In Buddhism there is no god only a man who awoke. Their goal is to find enlightenment and to attain knowledge or nirvana where in Hinduism they believe in a God and are trying to find God and inner happiness. I feel both agree on actual social dynamics of treating each other with love and respect and following the tradition religious tenets of now stealing, lying, being boastful, and selfish, etc. However, Buddha was trying to not become a Hindu and was trying to stay away from what he called extreme. Buddhism was started by a man who was not a god where Hinduism was not started by anyone, or at least any human, at least from what I can read. In Hinduism you can find happiness by doing things that you can�t in Buddhism. Hindus believe in finding God through knowledge, love, work, and etc. where Buddhism teaches only finding nirvana through self-meditation. At least from what I gather. Hinduism also teaches that we have places in life that we must fit into where Buddhist belief we are merely flesh waiting to succumb to sickness and death. Buddhists traditionally leave family, work and etc. and belong to the order and let them feed them and clothe them and shelter them in exchange for teaching others, where Hindu�s generally go amongst there work. Hinduism shares a respect for all religions and believes you can find god in many ways where Buddhism believes you can find enlightenment only one way.
Question 9:
Jainism seems to be a complex religion recently developed by Lord Mahavir who was the twenty-fourth and the last Tirthankara of the Jain religion thus far. In the religion Tirthankara's are humans that have attained a state of perfection through "meditation and self-realization." The Jain Gods are known as Tirthankara's,
Arihants and/or Jinas. There seems to be a ranking system among these gods.
Tirthankaras are those who establish the four fold order of the religion known as Monks, Nuns, Laymen, and Laywomen.
Arihants are those who are able to destroy their inner enemies "like anger, greed, passion, ego, etc."
And Jinas are those who conquer their inner enemies like those stated above. Jinas are Jains.
Lord Mahavir one of their spiritual hero's gave up all worldly possessions to find inner piece. He spent days of meditation, fasting and etc. He found the realization known as "keval-jnana" which is "the realization of perfect perception, knowledge, power, and bliss." His teachings tried to show people how to free themselves from
birth, life, pain, misery and death and to achieve what the Jains call Nirvana. He would talk about our souls being born in bondage from "Karma" and it was the influence of Karma that could keep us bonded or free us.
The five vows of Jainism are:
Non-violence (Ahimsa)
Truthfulness (Satya)
Non-stealing (Asteya)
Chastity (Brahmacharya)
Non-materialistic (Aparigraha).
Every day the Jains pray and not to any specific god but to give blessing to all of them. They never ask for favors or material benefit. The Jains have a path of liberation known as Moksha which is three part or three jewels. The right perception is seeing the truth in all things of nature and being able to understand oneself.
Right knowledge is the correct knowledge of faith and of the universe. Also knowing the six universal entities and the nine tattvas or principles. The third is the Right conduct which consists of the five vows.
Jains go off of five samitis and three Guptis known as the rules of conduct and the rules of avoidance of misconduct. The five samitis are:
The regulation of walking, walking carefully and looking six feet distance to not cause anything pain or death.
The regulation of speaking, avoiding anger, pride, deceit, greed, laughter, fear, gossip, and slander.
The regulation of begging; they should search for pure foods that are necessary.
The regulation for taking and keeping; must lay down and pick up things carefully to not injure things.
The regulation of disposal; taking care of waste to not cause problems or spreading or germs.
The three Guptis are:
the regulation of the mind; not having impure thoughts, hatred, greed, etc.
The regulation of speech, same thing except verbally spoken.
The regulation of bodily activity; careful not to hurt anything or
day dream.
Lord Mahavir lived between 599-527 BC.
I guess I can see Jainism tying mostly into Hinduism but not exactly. I believe it ties in mostly because of the fact that there are similar tenets in its regulations however Jainism doesn�t believe in a god from what I perceive and its heroes are Jains where Hinduism does have a God. Maybe it is closer to Buddhism then Hinduism because in Buddhism there are many Buddha�s and neither believes in a god yet has spiritual heroes. Both of these agree to most of the same tenets as well and also both do not believe in eating meat. The goal of Jainism is an inner knowledge similar to the nirvana that is trying to be told in Buddhism. So I guess after all my thought Buddhism seems closer to Jainism then anything else.