also characterized by the development of numerous movements, schisms, and philosophical schools.
The belief that there is an afterlife and not everything ends with death, that Buddha taught and followed a successful path to nirvana; [215] according to Peter Harvey, the right view is held in Buddhism as a belief in the Buddhist principles of karma and rebirth, and the importance of the Four Noble Truths and the True Realities. [218] 2.
Throughout the history of Buddhism, the worship of deities, often from pre-Buddhist and animist origins, was appropriated or transformed into Buddhist practices and beliefs. As part of this process, such deities were explained as subordinate to the Triple Gem, which still kept a central role.
Buddhist mythology contains legends of the Buddhas of past ages, such as Vipassi. An important source for these is the Pali Theravāda Buddhavamsa (Buddha Chronicle) which chronicles the stories of 24 past Buddhas. [37] Buddhist works also include a wide range of prophetic myths, which speak of future events.
Within the Eastern Buddhist tradition of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, the traditional date for Buddha's death was 949 BCE, [1] but according to the Ka-tan system of the Kalachakra tradition, Buddha's death was about 833 BCE. [63] Buddhist texts present two chronologies which have been used to date the lifetime of the Buddha. [64]
Based on their understanding of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Chinese Buddhist monks and philosophers supposed that the teaching of the Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) was, as stated by that Sūtra, the final Buddhist teaching, and that there is an essential truth above emptiness (śūnyatā) and the two truths. [5]
The Navayana, a modernistic interpretation of Buddhism by the Indian leader and Buddhist scholar B. R. Ambedkar, [236] rejected much of traditional Buddhism, including the Four Noble Truths, karma and rebirth, thus turning his new religion into a vehicle for class struggle and social action. [237]
He reaches both the famous Buddhist mountain of Wutaishan and the Chinese capital, Chang'an, keeping a detailed diary that is a primary source for this period of Chinese history, including the Buddhist persecution. 841–846: Emperor Wuzong of the Tang dynasty (given name: Li Yan) reigns in China; he is one of three Chinese emperors to prohibit ...