Buddhism is the fourth largest religion of the world after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Buddhism as a religion is attributed to Gautam Buddha, the wandering preacher but the enlightened or the knower. He actually was siddhartha born in 567 B.C and son of father Suddhodana and mother Maya of the Skya Kingdom at Kapilvastu. He was married to his cousin yasodhra and had a son named Rahul.

His sensitive mind became restless to know what was the meaning of all this suffering and why people smarted under this agony of existence? What was this world and this life of suffering for? What was the aim of existence. In what lies deliverance from this suffering? Such questions arose in his mind and awakened in him the consciousness for the age old burden of existence for mankind which he realised as the universal problem and he was determined to find solution for the mitigation of this suffering. So leaving the physical comforts of his life in the palaces, his beautiful wife and son, he left home at night to live the life of an ascetic with a view to have self-enlightenment.

He visited various temples and met many sadhus and religious people. He absorbed himself in deep philosophical thought, practiced physical austerities by fasting and other bodily mortifications, but failed to see light. He meditated for long time and turned his thoughts to God's creations, when suddenly a new light broke upon his mind and in this abrupt illumination the object of his quest was in his possession.

His serenity, gentleness, humility, dignity earnestness and wisdom and eloquence in preaching won the hearts of many men and women and followers gathered round him. When 12 years after leaving the home, he visited his parents, his wife, son, father and mother joined his fold. For 40 years he lived his missionary life, traveling and preaching and spreading his gospel among the masses and organising the sangha of his followers. At the time of his death at a ripe age of 80, his trusted disciple Anand was by his side whom, till the death, he gave counsels and directions.

The original teachings of Buddhism are set forth in the three Pitakas or baskets of the law. The first council of Rajagrha after Buddha's death, set them inorder to settle any disputes. The first pitaka called Abhidhammpitaka contained the metaphysical view and was recited by Kashyapa the most learned disciple of Budha at the first council. The second called Vinaya pitake containing the rules and laws of discipline was repeated by Upali, the oldest disciple of Buddha. The third called Suthapitaka contained the stories and parables told by Buddha during his preaching was repeated by Anand, who was the favourite disciple of Buddha.

Four Noble and Fundamental Truths

Buddhism essentially consisted in the propounding of the four noble and fundamental truths and the enunciation of the eight fold path leading to Nirvana. Buddha was convinced that there was suffering (Dukha) in life in one form or the other for all human beings. So this was the first truth that life is suffering as birth, decay, disease, death, union with the unpleasant, separation from the pleasant, unsatisfied craving of any sort, are all painful and tyrannical. Man cannot escape from pain and death may he try to go underwater, in the sky or in the den in the mountains. Also it is true that from wordly longing, wants arise which may be beyond ones' power of satisfying and hence suffering is invited or created. But side by side with pain and suffering there are occasion for extreem joy, peace and exhilerating comfort. Buddhism seems to blacken what is dark and darken what is grey. Pain does not seem to have predominance over pleasure. There is a touch of pessimism in Buddhism but still Buddha did not preach that life was worthless and that man was doomed. He asked man to revolt against pain and suffering and to have a life of finer quality as in a perfected being with purity of heart and detachment by following the ethical rules or discipline for liberation.

The second truth was that suffering had the causes (samudaya) as nothing happens without a cause. Craving for sense gratification and, for prosperity was the cause of suffering. Sensual delights and satisfaction now here, now there and involvement in and attachment with worldy pleasures leave a void after the enjoyment and this is painful and causes great suffering. The pleasures are transient and this knowledge is essential to stop the suffering as ignorance about the true nature of desires and their objects of satisfaction and about the effect of them on the self is the cause of suffering.

