Chapter 55: After the Buddha's Enlightenment
After the Buddha attained enlightenment, he began to preach at Sarnath, preaching the "Four Noble Truths" to the five bhikshus including Chenru, which was the beginning of the monastic community.
Later, the elder of the state of Paranai, Yesha, along with four other friends, joined the Sangha and became disciples of the Buddha, and then 50 of his friends also joined, and the Sangha expanded here, and began to have the support of lay people, and the parents of Yasha became the first Upasai and Upasai of the Sangha.
After hearing the teachings of Bhikshu Masheng, Sariputta and Moggallen led 200 disciples to join the Sangha, and then the three brothers of the three Kāyāyas led 1,000 disciples to join, and these 1,255 disciples became the backbone of the Buddha's Sangha, also known as the Constant Followers.
With this as the center, the Order of the Buddha gradually expanded its teachings. When the king heard the news of the Buddha, he sent an attendant to invite the Buddha to return to his country to speak the Dharma.
The noble sons of the Shakya, such as Venerable Furuna, Ananda, Devadatta, Ananda, and others, joined the Sangha. After that, he lived in the world for forty-five years and converted many disciples, among whom the famous ones were the Mahakyas. In order to transform sentient beings, he traveled all over India, centered on Magadha, Kansaro, and Basha, and taught the Dharma for 25 years in the Monastery of the Acropolis of Sasarasa.
Primitive Buddhism believes that Shakyamuni Buddha said the Four Noble Truths in Sarnath, in Sarnath, to show the transformation (initial transformation), the teaching transformation (second transformation), the enlightenment (three transformations), and the three times to preach the Four Noble Truths, which is called the three turning of the Dharma Wheel.
Mahayana Buddhism believes that Shakyamuni Buddha first said the Huayan Sutra when he "turned the wheel of Dharma for the first time", but no one could understand it, so he started by saying the Four Noble Truths (i.e., the path of suffering and extinguishing), and the most representative sutra of this stage is the Ahama Sutra.
The "Second Rotation of the Wheel of Phaselessness" through the recognition of voidness. Afflictions, birth and death can be cut off, from the color law to all the wisdom and emptiness, all the dharmas in the world have no self-nature; the most representative classics at this stage are the "Great Prajna Sutra" and the "Small Prajna Sutra".
Some sentient beings did not understand the deep emptiness, so the Buddha explained separately the non-self-nature, the "Explanation of the Profound Tantra of the Wheel of Dharma", the Sutra of Wisdom Fangguang, the Sutra of Nyorai Tibet, and the Sutra of Myoho-renge-kyo, which elaborate on the manifestation of all dharmas and consciousness, and the physical nature of the mind is only clear and knowing, with the light of primitive nature.
When the Buddha was eighty years old in Nirvana among the Brahmanas, the Buddha sat down in the rain in the city of Vaishali and announced that he would attain Nirvana in three months. He walked northwest with his disciples. After eating the world's rare sandalwood ear offered by the blacksmith Chuntuo (Zhou Na), he suffered a serious illness (recorded as dysentery in the southern biography and back pain in the northern biography).
Shakyamuni was thirsty and asked Ananda to fetch him water to drink. Shakyamuni finished drinking. Continue to walk forward with your disciples. Walk to the banks of the Lilianievati River. The Buddha told his disciples that they would enter Nirvana. Ananda was instructed to lay down a bedding (called a "rope bed" in the Sutra of Śāṇaṇa) between the two sāra trees, with his head facing north, and the Buddha lay down. Lying on his right side, his left foot on his right foot, the disciples waited by his side to listen to the Buddha's teachings.
At night, Subhadra went to ask the Buddha for teachings and became the Buddha's most descendant disciple, and the Buddha perished under the twin trees of Shara near the city of Nara. After cremation, the relics were brought back by the eight kings of Magadha, the king of Magadha, Ajanshi, and the Shakya clan to build a pagoda (i.e., a relic).
When the Buddha was alive, he had ten famous disciples, they were: Mahakasa (the first Buddha), Moggallan (the first supernatural power), Furuna (the first to say the Dharma), Subodhi (the first to liberate emptiness), Sariputta (the first to wisdom), Rahula (the first tantric practice), Ananda (the first to hear more), Upali (the first to hold the Vinaya), Kajayan (the first to discuss), and Aniluta (the first to the Heavenly Eye).
Among the bhikshunis, there are bhikshunis of the Great Love Path, Lotus Bhikshunis, and so on.
