BUDDHA S.GAUTAMA (563 - 482 BC)
Gautama Buddha, real name Prince Siddhartha, founder of Buddhism, one of the world's largest religions. The son of the king of Kapilavastu, northeastern India, bordering Nepal. Siddhartha himself (Gautama clan from the Sakya tribe) is said to have been born in Lumbini which is now part of the country of Nepal. Married at sixteen to a cousin of the same age. Raised in a luxurious palace, Prince Siddhartha was unable to live a comfortable life, and was overcome with a feeling of extreme dissatisfaction. From the windows of the glittering palace he looked out and he saw the poor people lying in the streets, not eating breakfast or not being able to eat at all. Day after day chasing the necessities of life is unreachable like a bundle of wheat hanging from the muzzle of a donkey. Put that trash. Meanwhile, those who have possessions often feel dissatisfied, worried, anxious, disappointed and depressed because they are haunted by all kinds of illnesses that drag them to the grave every time. Siddhartha thought, this situation must be changed. The meaning of life must be realized in the truest sense of the word, and not just temporary pleasures that are always overshadowed by suffering and death.
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When he was twenty-nine years old, shortly after the birth of his first son, Gautama decided he must leave his court life and devote himself to a quest for true truth that was not gilded. Thinking is not just thinking, but acting. With kangkong he left the palace, without taking his wife and children, without bringing any goods and possessions, and became a homeless person with not a penny in his pocket. The first step, for a while, he studied from the wise men who were there at that time and already felt that he had enough knowledge, he came to the conclusion of solving the problem of human dissatisfaction.
In serene solitude he struggles with life's human problems. Finally one night, when he was sitting under a broadleaf tree and bearing a pear-shaped fruit full of all kinds of seeds, the puzzles of life's problems came as if they were falling on him. All night long Siddhartha pondered deeply and when the sun broke on the eastern horizon he was shocked and at the same time convinced that a complicated problem had been solved and he began to call himself the Buddha "One who is enlightened".
At that time he was thirty-five years old. The remainder of his forty-five years was spent traveling throughout northern India, propagating his new philosophy in front of an audience of just about anyone who would listen. When he died, in 483 BC there were already hundreds of thousands of followers of his teachings. Even though his words have not yet been written down, many of his followers memorize his teachings by heart, passed down from one generation to the next by word of mouth alone.
The essence of Buddhism can be summed up in what its adherents call the "Four virtues of truth":
1. Human life is inherently unhappy
2. The cause of this unhappiness is self-interest and being fettered by lust
3. Self-interested thoughts and lust can be completely suppressed when all lust and desire can be eliminated, in Buddhism it is called nirvana
4. Right consideration, right thought, right speech, right action, right earning, right effort, right remembrance, right meditation.
It can be added that Buddhism is open to anyone, regardless of what race he is, (this is what distinguishes it from Hinduism).
Some time after Gautama died this new religion spread slowly. In the 3rd century BC, a powerful Indian emperor named Asoka converted to Buddhism. Thanks to his support, the spread of Buddhism accelerated, not only in India but also in Burma. From here the religion spread throughout Southeast Asia, to Malaysia and Indonesia.
The winds of this influence spread not only to the south but also to the north, breaking into Tibet, into Afghanistan and Central Asia. It doesn't stop there. He penetrated into China and wielded influence that was not made in magnitude and from there crossed into Japan and Korea.
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Whereas in India itself the new religion began to decline in influence after around 500 AD and even almost became extinct in 1200, on the other hand in China and Japan, Buddhism remained the main religion. Likewise in Tibet and Southeast Asia this religion experienced its heyday for centuries.
The Buddhist teachings were not written down until centuries after Gautama's death. It is therefore easy to understand why religion is divided into various sects. The two major branches of Buddhism are the Theravada branch, its influence is mainly in Southeast Asia and according to most Western scholars it is this branch that is closest to the original Buddhist teachings. The other branch is Mahayana, its weight of influence lies in Tibet, China and also in Southeast Asia in general.
Buddha, as the founder of one of the world's largest religions, clearly deserves to be almost at the top of this list of books. Because there are only 200 million adherents of Buddhism compared to 500 million adherents of Islam and one billion adherents of Christianity, naturally the influence of Buddha is smaller than that of Muhammad or Isa. However, the difference in the number of adherents if used as a measure that is too strict can also be misleading. For example, his intention or the decline of Buddhism in India was not to decline carelessly but because Hinduism had absorbed many of the teachings and principles of Buddhism into its body. Even in China, a large number of people who no longer openly call them Buddhists in their daily practice are actually heavily influenced by religious philosophy.
Buddhism and Confucianism roughly have equal influence on the world. Both of them lived at almost the same time, and the number of their followers was not much different. My choice of placing the Buddha's name first before Confucius-Cu in order is based on two considerations:
1. The development of Chinese Communism has almost wiped out the influence of Confucianism-Cu, whereas it seems that the future of Buddhism still has more gaps and influences than in Confucianism-Cu;
2. The failure of the Confucian-Cu teachings to spread widely to the borders of China shows how closely the Confucian-Cu teachings are linked to the attitudes and ordinances of the old Chinese era. On the other hand, Buddhism does not contain any repetition or chewing on ancient Indian philosophy, and Buddhism spread beyond the boundaries of India's homeland based on the original ideas of Gautama and a wide range of philosophies.