The third truth was that there was the way to escape this suffering (Nirodha). Man, if he tries, can mitigate the suffering which is not permanent and inevitable. There is hope for man to live a mentally happy and healthy life and to be able to reach a state of perfection amounting to Nirvan but how is the question? And that leads us to the fourth truth.
The fourth truth is about the path or the way (Marg). Buddha followed a middle course in which extreme self-indulgence and extreme self-mortification were to be avoided. Habitual indulgence in passions and pleasures of ensual things and habitual denial and self-mortification which is painful and ignoble are both to be discarded for this moderate living, the eight fold path was advocated. This was to have right beliefs, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct or action, right means of livelihood, right efforts, right-mindedness and right rupture or joy.

Right Beliefs means right thinking, right views and right knowledge. To avoid wrong action, right thinking and knowledge is essential, as action arise from thought and belief.

Right aspiration is that which is for good of the man and of the humanity. One should aspire for example, for renunciation and for good of all and to be one with all. The objective in life is to be such as leads to uplifting, to ennobling and to deeper life of human excellence and not leading to degredation and doom, as to aspire for greater wordly pleasures leads to doom.

Right speech means talking or opening one's mouth only when he must and speak out from the depth of one's heart, not jibbering or indulging in tall talk or non-serious gossiping. Talking or speech will have an effective or impact only when it arises from conviction and well-digested thought and honest desire to express onself; not telling a lie, not backbiting and not using harh or abusing words.

Right Action is action which is for the good of all and is not selfish. It is also not formal for the sake of doing it as ceremonies, prayers, rituals and sacrifices, as these have no bearing on one being good or on his advancement, as there is no outside force to be pleased as man is himself responsible for his actions. Some people bathe in the Ganga and offer water to their ancestors in heaven by lifting it up in their palms. How can bathing in the Ganga wash away their sins? or water be carried to Heaven? Instead of it kindness to servants, underlings, other living creaters is good and is right action. Anger, drunkeness, deception, envy etc. are wrong or bad actions. Worship of ugly, repulsive and morbid ascetics is bad and offends sweet reasonableness. Humility or shila (sffa") is right action and so is charity and dana or giving of alms to the needy. Self-sacrifice and non-violence also are right actions.

Right Means of Livelihood do not permit lying, deciept, fraud, chicanery or exploitation. Even menial work is honourable and as a matter of fact no work is menial It can only be manual. Rai Dass was a cobbler and Kabir was a weaver (though they were much after Buddha) and means of livelihood should be honest, according to one's capacity and circumstances, may it be agriculture, business or any other profession and craft.

Right Efforts stands for control of passions and checking the development of bad habits and bad qualities. To expel some undesirable idea, for example, one can attend to some good idea, think of the bad consequences rum attention from the bad idea and force the mind with some efforts not to think of it. Right efforts on the part of the individual leads to enlightement and one can check anger, envy, false pride and attachment to objects.

Rightmindedness in linked with right effort. It means right thinking with steady mental processes and not by oscillation or wavering. Control of ones emotions is necessary for right thinking and giving a free reigns to emotions prohibits right mindedness. One becomes morbid and diseased under the spell of emotions and moral progress is stopped. Some intuition to know the nature of things or to have insight into happening also is necessary for right mindedness. This insight is easily gained by feeling one with the whole situation and not by standing out as a seperate entity. The knowledge may be empirical as of the external world by sense experience of it may be intuitive when one is identified with the objects of experience or when one instead of standing apart is one with the whole. Intuition or prajna ends in enlightenment or in spiritual insight. Buddha seems to admit the reality of the absolute which we intuit in the state of prajna, when one is serene, pure and radiant with cognition of the whole by rising above perception of the world. This insight is of the transcendent reality with which come rupture and joy as in meditation or Dhayana which is higher contemplation.

Meditation

But Buddha stands from going deeper in this transcendental philosophy as the upnishads built. All the same he realised the importance of meditation in smadhi which leads to rupture through four stages. The first is joy in reflective contemplation when freedom from sensuality is gained. The second is of internal calm and a deep peace of mind without any conscious reflection. The third stage is when Atammoha or lust of the self is stopped. In the fourth there is complete tranquility of the mind and passionlessness, when egoism is given up. The moods of kindness, compassion, cheerfulness and impartiality prevail over all living beings, and this is the eight path of reaching a stage of rupture or ecstasy.