Sitting in the rain behind the Buddha's Nirvana, Mahakala led the 500 great arhats to gather outside the royal palace to recite the sutras, and the precept-holding Yoboli recited the Vinaya, and Ananda, the first to hear the sutras.
It was recognized by the general public, and this was the first assembly of Buddhism. Since then, the disciples have successively collected and sorted out the Buddha's life's words and deeds, and through many gatherings, they have formed the "Three Tibets" of sutras, Vinayas, and commentaries.
Buddhism spread throughout India during the Ashoka era of the Mauryan Empire in India and spread to Sri Lanka, Jindi and other places, Buddhism became extinct in India after the twelfth century AD, and Hinduism has the saying that Shakyamuni is the ninth incarnation of Vishnu. With the increasing spread of modern Buddhism, Buddhism has gradually become a worldly religion.
There are many different opinions on the basic teachings of Shakyamuni in later generations, but both Mahayana Buddhism and tribal Buddhism agree that the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Twelve Causes and Conditions, and the Thirty-Seven Qualities preserved in the Ahama Sutra are Shakyamuni's original teachings.
Before the time of the Buddha, the beliefs left over from the ancient White Indians were known as Brahmanism. They often call for God's help. After the victory, thank the gods for their help.
They were not afraid of death, and believed that if they died in battle, they would ascend to heaven with honor. Therefore, ancient Brahmanism was filled with many sacrificial rituals and hymns in praise of God.
These rituals and hymns are contained in the Vedic scriptures, and Sanskrit is the only language used in religious ceremonies. The person in charge of religious ceremonies, known as a brahmin. The warrior class in charge of the battle was called Kshatriya.
However, the indigenous religion of the inhabitants of southern India is represented by the Shaman. Shamen advocated monasticism, lived alone in the wilderness, did not marry and have children during the monastic, and sat still all day in order to enter meditation.
They do not believe in the Vedas about gods and ascension, but they believe in reincarnation, believing that what they do in this life (called karma) will affect the good or bad in the next life.
The only way to get out of samsara is to attain liberation through austerity. The "Muni" mentioned in the Rig Veda is also a type of shaman.
In the seventh and eighth centuries B.C., the Upanishads faith arose, which, unlike Brahmanical beliefs, was influenced by the Shamanic tradition, which believed in reincarnation and practiced meditation and asceticism, but they also believed in the ancient Brahmanical scriptures and pursued the unity of Brahmana and self.
The Upanishads were taught in secret and were mainly passed down among the Kshatriyas, who were dissatisfied with the Brahmin class and believed that religious privileges could not be monopolized by them. In later generations, the six schools of Brahmanical belief in the theory of numbers and yoga were gradually formed.
Before the rise of Buddhism, there were many different schools of religion in India, but they basically belonged to the Brahmin and Shaman traditions.
The Buddha himself once learned from Alangaran that there is no place to be determined, from Yutou Lanfu to learn non-non-contemplation, and he also joined the ascetic shaman, eating only one piece of hemp a day.
Therefore, at the beginning of the rise of Buddhism, it was also considered to belong to a branch of the Shamanic group. Doctrinally, Buddhism has many similarities with Jainism, also because they belong to the same Shamanic tradition.
Shakyamuni Buddha's main area of activity was between the kingdoms of Kasala, Magadha, and Vaishali on both sides of the Ganges, so it is likely that the language used to speak the Dharma was Magadha, a dialect of eastern India.
After the Buddha entered Nirvana, the language used by his disciples to compile Buddhist scriptures should also be Magadha colloquialism, but with the gradual expansion of the area where Buddhism spreads, it is impossible for the Buddhist language to remain pure and singular under the influence of various dialects.
The dialects themselves are also evolving, with scholars claiming that Magadha idioms later evolved into semi-Magadha languages, and after the discovery of Ashoka's Cliff Edict and stone pillar inscriptions, scholars began to learn more about Magadha sayings.
The Buddhist theory is a theory of liberation, and language is only a tool and not an end, so the Buddha rejected his disciples' request that Sanskrit be the unified language of preaching according to the Brahmin tradition, and allowed his disciples to recite the Buddha's teachings in their own dialects.
The early Buddhist scriptures were not recited in Sanskrit, and it was only later that the sutras were mixed with Sanskrit and Sanskrit versions appeared. The earliest surviving manuscript of Gandhara Buddhism was written between the first and third centuries BCE, and there is no historical record of Siddhartha's life or more than 100 years after his death. (To be continued......)