Buddhism
BUDDHISM
Gautama Buddha, previously known as Prince Siddhartha (before his enlightenment) founded the religion of Buddhism. Gautama Buddha was born to Queen Maha-Maya at Kapilavastu, Nepal, Indian. Buddha taught and organized the Sangha, monastic orders, until his death at Kusinagara, at the age of 80. There are 308,000,000 Buddhist devotees in the world today. They believe that there has been Buddha before Him; Bodhisattvas who come as Saviors of all and that all beings are Buddha whether they realize it or not.
There are 4 cardinal events in the life of Buddha that represents 4 major pilgrimage centers for Buddhists: His Birth at Kapilavastu, His Enlightenment at Bodhgaya, His First Sermon at Sarnath, and His Death at Kusinagara. There is a Gandhara style, frieze on stone, located in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., that shows all 4 of these events. After Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, these areas, for the first few centuries, were not allowed to portray images of Buddha. However, the Gandhara style, of the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD, derives from the Hellenistic and Roman style, so appealing to the Western taste. The "Buddha Head", Gupta style, 5th century AD of Sarnath shows the face's combination of Buddha awareness and artistic style with its balance of all the features.
The story of Buddha's Divine Conception begins with the Future Buddha still in the heaven of the Tusita gods, where He decided to arise in the world. He was reminded, by deities, of his accumulated merit, saying to him "Attain in your next existence your high destiny" as He died. Then he was conceived in the womb of Queen Maha-Maya. At that very time during the Midsummer Festival, in the city of Kapilavastu, Queen Maha-Maya, feel asleep on the royal couch, and dreamed of four angels that came and lifted her up, couch and all, to the Himalayan Mountains, under a sal-tree. Wives...
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