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Buddhist doctrine
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Defeating Buddhism
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Origin and History of Buddhism
Buddhism is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (563?- 483?), also known as Shakyamuni. Gautama was born in what is now Nepal . He was born into a noble family and was raised in wealthy circumstances. He married at the age of sixteen and had a son at the age of twenty-nine. “Legend has been prolifically at work on the scanty facts concerning the childhood of Siddhartha Gautama. Tradition insists that the father hoped his son would become ‘a universal monarch,’ the emperor of all India . But if this was in actual fact his expectation, it was doomed to disappointment.”
It was after the birth of his son that he began his search for enlightenment. After trying the ascetic way of life, he turned to meditation. It is claimed that through meditation he realized enlightenment and began to teach his beliefs. “Deep in meditation, he reached the highest degree of God-consciousness, known as nirvana. He supposedly stayed under the fig tree for seven days, after that the fig tree was called the bodhi, or the bo tree (the tree of wisdom). The truths he learned he would now impart to the world, no longer as Siddhartha Gautama, but as the Buddha, the enlightened one.”
For the next forty-five years he worked in the preaching and teaching of those things he had learned. Buddhism was born in India , the home of Hinduism. Since Gautama came out of the Hindu background, there are a number of similarities between Hinduism and Buddhism, e.g., teachings regarding reincarnation and karma.
It is said he died at the age of 80 after eating spoiled food.
The greatest early growth of Buddhism was in India . It spread into the other Asian nations, such as Thailand , China , and Japan . Several forms of Buddhism have been developed through the years. We will discuss that when we talk about “Authority and Doctrine” later in this chapter.
Buddhist doctrine
Versus the Bible
Defeating Buddhism
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