3-2

Section 3-2 Abby Regan 9/27/10 WHCP

Moksha: A perfect understanding of all things. Reincarnation: Rebirth into a new life. Karma: Good or bad deeds. Jainism: A religion that believed that everyhng had a soul and should not be harmed. Enlightenment: Wisdom and understanding of suffering. Nirvana: The release from selfishness and pain. Dharma: Doctrines and teachings.
 * Key Words:**

//Siddhartha Gautama:// The first Buddha, and the founded of Buddhism //Mahavira:// The founder of Jainism.
 * Key People:**

__//**Summary:**//__
 * Hinduism Evovles Over the Centuries**
 * Hinduism collects religious beliefs from over the years.
 * Hinduism cannot be traced back to one founder or a singe set of ideas.


 * Orgins and Beliefs**
 * From 750-550 BC, Hindu teachers tried to find the hidden meaning of Vedic Hymns, and they wrote their discoveries and commandments which are known as Upanishads.
 * Upanishads are written as a conversation between a student and the teacher, in which they discover how a person can achieve liberation through desires and suffering, or moksha, a perfect understanding of everything.
 * By the process of reincarnation (being born again into different lives), with karma following you throughout your journey, you are expected to at sometime achieve moksha.


 * Hinduism Changes and Developes**
 * Brahman, the world soul, is though to take on many different forms of gods; Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the protector, and Shiva, the destroyer.
 * Today, Hindus get to chose which dieties they worship (or none at all), and how they go about acheiving moksha, either by the path of right thinking, the pat of religius devotion, or the path of right action.


 * Hinduism and Society**
 * The social structure the Hindu's have is called the caste system, and it is strongly connected with reincarnation and karma. For example, if a male was born into an area higher on the caste system, it was because of the good deeds he did in his previous life.
 * The caste system controlled every part of a person's life, such as what they could eat, how they ate it, or how one dressed.


 * New Religions Arise**
 * At the same time the Upanishads were being written, two other religions, Jainism and Buddhism came to be. Jainism was founded by Mahavira (599-527 BC), who believed that everything in the universe had a soul and should not be harmed.
 * Jains are accepting of all religions, so they don't try to convert many people to their religion so that they can keep peace.


 * The Buddha Seeks Enlightenment**
 * A man born into a higher part of the caste system, Siddhartha Gautama was isolated in the palace by his father so that he would make a good king, and was married off and had children.


 * Siddhartha's Quest**
 * At age 29, Siddhartha left the palace for the first time, and saw an old man next to a sick man, and then a holy man who seemed to be at peace. Seeing this, Siddhartha decided to devote his life to finding an end to suffering, and left the palace.
 * Siddhartha wandered around India, seeking enlightenment by first debating with religious seekers, then fasting, none of which brought him to enlightenment. After 49 days of meditation under a fig tree, he discovered an understanding of the cause of suffering, and became the first Buddha.

-Life is filled with sorrow and suffering. -The cause of all suffering is people's desire for the temporary pleasures of this world. -The way to end all suffering is to end all desires. -They way to overcome such desires was to follow the eightfold path, which is the Middle Way between desires and self denial.
 * Orgins and beliefs**
 * The Buddha preached his understanding of suffering to the world, and in his preaching his laid out the four noble truths:
 * The Noble eightfold path, which told people how they should behave, was "lik a staircase", because you had to take each part one step at a time. The parts of it were right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
 * By following the eightfold path, anyone could reach nirvana, a release from selfishness and pain.
 * Both Hinduism and Buddhism share the idea of reincarnation, although the Buddha rejected the caste system and the many gods of Hinduism.\

The religious community, along with the Buddha and dharma (doctrines and teachings), were refered to as three jewels.
 * The Religious Community**
 * The five people who had heard the sermon of the Buddha were the first admitted to the religious orders, called sangha, although this later reffered to the entire Buddhist community.


 * Buddhism and Society**
 * Many of the followers of the Buddha were people lower in the caste system because of the Buddha's rejection of it, as well as many people in northeast India. He was reluctant to let women into the orders (althoug he did) because he was afraid they would distract the me from their duties, and vise-versa.
 * Monks and nuns took vows to live a life of poverty, to be nonviolent, and not to marry, and they were to carry a begging bowl for charitable donations so that they could eat.
 * The teachings and stories of the Buddha were written down shortly after his death.


 * Buddhism in India**
 * Missionaries were able to spread the religion to many countries across southeast Asia, although it didn't spread much in India, the country of it's orgin. One theory states that Hinduism "absorbed" Buddhism because they were so similar.
 * Although the number of Buddhists in India is small, people still go there to see the many sites important to Buddhism, such as th fig tree where the Buddha was believe to he been enlightened at.


 * Trade and the Spread of Buddhism**
 * Trade caused Buddhism to spread to areas such as Sri Lanka, China, and Korea because many people who traded were Buddhists, and they shared their religion with others.