Theravada Vs Mahayana Buddhism Essay Research Paper

Theravada Vs Mahayana Buddhism Essay, Research Paper

A inquiry asked by many people is & # 8221 ; What is the difference between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism? & # 8221 ; To happen the reply let us look at the history of Buddhism and comparison and contrast the beliefs and doctrines of the two.

The Buddah, Siddhartha Gautama, was born in the sixth century B.C.E. in Northwestern India. The Buddah was the boy of an blue blood and grew up in a universe of richness and privilege. His male parent, Suddhodana took every safeguard to do certain Siddhartha didn & # 8217 ; t experience anything that would ache his felicity.

The Buddah attained enlightenment at the age of 35 and spent his life instruction. He taught for 45 old ages and merely kip for approximately two hours a twenty-four hours. What he taught was called Buddha Vacana, i.e. the word of the Buddha.

Three months after the Buddha & # 8217 ; s decease five hundred of his adherents convened the First Council at Rajagaha. Maha Kassapa, the most well-thought-of and aged monastic, presided the council. Since members of the council were non able to hold on any alterations, Maha Kassapa ruled that no regulations laid down by the Buddha should be changed and no new 1s should be introduced. Maha Kassapa besides said & # 8220 ; If we changed the regulations, people would state that Ven. Gotama & # 8217 ; s adherents changed the regulations even before his funeral fire ceased burning. & # 8221 ;

On hundred old ages subsequently a Second Council was held and they made some alterations to certain minor regulations. In the third Century B.C.E. , the Third Council was held to discourse the difference between different religious orders. At the terminal of this Council, the President of the Council, Moggaliputta Tissa, wrote a book called the Kathavatthu rebuting the dissident, false positions and theories of some religious orders. The learning approved by this council was known as Theravada. There was nil known as Mahayana at this clip.

Between the first Century B.C.E. and the first Century A.D. , the term Mahayana appeared in the Saddharma Pundarike Sutra or Sutra of the Lotus of the Good Law. About the second Century A.D. , Mahayana became clearly defined.

Theravada and Mahayana have a batch of similarities:

n Both accept Sakyamuni Buddha as the Teacher.

n The Four Noble Truths are precisely the same in both schools.

n The Eightfold Path is precisely the same in both schools.

n The Paticca-samuppada or the Dependent Organization is the same in both schools.

n Both rejected the thought of a supreme being who created and governed this universe.

n Both accept Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta and Sila

, Samadhi, Panna without any difference.

There are besides some differences. The Mahayanists did non see themselves as making a new start for Buddhism. They claimed that their canon of Bibles represented the concluding instructions of Buddha. They accounted for the non-presence of these instructions in over 500 old ages by claiming that these were secret instructions entrusted merely to the most faithful followings.

& # 8220 ; Like the Protestant Reformation, the overall end of Mahayana was to widen spiritual authorization to a greater figure of people, instead than concentrating it in the custodies of the few. & # 8221 ; World Civilizations, Richard Hooker, 1996.

The end of Theravada Buddhism is really difficult to carry through. In order to do Buddhism a more esoteric faith, the Mahayanists invented two classs of Buddhist attainment below going a Buddha. The Buddha was the highest end, the degree before that is to go a Pratyeka-Buddha which is one who is awakened to the truth but keeps it secret. Below the Pratyeka-Buddha is the Arhant or & # 8220 ; worthy & # 8221 ; ; who has learned the truth from others and has come to recognize it as the truth. Mahayana Buddhism establishes Arhant as the end for all trusters. The truster hears the truth, comes to recognize it as the truth, so passes into Nirvana. This philosophy of Arhanthood is the footing for naming Mahayan the & # 8220 ; Greater Vehicle & # 8221 ; because it is meant to include everyone.

The Mahayanists completed the transition of Buddhism from a doctrine to a faith. Theravada Buddhism says that Buddha was a individual who ceased to be after his decease. However Buddhists tended to idolize him as a God of some kind, even when he was alive. The Mahayanists developed a divinity of Buddha called the philosophy of & # 8220 ; The Three Bodies, & # 8221 ; or Trikaya. The Buddha was non a human being, as the Theravada Buddhists believed, but a manifestation of a universal, religious being. This being had three organic structures. When it occupied the Earth as Siddhartha Gautama, it took on the Body of Magical Transformation. This organic structure comes out from the Body of Bliss, which occupies the celestial spheres in the signifier of a opinion God of the existence. There are many signifiers of the Body of Bliss, but the 1 that regulations over our universe is Amithaba who lives in a Eden in the western celestial spheres called Sukhavati or & # 8220 ; Land of Pure Bliss & # 8221 ; . Finally, the Body of Bliss comes out from the Body of Essence, which is the rule underlying of the whole existence. This Body of Essence became synonymous with Nirvana. It was a sort of cosmopolitan psyche, and Nirvana became the fantastic connection with this cosmopolitan psyche.

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