Essay on Introduction of the Buddha Philosophy

The life of Siddhartha or Gautama Buddha, the Light of Asia and the founder of Buddhism, is fairly well-known.

Born in a Royal family of Kapilavastu (at the foothills of the Himalayas, north of India) in the sixth century B.C., Siddhartha renounced the world early in life.

The sights of disease, old age and death impressed the young prince with the idea that the world was full of suffering, and the life of a care-free mendicant suggested to him a possible way of escape.

As an ascetic, he was restless in search of the real source of all sufferings and of the means of complete deliverance. He sought light from many religious teachers and learned scholars of the day and practised great austerities; but nothing satisfied him.

This threw him back on his own resources. With an iron will and a mind free from all disturbing thoughts and passions, he endeavoured to unravel, through continued intense meditation, the mystery of the world’s miseries, till at last his ambition was crowned with success.

Siddhartha became Buddha or the Enlightened. The message of his enlightenment laid the foundation of both Buddhist religion and philosophy which, in course of time, spread far and wide to Ceylon, Burma and Siam in the south and to Tibet, China, Japan and Korea in the north.

Like all great teachers of ancient times Buddha taught by conversation, and his teachings were also handed down for a long time through oral instruction imparted by his disciples to successive generations.

Our knowledge about Buddha’s teachings depends today chiefly on the Tripitakas or the three baskets of teachings which are claimed to contain his views as reported by his most intimate disciples.

These three canonical works are named Vinayapitaka, Suttapitaka and Abhidhammapitaka. Of these, the first deals chiefly with rules of conduct for the congregation (sarigha).

The second contains Buddha’s sermons and dialogues, and the third contains expositions of philosophical theories.

All these three contain information regarding early Buddhist philosophy. These works are in the Pali dialect.

In course of time, as his followers increased in number, they were divided into different schools. The most important division of Buddhism on religious principles was into the Hinayana or Theravada and the Mahayana.

The first flourished in the south and its present stronghold is in Ceylon, Burma and Siam. Its literature is vast and is written in Pali. It is claimed to be more orthodox and faithful to the teachings of Buddha.

Mahayana flourished mostly in the north and its adherents are to be found in Tibet, China and Japan. It adopted Sanskrit for philosophical discussion and thus the enormous Buddhist literature in Sanskrit came to be developed.

Most of this literature was translated into Tibetan and Chinese and thus became naturalised in the lands in which Buddhism flourished. Many such valuable Sanskrit works lost in India are now being recovered from those translations and restored to Sanskrit.

As Buddhism flourished in different lands, it became coloured and changed by the original faiths and ideas of the converts.

The different schools of Buddhism which thus arose are so numerous and the total output of philosophical works in the different languages is so vast that a thorough acquaintance with Buddhist philosophy requires the talents of a versatile linguist, as well as the insight of a philosopher and yet one life-time may be found all too short for the purpose.

Our account of Bauddha philosophy will necessarily be very brief and so inadequate. We shall first try to give the chief teachings of Buddha as found in the dialogues attributed to him, and next deal with some aspects of Bauddha philosophy developed in India by his followers in the different schools, and conclude with a short account of the main religious tendencies of the HTnayana and the Mahayana schools.