Buddhism in India Essays

Buddhism in India Essays Buddhism in India Essay Buddhism in India Essay Essay Topic: Siddhartha Buddhism arose in 6th century in south Asia, when people around the world were concerned about the question of humanity’s place in the universe. The thought of humanity’s place resulted in a small revolution since at the time the responses and choices offered by conventional Hindu teachers and practices upset the religious sages and the Indian philosophers increasingly. During that period, injustices were prevalent: the Hindu caste system propagated the inequalities and the Brahmins held a lot of powers in their priestly class. Also, majority of Brahmin priests were regarded as corrupt since they carried out Vedic rituals and practiced sacrifices for animal offerings. As such, the resentment of animal rituals compounded with the unbalanced social power and injustices provoking the development of new intellectual philosophies and teachings, which held that some attributes of the Hindu traditions and rituals had merit.1 Thus, philosophers and sages did not explicitly chal lenge Vedic gods and their beliefs. However, a revolutionary philosopher Siddhartha Gautama always challenged Vedic beliefs, which resulted in origination and widespread development of Buddhism. Buddha: Spiritual Revelation Siddhartha Gautama was the person who impacted the emergence and development of Buddhism. Siddhartha was born in the foothills of the Himalayas in 563 B.C.E as a prince. He lived a luxurious life, sheltered, full of wealth and comfort. However, at the age of 29 he fled from his palace and discovered something new. 2 Having lived the whole life full of satisfaction, when Siddhartha left home, he faced a life of illness, misery and poverty. Anyway, while living under life with every material possession one would wish for, Siddhartha felt discontented with the material life and the prevailing affluent conditions surrounding him. However, after leaving the palace he learned so many things that triggered his emotions. The extreme levels of poverty tha