Buddha biographies

Digha Nicky. Girlyanda jatak, or legends about the exploits of the Bodhisattva. Sutra about the life of the Buddha. Aleksandrova, M. Rusanov, D. Balmont; Introduction, entry. Buddha Shakyamuni and Indian Buddhism. Modern interpretation of ancient texts. Buddha, or the legend of an awakened prince. The Controversy On the Dating of the Historical Buddha. Heinz Bechart.

Delhi: Sri Satguru. Society at the Time of the Buddha 2nd Ed. Popular Prakashan. The Foundations of Buddhism. Edward J. The Life of Buddha as Legend and History. London Frank E. What The Buddha Taught. The Dating of the Historical Buddha Symposium, Vol. Bechart, Heinz, Ed. Colombo, Routledge Richard F. How Buddhism Began. The Real Birth Place of Buddha. Oneworld Publications, J. The Buddha: A Short Biography.

Oxford, Maurice Walshe. The Long Discourses of the Buddha. Buddhism, as a world religion at today's lecture, we begin to talk directly about Buddhism. As you recall, the first two lectures in this cycle were devoted to other religious views and schools, and those religious searches that were conducted in India in the VI-IV century before the birth of Christ. Of course, we have already mentioned Siddhartha Gautam, the founder of Buddhism, but now we will talk about it in more detail.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha. The statue of the 1st century. Berlin Museum. I 31, unlike all other schools, which either completely disappeared and preserved only in the history of religious thought, or, like Jainism, have no more than two or three million adherents, Buddhism has become a gigantic religion, one of the greatest world religions. There was a time when - in VV.

Now it unites five hundred hundred hundred of millions of people in faith: about three hundred and sixty million people profess the tradition of Mahayana, the so-called northern branch of Buddhism. One hundred and fifty million - Theravada - the southern branch of Buddhism. Mahayana in the exact translation is a “great chariot”, and Theravada is “the teachings of the elders”.

And about twenty million people profess Vajarayan - the “diamond chariot”, or Tibetan -Mongolian Buddhism. These numbers are quite arbitrary. The main Buddhist country in the world of Mahayana is China, although militant atheism flourishes in China, and most people believe that they do not believe in anything. More recently, in Soviet times, and most people proudly stated that they were atheists.

But if China, like Russia, will return to the traditional religion, then the number of believers of Buddhists will increase at least twice. The word “Buddhism” itself is a European term. Buddhism is a religion that arose in the north of India and spread mainly in the eastern part of Asia - from India to the north, south, and to the east; It covers countries such as Ceylon Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and partially the southern part of Vietnam.

Now I have listed the countries of the Theravada. Mahayana is China North and the center of Vietnam, Japan, Korea. North Korea is forcedly an atheistic country where people generally forgot about religion, but in South Korea Buddhism is very active. There are Buddhist monasteries, Buddhist temples. Vajrayana is Mongolia, which returned to faith after terrible persecution of communist time, Tibet in the main Chinese part of which persecution continues to this day, and calmly profess Vajrayana can only be in parts of Tibet, not included in China, Nepal and in India Sikim and Ladak.

There are three regions in Russia in which Vajrayana Buddhism is the main religion - these are Buryatia, Tuva and the Republic of Kalmykia is the only European Buddhist state. Now many Buddhists live outside Asia - in Europe, in North America. It’s like immigrants-Chinese, Japanese, immigrants from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma, and Europeans turned into Buddhism. The map of the spread of Buddhism over the past one and a half centuries have turned to Buddhism, so Buddhism is now really a world religion.

And in Russia you can meet many Buddhists even among the not traditionally Buddhist peoples. By the way, the first Buddhist church in the European capital was erected in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the twentieth century precisely because part of the peoples of the Russian Empire was professed by Buddhism. In the city, this wonderful, very beautiful temple was resumed in the city of Buddha: the problem of historicity now we will move directly to the term Buddha, which we will hear repeatedly.

The word "Buddha" is familiar to us, its root is preserved in Russian, better than in European languages. This word is one -rooted with the verb “wake up”, with nouns “alarm” and “awakening”. In the same way, Buddha from Budh means "wake up" in Sanskrit. That is, the Buddha is "awakened", "awakened." In accordance with the Indian tradition with which you are already familiar, a person living in the elements of this world is in a state of sleep.

Here, all Indian schools more or less agree with each other. And now, to understand the true meaning of the world, to understand the true tasks of man, to understand the true calling - this means to awaken.Therefore, the Buddha is "awakened"; Sometimes this word is translated as “enlightened”, but “awakened” a more accurate translation - awakened from sleep, revealed his potentials of a person.

There is another word that also came from the verb by Budh - “Wake up”, this is the word Buddhi. Buddhi is "awakened potency." Each of us has a huge potential, which, from the point of view of the Buddhist, and from the point of view of any believer, sleeps and is not active. We live in a very flat, very primitive world of physiological desires that do not distinguish us from animals.

In fact, a person is much deeper, and from the point of view of the Buddhist - the animal is much deeper. In this sense, Buddhism is not only humane, but also reverence in front of any life, and it surprisingly corresponds to modern green philosophy. Buddhi is a “awakened consciousness”, a consciousness that activated all its potency and actualized them. Buddha has a lot of names, you will meet them in certain books and narratives.

These are nicknames, epithets: he, like many gods in India, is called Bhagavan, “Lord”, Gina, “Winner”, just like Wardhaman in Jainism, and Tathagata is a very common and rather complex term. Buddha called himself like that. If the Buddha is “awakened”, then Tathagata is “reaching”. The Buddha is also called Sugata - “well -going”, Mahapurusha - “the Great Man”, Mahamuni - “Great Asker”, Mahashraman - “Great Assistance”, Shastri - “Teacher”, Arhat - “Worthy”, which, in addition, translates into Russian and as “holy”.

As for the historicity of this figure, for a long time many scientists doubted the historical existence of the Buddha, as they doubted in the historicity of Christ. Scientists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often believed that the Buddha is a solar deity, or, if a historical person, then nothing remains of it in the sense of a real substrate, and all the traditions in which the personality of the Buddha is woven is fiction.

So thought Emil Senar, an interesting French Buddhologist, Heinrich Kern and Ananda Kumarasvami, an Indian scientist who lived in the first half of the twentieth century and died in the M year. And not just a real person like a fact, but-with many real-historical moments, preserved in its traditional biographies. Ananda Kumararavi philosopher, specialist in Indian philosophy and art, also among scientists, there were ideas that the teachings of the Buddha were actually not much different from the teachings of the Upanishad.

They were expressed by the same T. Ri-Davids, although he considered the Buddha a historical person. But why then did the Buddha become the great teacher of the new? On the contrary, Jennings in his book with the characteristic name “Vedantic Buddhism of the Buddha”, published in Oxford in the year, said that the Buddha rejected Sansaru and taught only about the influence of the previous generation on subsequent [J.

Jennings, The Vedantic Buddhism of the Buddha. Oxford University Press, London. What is understandable: and any absolute atheist is also sure that the past generation one way or another affects the generation of the future. In fact, in short, Buddha’s teachings are included in that system of Indian religious teachings that accept Samsara. As you remember, Sansara is a personality transition or something related to a person from birth to birth.

Indian religious teachings are perceived, if you like, as a physical fact, as a scientific fact, not even as a fact of creed. But how Samsara correlates with the personality, with the gods, with life - about this they are already divided. You remember that the Upanishad religion taught that there is Samsara, there is an Atman, and the human Atman is identical to Brahman.

You remember that Adzhivik taught that there is Samsara, and there is fate, nyati, and each person is a slave to his fate, and for many, many rebirths, tens of thousands of degenerations, he unwinds the thread of fate, from which you will not leave anywhere. He cannot become neither better nor worse; What he is, he is like that.