560 - 480 B.C.E.

A soothsayer predicted Sid would become either either a great king or a great Buddha (enlightened one).  The raja sought to keep his son from seeing a dead body, an aged person, a diseased person and an ascetic monk.  He married his cousin at nineteen and had a child.  One night he decided to leave his home.  When he ceased to desire it, he found enlightenment.  He traveled to Banaras and located his five friend who formed the first Sangha (Buddhist monastic order).

1. Any person of any caste or sex could find the same enlightenment he knew.
2. Women as well as men could achieve enlightenment.
3. The person who follows the Eightfold Path will break the bonds that tie one to life and will achieve release from the cycle (Nirvana).

1. Buddha - highest spiratual potential within each human
2. Dharma - teachings of the Buddha
3. Sangha - community of those who have attained enlightenment

Theravada Buddhism

• Countries
• Enlightenment?
• Gods?
• Death Ritual

• Sri Lanka, Southeast Asian nations of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos
• People must achieve enlightenment for themselves without reliance on the gods or on any force beyond themselves.
• The goals of religion are reached through the efforts, meditation, and achievements of the individual. 
• The gods, sacrifice, and prayer are of minor consequences.  There have been many Buddhas in the past and there will be more in the future.
• Procession, Prayers, Pouring of water, Cremation, Final prayers

The wealthy make merit by repairing pagodas.  The poor drop a few coins in collection boxes.  Monks should not be concerned  with making merit.

1. Almsgiving
2. Dana
3. Buddha Day Festival

Mahayana Buddhism

• Principle
• Gautama
• Bodhisattvas
• Sects

• There were many principles that the Buddha had secretly taught, but only to a select group who could properly understand them.
• Gautama was really more than a man.  In the same way that Hinduism absorbed Buddhism by saying that Gautama was really an avatar of Vishnu, Buddhism absorbed many other religions by saying that their gods were really incarnations of one of the Buddhas.
• Bodhisattvas (future Buddhas) provide help for humans struggling with the problems of life.  They were believed to respond to the pryers of those who needed their help.  Bodhisattvas came to be seen as saviors and as one of the primary objects of popular devotion.
• The Pure Land Sect believes  that living a virtuous life and reciting Amitabha's name will lead to rebirth in his world.  The Intuitive Sects maintain that the intuition or inspiration that comes after a perios of meditation is the key to Buddhist truth.