Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [170]
According to Buddhist belief, the perfect peace and blessedness is a state called Nirvana. Attaining Nirvana enables a person to escape from the continuous cycle of death and rebirth caused by an individual’s worldly desires, such as craving for fame, immortality, and wealth. In Buddhism, people attain Nirvana only when such desires are completely eliminated.
Buddha preached that Nirvana can be attained by following a Middle Way between the extremes of ascetic self-denial and sensuality, yet living in the world with compassion and by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, which consists of:
Perfect understanding, or Knowledge of the truth
Perfect aspiration, the intention to resist evil
Perfect speech, or saying nothing to hurt others
Perfect conduct through respecting life, morality, and property
Perfect means of livelihood, or holding a job that does not injure others
Perfect endeavor, striving to free the mind of evil
Perfect mindfulness through controlling one’s feelings and thoughts
Perfect contemplation through the practice of proper forms of concentration
“Through observation and effort,” summarizes Jonathan Forty, author of Mythology: A Visual Encyclopedia, “a person can break out of the laws of karma…. The aim of Buddhists is to step outside this wheel of karmic rebirth and attain nirvana, or release from it and reunification with the One.”
At about the age of eighty, Buddha became ill and died. His disciples gave him an elaborate funeral, burned his body, and distributed his bones as sacred relics.
In Indian history, Buddhism reached a high mark of sorts when an Indian emperor named Ashoka converted in 262 BCE, renounced violence, and named Buddhism the state religion (Ashoka died in 232 BCE). In Buddhist tradition, Ashoka had become horrified at the cost of empire-building and embraced Buddhism. Today, Buddhism is one of the major religions of the world and it has been a dominant religious and social force in most of Asia for more than two thousand years. There are an estimated 364 million followers today.
Reacting to the growing popularity of Buddhism, the Brahmins later tried to absorb it by depicting the Buddha as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, which would be a little like traditional Judaism finding a way to absorb Jesus or Mohammed into its list of prophets. It was successful in many respects, because Buddhism gradually faded as a dynamic influence in India. When leaders of the Gupta Dynasty reunited northern India around 320 CE, they brought about a revival of Hindu religious thought, caste lines were reinforced, and Buddhism eventually disappeared as a force in India.
Emerging in about the same era as Buddhism did, the second major offshoot of Hinduism is Jainism. Like Buddhism, Jainism is traced to a man who is believed to be an actual historical individual. Mahavira is said to have been born to aristocratic parents in 540 BCE and was a contemporary of Buddha, though they may have never met. Nonetheless, as with Buddha, certain myths developed about Mahavira. At his birth, the gods were said to have descended from heaven and showered flowers, nectar, and fruit on his father’s palace. There are many legends about his extraordinary childhood, but as an adult, he is said to have lived an ordinary life until his parents died. Then, at the age of thirty-two, he gave away his possessions, left his wife and child, and became a wandering monk. The sky glowed like a lake covered in lotus flowers when this happened.
Mahavira’s teachings form the basis for Jainism, which is centered on the belief that every living thing consists of an eternal soul called the jiva and a temporary physical body. Attaining release from the world of sorrows can be achieved by renouncing sin and violence, engaging instead in strict