Buddhism

Buddhism

Part one

It is very likely that the early Aryans brought with them some form of Brahmanism. By the first century BC, however, Buddhism had been introduced to the island and was well established in the main areas of settlement. According to the Mahavamsa the entry of Buddhism to Sri Lanka occurred in the reign of DevanampiyaTissa (250-210 BC), a contemporary of the great Mauryan Emperor Asoka whose emissary Mahinda (Asoka's son, as some authorities would have it, or his brother, as is suggested by others) converted Devanampiya Tissa to the new faith. Once again the Mahavamsa's account of events conceals as much as it reveals, and what it hides in this instance is the probability that Buddhists and Buddhism came to the island much earlier than that. The Buddha (or Enlightened One) was born in North India around 563 BC. The son of the katriya chief of the republican Sakya tribe, his youth, and early manhood were passed in ease and luxury. But in time he became increasingly dissatisfied with this life, and as a comparatively young man he abandoned his home and family and opted for a life of asceticism in a search for salvation. Six years of this austere existence left him profoundly disillusioned with it, and quite convinced that asceticism taken to exaggerated lengths was not the path of salvation. This realization spurred him on to a single-minded search for a more satisfying means of salvation. On the fortieth day of a long spell of meditation, an understanding of the cause of suffering dawned on him.

He had attained enlightenment.At the Deer Park at Sarnath (near Varanasi) he preached his first sermon and gathered his first five disciples. This sermon, the Turning of the Wheel of Laws as it was called, incorporated the Four Noble Truths:-

• Suffering,
• the Cause of Suffering,
• Cessation of the Cause,
• the Path leading to Cessation

which form the nucleus of Buddhist teaching. The Buddha explained that the world was full of suffering, that this was caused by human desire, that the path to salvation lay in the renunciation of desire through the Eightfold Path consisting of eight principles of action:

• Right views
• Resolves
• Speech
• Conduct
• Live lihood
• Effort
• Recollection
• Meditation

the combination of which was described as the Middle Way, the basis of a life of moderation and equipoise. Salvation lay in achieving nirvana, or freedom from the wheel of rebirth. The doctrine of karma was essential to the Buddhist conception of salvation, but in contrast to the Brahmanical view of karma it was not used to buttress the prevailing caste structure, since Buddhism was basically opposed to caste. Buddhism was, if not atheistic, at least non theistic in as much as the emphasis on causality as the basis of analysis left nothing to divine intervention, and in the Buddhist system a God was not regarded as essential to the universe. Despite the severely rational undertone of its arguments, its simplicity and freedom from complicated metaphysical thinking contributed to its immediate appeal to those who heard it.

About a hundred years after the Buddha's parinibbana the sangha split in two the Sthaviras (Elders) and Mahdsanghikas (members of the Great order). According to tradition, there were three Buddhist Councils, the first of which was held at Rajagrha after the Buddha's parinibbana. It was at the second, which took place at Vaisali a century later, that the split occurred. At the third Council in Pataliputra in 250 BC during the reign of Asoka, the Sthaviras emerged as the orthodox or Theravada sect (the Sthaviravada school), and the more sectarian Buddhists succeeded in excluding the dissidents and innovators the heretical Mahdsanghikas from the Sthavira or Theravada faction. This paved the way for the later schism of Buddhism into the Little Vehicle (Theravada) or more orthodox branch, and the Greater Vehicle or Mahayana branch with its stress on the compassionate bodhisattva, intent on enlightenment for himself and the liberation of others. Though Buddhist sources have naturally endeavored to associate Asoka with the third Council he does not refer to it anywhere in his inscriptions, not even in those relating specifically to the sangha.

Asoka's conversion to Buddhism had occurred after his famous Kalinga campaign of 260 BC. 13 Remorse stricken at the carnage and fearful destruction he had caused when he utterly routed the Kalingas, he found himself attracted to Buddhism in his effort to seek expiation. After a period of two and a half years he became a zealous devotee of Buddhism, but he would not permit his personal commitment to Buddhism to conflict with the duty indeed, the practical necessity imposed on him as ruler of a vast empire to remain above the religious rivalries and competition within it. Thus the restraints of kingship in a multi-religious empire may have prompted the decision not to participate actively in and associate himself with the third Council. However, he could and did lend his patronage to the missionary impulse which emerged from this Council's deliberations where the decision was taken to send missionaries to various parts of the subcontinent and to make Buddhism an actively proselytizing religion which in later years led to its propagation in South and South East Asia. One such mission was that sent to Sri Lanka in the time of Devanampiya Tissa.

this to Buddhism Part-2