ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

Each month we feature an amazing story from world history taken from the bestselling book by Christopher Lloyd, with illustrations by Andy Forshaw. This month: the birth of Buddhism

Focus the camera of a smartphone or tablet on this QR code to listen to an audio recording of the author reading this book extract.

Today, Buddhism is one of the world’s most popular religions, with an estimated 550 million followers. You have probably heard of it – and of the great religious teacher and thinker who founded it, who is often called the Buddha. But do you know how Buddhism began?

Its story starts in India, in the 6th Century CE, with the birth of the man who would later become known as the Buddha. His name was Siddhartha Gautama. As a boy, Siddhartha was a Hindu. The Hindu religion is the oldest of the five major religions practised in the world today (that’s Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam). It probably started

Above: a painting showing the Buddha sitting and meditating beneath a tree. Left: people release lanterns into the air to celebrate a Buddhist festival of lights.

between three and five thousand years ago. The first holy books of Hinduism are called the Vedas. We don’t have any examples of written versions of the Vedas until long after they were composed. The Vedic culture passed these important verses along through the generations by memorising them and teaching them to others.

The central idea of Hinduism is that each person has an eternal soul, or self, that is reincarnated after death into another being. This being can be an animal or a person. Hinduism also includes a caste system. People are born into a particular caste or level in society. They stay in that caste for their whole life. The highest caste, Brahmins, were priests in Siddhartha’s time, and it was their right to demand food and whatever else they needed to live from other people. The lowest castes then were servants or slaves. People in the middle worked in the government or were farmers or traders.

In Hinduism, everything you do in life creates karma, which is sort of like positive points and negative points. If you follow the rules, then you collect good karma. And good karma allows you to be reincarnated at a higher level in the next life. The rules include being kind and compassionate to others, performing the rituals to the gods and meditating. Over many lives you can move up from being an animal to being a low-caste person to being a high-caste person. Finally, you reach moksha, when you are free from the hardships of the cycle of birth and death. For some Hindus, this means your soul is reunited with the soul of the whole universe or it becomes one with God.

Siddhartha rejected some parts of Hinduism that he thought were wrong. He created his own religion, now called Buddhism.

Two important gods of the Hindu religion

Hinduism is said to have 33 million gods, each with their own job to do. All of them work together under the leadership of Krishna, the Supreme Being, to keep the universe running. Here we introduce two important ones. Brahma is the creator of the universe. Ardhanarishvara is a combination of the god Shiva and the goddess Parvati and represents the Hindu belief that female and male energy must work closely together to make the universe work.

Prayer beads for the many substances needed to create the universe

BRAHMA

Book for knowledge of the world

ARDHANARISHVARA

SHIVA (the male side of Ardhanarishvara)

PARVATI (the female side of Ardhanarishvara)

White lines cover a third eye of spiritual power Jewelled crown made of bamboo strips

Animal skins represent a simple life

Lotus flower for divine beauty and purity

 Continued from previous page Above: the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple in London, UK. Below: a statue of the Buddha.

We don’t know very much about Siddhartha’s life, but we believe he lived from about 560 to about 480 BCE. And we think he was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal.

According to one legend, Siddhartha was born a prince. His mother, Queen Maya, died a few days after his birth. Siddhartha’s father was very protective of him and had three palaces specially built in his son’s honour. The idea was that Siddhartha would live all his life in these palaces. That way he would be hidden away from the poor, desperate lives led by most ordinary people.

But, at the age of 29, Siddhartha’s curiosity to see the world for himself overcame him. So he sneaked out of his palace. He met old people and people with diseases and people who were dying. He was so upset by what he saw that he decided to leave his luxuries behind and join ordinary people in their suffering.

This period in northern India is called the Second Period of Urbanisation. City-states covered the area along the Ganges River. The time was full of thinkers. In Hinduism, one of the new ideas was that an important way to live a holy life is to become what’s called an ascetic. Ascetics give up all possessions, pleasures and family connections. They focus entirely on prayer and meditation. Siddhartha decided to become an ascetic. At one point he ate no more than a single leaf or nut a day and almost starved to death.

However, Siddhartha eventually concluded that starving himself was adding suffering to the world, not taking it away.

It is said that Siddhartha sat down under a tree to meditate for 49 days. After all of this time quieting his mind, he gained what is called enlightenment or nirvana. He could see the truth of all things and felt lasting peace and joy. From then on, he was known as the Buddha, meaning ‘awakened one’.

The Buddha said that all people are equal and that castes don’t matter. He also stopped thinking about karma and earning points for the next life. But he continued to believe in reincarnation and the importance of meditation and selflessness. The Buddha taught a middle way between a life of always wanting more and a life of rejecting everything.

He believed if you were kind and compassionate to others, meditated to stay calm, and lived simply, you could find

Left: one of the miracles of the Buddha, in which he is said to have crossed the Ganges River in India on a cloud.

your way to nirvana.

For the next 45 years, the Buddha walked along the Ganges River in what is now north-east India a nd southern Nepal. He talked to everyone who would listen, from kings and queens to robbers and beggars. He explained to them that anyone can gain enlightenment. After attracting thousands of followers, the Buddha died at about the age of 80.

Some rulers were afraid of Buddhism and other new ideas, so they tried to stop them. Others put up with them. But then, something happened that began the process of making Buddhism the major religion it is today.

About 200 years after the death of the Buddha, the Maurya

Empire unified India by conquering all its different kingdoms. The third Mauryan king was named Ashoka. When he came to power in about 260 BCE, there was just one undefeated kingdom left. It was called Kalinga.

Of course, Ashoka attacked the Kalingans. The last battle of that war is known as the Battle of Kalinga. According to some stories, it left more than 100,000 people dead on the battlefield. The day after his army won the battle,

The Lion Capital of Ashoka sits on top of a pillar built around 25O BCE. Its four lions were adopted as the official emblem of India in 195O.

it is said that Ashoka walked out across the city. All he saw were burned-out houses, dead horses and scattered bodies. Ashoka was a very tough guy – his name even means ‘without sorrow’ – but the sight of all this carnage is said to have made him weep and cry, ‘What have I done?’

Horrified at the appalling loss of life, Ashoka became a Buddhist. Over the next 20 years, he tried to help his people live in peace. The best information we have about King Ashoka is from a collection of instructions to his subjects that he had carved into pillars and rocks all around his kingdom. They are called the Edicts of Ashoka.

In them, he asked people to be kind and generous to others, to work to improve themselves, to be honest and to be grateful. Following Ashoka’s reign, Buddhism spread to many other countries. His children Mahinda and Sanghamitra took Buddhist teachings to what is now Sri Lanka.

By 100 CE, Buddhist monks had reached

China. From China, the religion spread throughout Korea,

Vietnam, Thailand and eventually into Japan. Nowadays more people practise Buddhism in other countries than in India itself.: