Almost all religion follow personality cults. Christians follow many saints besides Jesus. Muslims have a long long hierarchy of Peer, Qutub, Qalandar, Walis, besides following the Prophet and his companion. In Hindus, there are gods, their autars. Muslims and Hindus got Syeds and Pundits for reverence.
Is their any personality cult followed in Buddhism?
I don’t remember a prominent figure (saints, etc) besides Gautam Budha that is followed by the Buddhists.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
bodhidharma
he was the founder of shoalin temple,originally from south india many believe sholin kung fu was based from kalaripayattu (Ancient martial arts from kerala) which was introduced by bodhidharma to china
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
Means Personality cult is also part of Buddhism? I read that Buddhism detest personality cults and they prefer Budddha's teachings over his personality.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
the theravada/hinayana (old school version - srilanka, burma, etc) buddhism doesn't do personality cults. mahayana/vajrayana (tibetan and zen) schools do. for eg. in tibetan buddhism, gautama buddha is not even the most important figure. he is called shakyamuni buddha. guru padmasambhava (founder of tibetan buddhism) is worshipped with more ardor. and the tibetans have their dalai lamas, and other lamas who they believe are reborn again as some kid to be worshipped.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
What does shakyamuni means?
Regarding reborn concept, it is believed that Gautam was 25th Buddha and before him other Buddhas passed their lives in same cycle i.e. leaving their homes in search of truth.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
shakya - the clan/tribe to with siddhartha belonged
muni - sage
so i guess it translates as "the sage of the shakyas"
the whole rebirth thing is a bit of a haze - gautama buddha doesnt seem to have mentioned it. all these stories of older buddhas etc seem to have been added on later. buddha's core teachings are very very simple, can be summarized in one side of paper without losing its integrity. no gods, no heavens, no rebirth - just a way to calm your mind, and be happy and live a moral life.
but then people want more than just simplicity. they want the mysticism and unknown factor.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
You mean Buddha found that there is no god, no rebirths etc, but later on his followers gave him status of god?
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
You mean Buddha found that there is no god, no rebirths etc, but later on his followers gave him status of god?
Mahatma Buddh prohibited his followers to make images of him and pray to him etc. It were the Buddhists from what is today known as Pakistan who started creating images in the form of Statues etc., all thanks to the greeks.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
The political dominance of Buddhism was over as soon as Mauryan dynasty was uprooted, last king brihadatta was killed by his Senapati, general, Pushyamitra Sunga,in front of royal army, interestingly he always maintained the title of Senapati, it was first coup of Indian history, it is also said that Pashtoons were majorly Buddhist before Islam arrived.
Brahmins adopted buddhist lifestyle of pure vegetarianism and labelled him as Avtaar of Bhagwan Vishnu thereby annihilating roots of Buddhism in India.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
Yes the ruins in Taxila, Bamiyan and nearby area proves that Pashtoon followed Buddhism before advent of Islam. Even, Indus Valley Civilization seems influenced by Buddhism.
Its always confusing to distinguish between Hinduism and Buddhism. So Pundits brought an end to separate identity of Buddhism by assimilating Buddha in Vishnu. Is this the reason, why we don't see separate personality cults in Buddhism? What is the significance of Dalai Lamas and their status in Buddhism? Seems a concept similar to Ayatullah as in Shia Muslims.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
You mean Buddha found that there is no god, no rebirths etc, but later on his followers gave him status of god?
buddha didn't talk about god in any of his teachings. prior to his realizing the four noble truths, siddhartha had trained under various spiritual leaders of his time - jains, atheists, hindu ascetics - but none of these made complete sense to him after a while. his way is about "enlightenment", achieving freedom from the pain and suffering of worldly attachments - for this he does not rely on any divine objects of any form or reference them. you might like to read up about the four noble truths of buddhism.
at later points in time, he's been anointed as divine, avatar of hindu god, a reincarnation of a bodhisatva etc. in china, japan, korea etc, buddhism has evolved in conjunction with local philosophers' ideas into entirely new versions. some people even call these buddhist religions instead of buddhism.
the pure form of buddhism faded pretty quickly after the collapse of certain empires. sanskritized scholars took over with mahayana, while hinayana/theravada stayed true to pali/magadhi. there is a lot to be told about the evolution of buddhism to its current day forms, but it isn't important. buddha's original message is pretty clear even today. but in the end, it is about what humans want for themselves.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
there were many buddhist university as well, like Nalanda,Takshshila and vikramsihla, intrestingly Chankya was teacher at Taxila, First king chandragupta converted to Jain monk after his retirement and his son Bindusar was Hindu, it was ashoka who became buddhist, even though buddhist texts are supposed to be in Pali but it has good sanskrit content as well, Ashoka's daughter Sanghmitra took buddhism to srilanka.
Indus valley civilization is more similar to Hindusim, with dancing girl, Vermiliion hair parting, yagya kund(fire altars) and Kamandal etc. Pundas can never digest any body else getting political hegemony which is always their domain.
DalaiLama is part of tibetian leader and supreme leader of Tibetan Buddhism, it is said that he reincarnate again into buddhism to become Dalai Lama, now this community live in exile have a big monastry in DharamShala and in Tawang, Arunachal:)
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
Nice information queer :k:
It seems Buddha’s Nirvan was detachment from the existing concepts of God. Can we say that Buddha’s view was closer to Atheism?
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
there were many buddhist university as well, like Nalanda,Takshshila and vikramsihla, intrestingly Chankya was teacher at Taxila, First king chandragupta converted to Jain monk after his retirement and his son Bindusar was Hindu, it was ashoka who became buddhist, even though buddhist texts are supposed to be in Pali but it has good sanskrit content as well, Ashoka's daughter Sanghmitra took buddhism to srilanka. Indus valley civilization is more similar to Hindusim, with dancing girl, Vermiliion hair parting, yagya kund(fire altars) and Kamandal etc. Pundas can never digest any body else getting political hegemony which is always their domain. DalaiLama is part of tibetian leader and supreme leader of Tibetan Buddhism, it is said that he reincarnate again into buddhism to become Dalai Lama, now this community live in exile have a big monastry in DharamShala and in Tawang, Arunachal:)
Buddha didn't left behind any written material and the Buddhist scripture were based on memories transferred from one generation to other until people learned to write. BTW, what is the language of Buddha and does it prevailed till the Buddhist scriptures were written?
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
Buddha was born in 580 BC, by the time both Pali and Sanskrit were existing but he never wrote anything, oral tradition did exist before being written down. Indus civilization was far more primitive and region where buddha was born and died were populated only after settlement occured in plains of India, almost entire post vedic literature also was written by the time Buddha was born.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
Budha was born in a period when people were in the phase of denouncing earlier gods. Indra (god of war), Agni (god of fire) and Varuna (guardian of divine order) were then considered as not helping the human beings and people started considering that their sacrifices to those gods didn't bring any help from those gods. That was the point when people like Buddha started to find out a solution based on human's personal efforts and without any divine help.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
By this time post vedic gods like Shiva and Vishnu had got prominence of vedic gods, like of Indra, Mitra, Varun etc, Buddha was prince of Shakya dynasty, Buddhism along with budda's teaching was the first ideological challenge for pundas, Budhhism believed in renouncing the world altogether, he wanted to elivate humans from physical being to spritual being. Even the place where buddha was born is also revered by Hindu as he is ninth of Dashavatar of Bhagwan Vishnu. While hinduism also believed in satisfying human's physical needs by pleasing gods, buddhism always believed in leading a spritual life and connicting with supreme spirit.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
So Budhha was neared to Jesus from Abrahamic religions than the local religions, as both Buddha and Jesus taught to renounce the relationships.
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
btw
another important factor was Adi shankaracharya who turned back many buddhists into hindus
Re: Buddhism and personality cult
So Budhha was neared to Jesus from Abrahamic religions than the local religions, as both Buddha and Jesus taught to renounce the relationships.
Renunciation was always part of one section of hinduism, tyakten bhunjit-ah, you should eat with an intention to renounce or donate forms basic of hinduism too. All upper stage of Brahmanism except pandit like Rishi, Maharishi, etc renounce their social relationship with god, but all rishis maintained their family life which is compulsory in Hinduism.
btw
another important factor was Adi shankaracharya who turned back many buddhists into hindus
This is best about this community of pundas, break a jats head he comes and break yours:), you break a pundas head he comes after very long time and uproots the opposition and erase it from people's memory:D, they always did in that way from Buddhism to Indira if they have decided only god can stop them:(
After some years I am going to write a book on "the way of pundas":D