What led the development of Buddhism?

Answer 1

* Resentment of Hindu priests * Dissatisfaction with Hinduism * The migration of the Aryans
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, was born in Northern India (now Nepal) about 563 BCE to King Suddhodana and his wife Queen Maha Maya, so he was born a Prince. His mother died shortly after childbirth. The hermit seer Asita told his father, the King, that his son would either grow up to be a great ruler or a great holy man. The King didn't want his son to be a Holy man so he made it that the prince was only surrounded by luxury and beauty and hid from him sickness, old age and death. At 16 Siddhartha married his cousin of the same age named Yaśodharā. They had a child named Rāhula which means fetter (think ball and chain).

At the age of 29, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen what the real world for the first time and was deeply troubled about the fact that so many people suffer. So he left his wife and child and renounced his throne to find out the answer to why there was suffering. Now it should be noted when Buddhists speak of suffering this includes dissatisfaction (unhappiness) with the way things are. Siddhartha went to study with various gurus to try to find the answer to his question. Theses gurus had him do various types of yoga and meditation to try to help him with his quest. None of them seem to have an answer to his question though.

Siddhartha left these various gurus and joined in with a group of ascetics. Asceticism is a path in which you deprive the body in order to conquer and control the mind. He practiced asceticism fiercely, almost to the point of death. At that point he realized that neither giving in to pleasure, as he did when he was a prince, nor trying to punish the body, was the proper path to finding the answer. So he sat down and meditated under a pi-pal tree. During this meditation he discovered the root of all suffering and the path to how to overcome suffering and became enlightened.

After his enlightenment he meets up with his ascetic friends, who by now were critical of him for leaving the path of asceticism. But he explains to them what he had discovered and they were instantly converted. From there The Buddha taught for 45 years until his death at 85 converting many to his teachings and now Buddhism is the 4th largest religion in the world.

Answer 2

* Resentment of Hindu priests * Dissatisfaction with Hinduism * The migration of the Aryans
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, was born in Northern India (now Nepal) about 563 BCE to King Suddhodana and his wife Queen Maha Maya, so he was born a Prince. His mother died shortly after childbirth. The hermit seer Asita told his father, the King, that his son would either grow up to be a great ruler or a great holy man. The King didn't want his son to be a Holy man so he made it that the prince was only surrounded by luxury and beauty and hid from him sickness, old age and death. At 16 Siddhartha married his cousin of the same age named Yaśodharā. They had a child named Rāhula which means fetter (think ball and chain).

At the age of 29, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen what the real world for the first time and was deeply troubled about the fact that so many people suffer. So he left his wife and child and renounced his throne to find out the answer to why there was suffering. Now it should be noted when Buddhists speak of suffering this includes dissatisfaction (unhappiness) with the way things are. Siddhartha went to study with various gurus to try to find the answer to his question. Theses gurus had him do various types of yoga and meditation to try to help him with his quest. None of them seem to have an answer to his question though.

Siddhartha left these various gurus and joined in with a group of ascetics. Asceticism is a path in which you deprive the body in order to conquer and control the mind. He practiced asceticism fiercely, almost to the point of death. At that point he realized that neither giving in to pleasure, as he did when he was a prince, nor trying to punish the body, was the proper path to finding the answer. So he sat down and meditated under a pi-pal tree. During this meditation he discovered the root of all suffering and the path to how to overcome suffering and became enlightened.

After his enlightenment he meets up with his ascetic friends, who by now were critical of him for leaving the path of asceticism. But he explains to them what he had discovered and they were instantly converted. From there The Buddha taught for 45 years until his death at 85 converting many to his teachings and now Buddhism is the 4th largest religion in the world.

Answer 3

Buddhism has spread through out world because of mainly two reasons

1. The philosophy of Buddhism is basically to eradicate sorrows of human being as well as to establish healthy relationship of human being with other living organisms including human being based on loving kindness

2. The great support of Buddhist king patrons like King Asoka the Great, Bimbisara and several others

Answer 4

Buddhism's creation can be seen to include social causes like the change from a rural/agrarian society to a city/trade society, which called for a system that de-emphasized group identity and put the focus on individual responsibility. And then there's the simple factor of one person being determined to find a better to answer to why everyone suffers, an answer better than any answer that came up before; the circumstances of a world in which everyone was talking about these things and there were many ideas, and lots of open debate in big city were encountered by an unusually keen mind that put the pieces together in the needed insights.

The development beyond that would again be largely social and an effect of the efforts of the original sage: He seems to have been the first to develop a strong, location-based monastic system and sustainable communities of monks with structured rules (ironically based on one of the old village systems of common consent that was replaced by the city-based rajas) as opposed to the more chaotic guru-disciple system that was predominant before then. The society at the time -- especially the new traders, who didn't fit into the existing class structure -- may have found the teachings on individual responsibility and actions having merit suited them very well. And the free movement opening up along trade routes made travel by monks safer and easier, so that they could spread the teaching, giving it a much broader base.

Answer 5

dissatisfaction with Hinduism