Buddhism
There were many religions that were practiced among the people of central Asia back in the early second and third centuries and forward. Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism were among the main three religions practiced then. Buddhism has been around since 273 B.C. It started in India and traveled into central Asia and continued on into Korea and Japan becoming one of the major religions in all of central China. By the ninth century nine-tenths of the population in northwest China was converted to Buddhism. So let's take a closer look at Buddhism and find out who started the religion and what the beliefs are behind it. How did it become central Asia's major religion and what caused its decline?Within the Gautama clan in India was a noble ranking man by the name of Siddhartha. According to the traditional story, Siddhartha had become distressed by all of the suffering around him. So he gave up his family and all his material comforts of life and set out on a life of wondering. It was during a time in his travels when he was close to the point of death that he sat beneath a papal tree and vowed not to move from the spot until Enlightment had been obtained. It was then that Siddhartha was known to have achieved Enlightmen
It brought flexibility in the fact that there are many paths to the same final truth (Cambridge Encyclopedia of Japan 158). The sutra contained not only spells and promises of help, but passages of metaphysical doctrine, which were studied by the priest. A system that served as the religion for the majority of the Japanese through out history. Within the last century Buddhism has arrived in the West and hundreds of Buddhist centers and groups are sprouting up across the USA. This doctrine gave rise to the six schools of Nara Buddhism (159). Mahayana forms of Buddhism are still being practiced in central Asia today and there are over 350 million Buddhists worldwide. This change was done in order for the laypeople to be able to obtain salvation through faith and good works that helped others. That the self has no real existence- they are only illusions. So Buddhism continued traveling through Asia, reaching areas of Korea and then into the island of Japan. " However, it was later changed to mean " an afterlife in paradise". It was during the Hein period that Buddhism began to change from a scholastic institution supported by the elite, into a religion of true popularity. It was only after his death, that his disciples decided to continue preaching his teachings. The teachings of Buddha were spread by traders, missionaries, and by Chinese converter's who studied in India and traveled along the silk trade route. Upon entering Japan, Buddhism was quickly adopted by the courts as the official state religion.
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