From the day that Gautama 1 decided to abandon austerities, a new religion was in the making. The birth of that religion is shrouded in legend and myth, but there is no question but that it spawned a line of thinking and behaving that deserves to be studied even in this day and age. To understand that religion one must understand it's 2500+ years of history. To understand that one has to understand it's local origins in India and it's international flavor. Because my interest is mostly in Nichiren and his Buddhism, and because of site limitations, we will only discuss some of Buddhist History and its issues here.
Buddhism is at least 2500 years old and is possibly much older.
Buddhism originated around 600-500 BC or so1 with the teacher Shakyamuni Buddha. His family name was Gautama and he seems to have started Buddhism after years of efforts to achieve enlightenment when he finally sat under a Pipal Tree, wrestled with "Mara"(Illusion) and won enlightenment after doing so. (For more follow the link to Shakyamuni Buddha here: shakyamuni.html. This highly allegorical account is probably historically based. Therefore the stories about the Buddha are technically "legends". But because of the heavy use of allegory by Buddhists, there are also many mythic elements that are not meant to be taken literally.
Gautama had been studying and practicing austerities, seeking Nirvana by destroying all attachments, as taught by Hindu asceticism. Hindu asceticism of the time centered around "monks" or "mendicants" who wandered the world seeking enlightenment, self-control, or magical powers, and taught people when they encountered them in return for donations. The religion Buddhism would come to be symbolized by the robes and begging bowl of these mendicants. Buddhists would literally "give up" living in this world to join the "Sangha" or Buddhist Community.
India of the time was a place of mixing ideas. The dominant culture is one that is sometimes called Aryan. Its language is related to that of its neighbors in central Asia such as Persian. The dominant thinking of the time was "Brahman" and based on memorized Vedas (similar word to Edda) that told of a pastoral and warlike people and their Gods, each of which has cognates with the old Gods of other peoples. Indeed there are interesting twists in the language that show the typical drift of neighboring and sometimes conflicting cultures. The word in Hindu language for a "god" is "Deva." The word for the enemies of the Gods or "titans" is "Ashura." The corresponding word in Persian for a "God" is Ahura, as in "Ahura Mazda" their sun God. And the word for the enemies of the Gods is the one from which we get our word "devil." The Persians and "Aryans" were a people who seem to have used iron technology to dominate the other people's they lived among. There were, of course, already other cultures in India when the "Aryans" arrived. Consequently ,the Aryan culture was a Patriarchal one based on legends and myths of warrior Gods, animal sacrifices, and using classes of warriors, merchants, farmers and laborers, and priests. The cultures they encountered included shamanistic ones. Shamanistic cultures are based on meditative and "dream" practices, visions, journeys, and nature worship. Both are in the here and now. The shamans sought enlightenment and the magic of a life in harmony with its surroundings. For shamans the goal of life is often the otherworldly attainment of "enlightenment" in the here and now. Ideas of "heaven" or "hell" seem abstractions to someone living such a life. The priests encountered the shamans, and from that encounter both "Brahmins" and Buddhists were born.
Later scholars would claim that the Aryans defeated or even exterminated or enslaved the people they encountered. Still later scholars would insist that the people they encountered were the ancestors of the "Dravidian" people's in the south. There is no denying that the Aryans brought with them prejudices and beliefs not unlike European Racism. But the truth is that these people were mixing it up, fighting, intermarrying, and sharing ideas from the beginning. It is not even clear how much of the myth of their migration from central Europe is true. Stories of "goat" and "cowherds" represent pastoral beginnings, and even the ancient sacrifices and the modern veneration of Cattle may reflect the sacralization of the life of an ancient pastoral people. Stories of Elephants and of myth, allegory and magic, reflect more a shamanistic influence and are fully at home in the forests of India.
In any case, India evolved into nascent cultures centered around rivers, from that it devolved into tiny fractured city states, with the most powerful ones organized around the major rivers. And it was during this time frame that the semi-historical Buddha Shakyamuni was born.
- For more on Shakyamuni please visit the page:
- shakyamuni.html
From Shakyamuni's life, came this new religion. It spread all over India. It was both in competition with, and practiced by, Brahmins. And it both borrowed from and found some of its ideas absorbed into, Brahmanism. Modern Hindus consider Shakyamuni one of their sages. He did not endorce the cast system or expecially a priestly cast. He himself came from the "Kshatrya" class of warriors. His was a "warrior quest" religion in which one warred with the things that cause one unhappiness or troubles (Klesa). He was not at particular war with Brahmins, though the very ideas of Buddhism and its implied equality of the "Sangha" threatened the Brahmanical monopoly on truth and holiness. They were at war with Buddhism even as they absorbed elements of his message. In India that "war" would continue until just before the arrival of Islam. The Brahmins would "win" over Buddhism just enough to see an even more patriarchal and doctrinaire religion than their own threaten them. But early on, Brahmin defectors helped develop its ideas, and competition with ideas from other parts of the world continued to fertilize Buddhism and influence Brahminism.
http://www.dalitstan.org/books/decline/ http://www.buddhanet.net/fundbud.htm.
In any case, Buddhism arose in a cultural climate that included works such as the Ramayana and others that later were incorporated into the system we know as Hinduism. The founder of Buddhism was an educated man coming from a "warrior" or royal family known as the Shakyas. Shakyamuni simply means sage of the shakyas. Buddha simply means the "enlightened one." Tathagata the "Thus come one." The tales he grew up on were tales of magical deeds and wonder and were told alongside of the heroic efforts of warriors and sages. According to the legend he was sheltered from the four sufferings, which made the impact of them all the stronger when he finally learned from them. The seeker Shakyamuni was seeking a way to break the "cycle" of suffering. The heroic efforts of the future teacher "Gautama" became the seed for an entire complex Buddhist Community that spread gradually first within India, and then beyond India as each generation and community contributed to and adapted the ideas of "Buddhism" according to it's own needs and circumstances. The climate was one where older pastoral systems and peoples with rituals involving animal sacrifices gradually melded or metamorphised into more agricultural and possibly vegetarian cultures. These cultural interactions are also reflected in the development of other religions.
After Shakyamuni died, there were triumphs and schisms in his lineage. The last of the Maurya line of kings converted to Buddhism, his name was Ashoka6 His apparent dates were around 300 BCE.
For more
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.htmlAfter he died, a Greek dynasty in Bactria came into contact with early Buddhism and that is recorded in the form of a famous dialogue; with the Greek king Menander (or Milinda)-- Questions of Menander7 (in what is now Afghanistan and Kashmir). At this time there were some 18 schools of Buddhism.8 Soon after that the Kushan, who were a people related to the Chinese, invaded Bactria, and their King "Kanishka"9 championed Buddhism there through his relationship with the Buddhist Teacher Ashvagosha10. The Kushan also sponsored it's spread via the translator "Kumarajiva"11.
Buddhism had some influence on the West, possibly in the form of Christian teachings (expecially Gnostic) and through the intermediary of Persian and greek teachers who adopted Buddhist ideas without calling them Buddhism. These issues are out of the scope of this website (at least at this time). But the transmission to China became important for a number of reasons
This was also the time when the split between Mahayana and Theravada was also being defined. The questions of Milinda belong to the "Theravadan" school of thought
There were 23 or so direct "successors" and there was a division between "Mahayana" and Theravada. The earliest Mahayana teachings were taught in reaction to the arrogance and presumption of monks whose self centered practice didn't seem to offer much to ordinary folks except for precepts. People wanted a deeper esoteric kind of Buddhism and perhaps more overt compassion. In response to those concerns the Mahayana teachings appeared. Additionally deep thinkers like Nagarjuna12 or Ashvagosha10 thrashed out notions seeded by Shakyamuni and came up with new understandings which consequently found their way into new "schools" of Buddhism. Though they won't admit it there is marked similarity between Mahayana teachings and Theravada teachings and both are Buddhist, though on the surface they look very different. To me, Mahayana goes to a deeper level. But it is my understanding that Theravada is the Kindergarten teachings of Buddhism. Everything I need to know about dealing with my fellow human beings I should have learned by understanding the heart of "precepts." Some Mahayanists tend to forget about this lineage of wisdom when they criticize lesser (or lower level teachings). They act like people who go to college without learning to play with other children in Kindergarten first. I am impressed with the courage and good sense of teachers from some Theravada countries, such as Aung Suu Kyi of Burma, who is still under house arrest after 20 years because of the strength of her ideas and personae.
Buddhism spread to Southeast Asia and to Northeast Asia. What spread to Southeast Asia was primarilly under the influence of "Mahayana." While what spread to China was unique and called Mahayana. Under the influence of a learned man named "Kumarajiva" Buddhism became popularized. Early on, it was persecuted as foreign, by the Tang Dynasty it was being persecuted for reasons of that popularity.
- For a timeline of that visit:
- http://faculty.washington.edu/dwaugh/01hist225/225chron/budchron.html
In Northeast Asia, one teacher and lineage of note, the Tientai Buddhist Sect founded by Tientai (Chi'hi)13 systematized Buddhist teachings based on the Lotus Sutra and the notion of "Ichinen Sanzen"14. This was such a flowering of Buddhist thought that China enjoyed some peace during that time when the West was experiencing some of the worst of it's dark ages.
In the 8th century Buddhism reached the wild people of Japan, and somewhat tamed them. It was adopted first by the Soga Clan, and then by the whole country. The Japanese at first saw it as a kind of magical religion, but when the magic didn't seem to work initially thought it was making their local "gods" angry. It took a while before it caught on with ordinary Japanese, and that seems to have been mediated by imigration from Korea. Prince Shotoku15 was influential in it's early propagation. Unfortunately the Soga Clan tried to use it to make themselves rulers of Japan and so it's general adoption occured at an inconvenient time for them to misuse it. They nearly destroyed themselves by treating it as a kind of magic for destroying enemies, though not completely. I write about this in an essay "Awarning.html16." As a result of Prince Shotoku's efforts, Dengyo Daishi brought Tientai Buddhism to Japan as the Tendai Sect.17 Unfortunately his colleague Kobo Daishi also brought Shingon Buddhism at the same time. Shingon esotericism appealed to Japanese monks and intelligentsia who were craving magic and secret knowledge. It became so popular that it was even adopted by Tendai's disciples. This magical thinking led to disaster as people in Japan during that time were very concretely suffering. In the late 12th century a monk named Honen offered the "pure land Buddhism" as a cure for this. Unfortunately Pure Land teachings are also a kind of magical thinking.
The Japanese like most people tended to use Buddhism to help them make better warriors, or as magic for everyday problems, or as a way of validating themselves as human beings. This practical side of Japanese "personae" makes them good at sniffing out practical wisdom within religion, however it also is tied to a definite tendancy towards magical and shallow understandings of causality. As result by the 1250's many Japanese had confused the teachings of Buddhism with magic and the teachers of Buddhism with sages so "high" and spiritual that it was beyond their reach to attain Buddhahood in ones present form. They even ceased dealing with the historical teachings of Buddhism and began seeking fantasy Buddhas such as Amida Buddha or "Dainichi" buddha as saviors for their problems.
It was the teacher Nichiren18 who first pointed this out in Japan with the criticisms contained in his formal remonstrations with the Government such as the Kaimoku Sho or Rissho Ankoku Ron. Indeed his religion both begins and ends with the Rissho Ankoku Ron. For more on this visit: Nichiren Daishonin. (See link for more) and Nichirenism
Nichiren own religion also broke into two schools. These schools were the "Fuji School" and pretty much the rest of the schools of Nichiren's teachings. Up until World War II, Nichiren's teachings didn't excite people outside of Japan much. However, pioneers like Nichidatsu Fujii, with their courageous willingness to think outside the "Japanese fish bowl" ended up spreading at least some word of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo outside of Japan. Nichidatsu Fujii even had Mohandis K. Gandhi chanting. After World War II, various groups led by the Sokagakkai revived the teachings of Nichiren and began to propagate them abroad. Some of these groups were handicapped by having been identified with Japanese Nationalism before the war, but the founder of the Sokagakkai, Tsunesuburu Makiguchi, had died in Jail for criticizing Japanese extreme nationalism, and thus he made a good "hero" for foreigners to relate to. The spread of Nichirenism both abroad and at home also jarred the other sects into paying attention and so now-adays, some of those people are represented abroad. Popularizers like D.T.Suzuki, or Madame Blatovsky also payed a role in spreading Buddhism abroad. And consequently Zen Buddhism was pretty much the first one US people were introduced to.
When Nichiren's Buddhism first came to the USA it was mostly represented by a group named NSA.
- Shakyamuni Buddha/Gautama, see referenced linkShakyamuni.html
- Ajatashatru
- Devadatta
- Nirvana Sutra or Parinirvana Sutra
- Lotus Sutra
- Ashoka
- Menander
- See this link about the 18 schools:http://www.thanhsiang.org/education/dip3-6.htm
- For more on Kanishka:http://www.thanhsiang.org/education/dip3-7.htm
- For more on Ashvagosha there are a number of sources including the footnote before this one
- Kumarajiva translated the Lotus Sutra into Chinese Characters
- Nagarjuna was a great thinker of Mahayana Buddhism
- T'ien-t'ai or Chi Hi, was the founder of T'ien-t'ai Buddhism
- Ichinen Sanzen: 3000 worlds in a momentary state of existence.
- Prince Shotoku was the first of the family of the Emperor of Japan to embrace Buddhism
- The Soga Clan brought down themselves by being barbaric
- Dengyo Daishi brought Tendai Buddhism to Japan
- Nichiren is the founder of my sect
For myths of Buddhism incorporated into SGI: http://www.gakkaionline.net/Myths/