The wise who have united their intelligence with the Divine, renouncing the fruits which their action yields and freed from the bonds of birth, reach the sorrowless state.
The religious, philosophical, and artistic creativity that occurred in south Asia in the last centuries b.c.e.
were preceded by the great achievements of the brahmanic age.
The succession of wars between the kings they advised, the self-serving dominance of the brahmans, and the religious bankruptcy displayed by the cults all prompted major challenges.
Between 500 b.c.e.
and the millennium, these challenges and brahman responses enriched Indian civilization.
In the late 6th century b.c.e., numerous chal enges to the brahmanical order emerged in the teachings order that had developed in and practices of a diverse range of religious figures.
The migrations into India were questioned by some outsiders.
They posed questions about the nature of the universe and the goals of life, and they often came up with very different answers.
Some tried out new techniques of meditation and self-mortification, while others promoted new religions that would free the mass from the oppressive teachings of the brahmans.
The most globally influential religious and philosophical breakthrough of an age of remarkable intellectual ferment was made by the Buddha.
The Making of a religious Teacher Accounts of the Buddha's life are cluttered with myths and miracles that it is difficult to know what kind of man he actually was and what message he originally preached.
We are pretty sure that he lived from the mid 6th century to the second decade of the 5th century b.c.e.
The rule of kings and the hold of the brahmans was weak in one of the warrior clans of the hill states south of the Himalayas.
He was the son of the local ruler who was haunted by a prophecy made by a religious seer at the time of the Buddha's birth, according to Buddhist traditions.
The king gave his son every imaginable human pleasure and comfort in order to prevent this.
The prince was curious about the world beyond the palace walls.
For the first time in his life, the Bud dha encountered illness, old age, death, and a wandering ascetic when he ventured into the nearby countryside with the aid of a trusted servant.
The prince became withdrawn after he encountered human suffering.
The holy man had predicted that he would abandon all claims to succeed his father as king and set off with a group of wandering ascetics.
He con the Guptas, did yogic exercises, fasted almost to death, and chanted sacred prayers.
The legend says that the Buddha collapsed because he was discouraged by his failure to find the answer to the questions that had driven him to take up the life of a wandering ascetic.
The Buddha was saved from death by the care of a young woman.
He achieved enlightenment by disciplining his mind and body and discovering the Four Noble Truths.
The Buddha believed that all living things experience suffering because they are attached to objects that are permanent.
He reasoned that we begin to die when we are born.
Love and friendship can be ended by death if one loves or befriends someone.
Attachments to the il usory and impermanent things of the world are the source of suffering.
The only way to escape suffering is to stop wanting the things of the world and realize that your sense of self is part of the illusion.
The eight-step process that includes right action, thinking, and meditation can be used to achieve enlightenment.
The individual is freed from suffering once enlightenment has been attained.
The Buddha set out to spread his message to all humanity because of his great compassion for all living creatures.
He was the most successful of the many seers who traveled through the hill and lowland kingdoms in this era, some of whom challenged the teachings of the brahmans and offered alternative modes of worship.
The Buddha gained a large follow ing which included both men and women.
His followers turned his teachings into a religion.
One of the great salvationist faiths of all time was a pessimistic and antiworldly vision of existence, without gods or the promise of an eternal paradise.
The Buddha was worshiped as a deity in the form of sculptures after his death.
The monks who devoted their lives to spreading his message were his most faithful disciples.
They held conferences in which they tried to gather information about his life.
There were disagreements over points of doctrine at these sessions.
Rival schools of monks vied with each other and formed sects to build a following.
The rival schools created elaborate systems.
The monks stressed more accessible aspects of the new religion in order to attract a broader following.
They told stories of the Buddha's life, which included traditions that his mother had been a virgin and that he had been visited by scholars soon after his birth.
The popular mind equates nirvana with heaven.
The tortures of hell became a central feature of popular Buddhism.
The faithful used to worship the Buddha as a Savior who would come back to help them find their way to heaven.
Buddhist monks continued their emphasis on meditation and the achievement of nirvana, but lay people were encouraged to perform good acts that would earn them enough merit for their souls to go to one of the Buddhist heavens after death.