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NepalBuddhism
Buddhism had its origin in the teachings of Siddhartha
Gautama,
a Kshatriya caste prince of the Sakya clan; he was born in
Lumbini,
in the central Tarai Region, about 563 B.C. His father was
the
ruler of a minor principality in the region. Born a Hindu
and
educated in the Hindu tradition, Siddhartha Gautama
renounced
worldly life at about the age of twenty-nine and spent the
next six
years in meditation. At the end of this time, he attained
enlightenment; thereafter, known as the Buddha, or the
Enlightened
One, he devoted the remainder of his life to preaching his
doctrine.
The Buddha accepted or reinterpreted the basic concepts
of
Hinduism, such as karma, samsara, dharma, and
moksha,
but he generally refused to commit himself to specific
metaphysical
theories. He said they were essentially irrelevant to his
teachings
and could only distract attention from them. He was
interested in
restoring a concern with morality to religious life, which
he
believed had become stifled in details of ritual, external
observances, and legalisms.
The Four Noble Truths summarize the Buddha's analysis
of the
human situation and the solution he found for the problems
of life.
The first truth is that life, in a world of unceasing
change, is
inherently imperfect and sorrowful, and that misery is not
merely
a result of occasional frustration of desire or
misfortune, but is
a quality permeating all experience. The second truth is
that the
cause of sorrow is desire, the emotional involvement with
existence
that led from rebirth to rebirth through the operation of
karma.
The third truth is that the sorrow can be ended by
eliminating
desire. The fourth truth sets forth the Eightfold Path
leading to
elimination of desire, rebirth, and sorrow, and to the
attainment
of nirvana or
nibbana (see Glossary),
a state of bliss and
selfless enlightment. It rejoins right or perfect
understanding,
aspiration, speech, action, livelihood, effort, thought,
and
contemplation.
Data as of September 1991
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