The Buddhists spent a part of daily life in contempelation in what they call BrahamVihara. This is for self-development by self efforts. There is no prayer or seeking grace and there is no religious sanction, but pure love of self knowledge and discipline of mind. There is self-absorption and control or restriction of all mental operations. Buddha adopted a pragmatic and agnostic attitude towards questions about transcental reality. He kept silient when metaphysical questions were raised as he thought these need not bother one, as those were not important for his ethical life, here and now. He seems to have full knowledge about ultimate problems as in his reflections and meditations such questions about, God, soul and the ultimate reality behind the phenomental world must have risen. But when he realised that there was no purpose served in knowing about the ultimate reality, when the essential need was ethical development here and now to make men fully above suffering, he better kept silent lest the mind of the multitude he disturbed and involved into useless discussions and be led astray from the main purpose of following the eight fold path for self redumption. He held that there were many more truths and if a man was really moral he would know them himself. The first essential need was to be moral which was not easy and a mean task. Still human mind is such that it searches for the truth and philosophical and metaphysical questions can not be sidetraked and perhaps morality will flow more automatically if the truth dawns and man's mind is at rest about the ultimate.

Nirvan

The ultimate end of human life is to attain Nirvan. Nirvan literally means to blow out, or to cool. Blowing out suggests extinction and cooling means dying out of hot passion and a released mind means that the flame is extinct. It means the extinction or destruction of the fire of lust and not complete extinction, as according to Buddha there is no absolute non-being Nirvan and even parinirvan means the absolute perfection of being or a flow of faultess state of consciousness. It is mental repdse and absolute peace free from all stresses and strains or conflicts of being. To another Buddhist Nagsena Nirvan is extinction or cessation or annihilation of all life. But to early Buddhists or early followers of Buddha it means complete being, enternal beautitude and exalted state high above all joys and sorrows of life. As in Vedanta it means destruction of all egoity in us and timless existence with full communion withs the whole universe as its integral part and full of peace, calm, bliss, purity and happiness. Some Buddhist call it union with Brahma. It is timeless existence and so Buddha indirectly admits the reality of a timeless self. The change in nature of the universe conceals that stable reality, Buddha himself is reported to have said that there was something not born not produced, not created, not compounded, and if there was not such a permanent principle there would be no possible exit for what was born. Nirvan was the highest sukh or bliss attained by what may be called me coming or when the ego or little self comes to the bosom of the Brahma or returns to itself according to Buddha, as he did not believe in the Braham as thought of in the Vedanta or in the Upnishads. To him to be born was to take up the burden of existence and Nirvan was to lay down the burden. Buddha thought that the self or soul was the becoming or changing concept and the empircal self was not permanent but still there was something behind the empircal self which was abiding, though it could not be described. In that sense Buddha sometimes accepted the undying soul and sometimes he denied according to the types of people he was addressing. When he preached that the Atma existed he wanted to save ordinary people from annihilism and when he taught the doctrine of an Atma he saved the learned from the heresay of eternalism. He maintained that he could neither accept the eternal soul behind the empirical self nor could he deny it. He was silent about the Atma as enuciated in the Upnishads. He knew that there was something else behind the emprical self as the soul could not be only a combination of elements but he refuses to speculate on what else it may be.

The Sangha organised by Buddha was a brotherhold and for the realization of the perfect life. To the sangh were admitted members with vows and profession of faith, both laymen and monks. Women were also admitted. The monks were necessay to spread the cult. The relation between Buddha and his disciples was that of a teacher and pupil.
Later after the death of Buddha differences arose about the approach to all rules and regulations of the system and two schools of thought called Hinayana and Mahayana arose after the schism, more in the south and north. In the Hinayana system, as in Ceylon and Burma they maintain the orthodox view of more monistic and puritanic type. The Mahayana more in Nepal, china, Japan, Korea, and east Asian countries allows indulgence and relexation of Vigorous asceticism and is meant for all whereas Hinayana in the little way is only for the few who can chose to lead the rigrous monistic life.