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Historically, the roots of Buddhism lie in the religious thought of Iron Age India around the middle of the first millennium BCE. [5] This was a period of great intellectual ferment and socio-cultural change known as the Second Urbanisation, marked by the growth of towns and trade, the composition of the Upanishads and the historical emergence of the Śramaṇa traditions.
Buddhism (/ ˈ b ʊ d ɪ z əm / BUUD-ih-zəm, US also / ˈ b uː d-/ BOOD-), [1] [2] [3] also known as Buddha Dharma, is an Indian religion [a] and philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century BCE. [7]
These belief systems have not historically been seen as mutually exclusive and have blended over time into different beliefs such as Pure Land Buddhism. This shows a marked difference from Western conceptions of religions, which see adherence to one religion as precluding membership of another faith.
The five largest religious groups by world population, estimated to account for 5.8 billion people and 84% of the population, are Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism (with the relative numbers for Buddhism and Hinduism dependent on the extent of syncretism), and traditional folk religions.
Hinduism and Jainism have a rather similar view on the topic of asceticism, or, in simpler terms, abstinence. It is thought that their beliefs on the topic come from the early belief that some meditative and monastic practices cleanse the body of impurity. The Hindu theory of Karma gave Jainism a great deal of support to start promoting asceticism.
The Tian Tan Buddha statue of Buddha in Hong Kong.. Buddhism is a non-theistic Dharmic religion and philosophy. [8] Buddhism was founded around the 5th century BCE in present-day Nepal by Siddhartha Gautama, known to his followers as the Buddha, with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path as its central principles.
The Buddhist concept of anattā or anātman is one of the fundamental differences between mainstream Buddhism and mainstream Hinduism, with the latter asserting that ātman ("self") exists. [note 2] In Hinduism, Atman refers to the essence of human beings, the observing pure awareness or witness-consciousness.
The paradigm for instance frames the teaching about religion in the British education system; at all three Key Stages, British teachers are instructed to teach about Christianity, while by the end of key Stage 3 they are also supposed to teach about the other "five principal religions": Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism. [16]