Founded by Prince Siddhartha Gautam in India in the late 6th century BC, Buddhism has only 6.6 million followers in India now. There is no central figure here but it is a philosophy and a code of morality.
Siddhartha Gautama was born in the 6th century BC in Lumbini, near Kapilavastu (now in Nepal) in a Sakya kshatriya family. The historical details of the Buddha's life are hard to establish as followers rather than historians have written the details of his life. Therefore the exact dates of his birth and Nirvana are not available. Some believe that Buddha was an incarnation of the ultimate Buddha of the cosmos that is the origin of all beings.

Core
Suddhodana, The father of Prince Siddharth was the ruler of the Sakya people. Legend has it that his mother, Mahamaya, dreamed before her son's birth of a beautiful white elephant which entered her womb. She died soon after the Buddha was born. At his birth the brahmins predicted that the boy will either be a Chakravartin (a universal monarch) or a Buddha. Buddha is also known as Sakyamuni (Sage of the Sakyas) as he was the son of a Sakya ruler. Siddhartha was inclined towards meditation and spiritual pursuits much against the wishes of his father. So he protected Siddhartha from the suffering of the real world by keeping him inside the palace so that he would know nothing about the lives and sufferings of ordinary mortals. Siddhartha married a girl named Yasodhara at the young age of sixteen and had a son called Rahul. Curious to see the real world, Siddhartha ventured out with his charioteer Channa and was confronted with the reality of the inevitable suffering of life like old age, disease and the final truth - death. He then realised that suffering was common in human life.
The next day, disturbed by what he had seen, at the age of twenty-nine, he left his kingdom and newborn son to lead an ascetic life. He was determined to find a way to relieve universal suffering and control desires. This Great Renunciation marked a turning point in the history of this religion.
For six years, Siddhartha submitted himself to rigorous ascetic practices, studying and following different methods of meditation with various religious teachers but still he could not find what he was looking for. Soon he learnt what all the religious teachers had to teach and moved on to continue his search. Emaciated due to starvation and still without an answer, he was offered a bowl of rice from a young girl, Sujata. He then realised that physical austerities were not the means to achieve liberation. So he changed his method, the whole ascetic routine and regained his health. One day Siddhartha sat under a banyan tree in the town of Gaya (now in Bihar) and meditated until dawn determined not to get up till he attained Nirvana. He was subjected to various levels of awareness in the process of enlightenment and the facts of his former lives were revealed to him. He purified his mind and attained enlightenment at the age of thirty-five, thus earning the title Buddha, or the Enlightened One.
Buddha preached his first sermon in Sarnath, near Varanasi. For the remainder of his life, he preached the Dharma in an effort to help others reach enlightenment. He preached that the world is full of sorrows and people suffer on accounts of desire. If desires are conquered, Nirvana (freedom from the cycle of birth and death) will be attained. He died between 500 and 350 BC in Kushinagar and is believed to have died after having accidentally eaten poisoned mushrooms.
From India Buddhism spread to Sri Lanka, Tibet, Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. Buddhism has moulded the spiritual, cultural, and social life of these nations. Unfortunately, Buddhism has very few followers in India now.

Faith & Practices
Desire is the root of all evil and salvation can be achieved only if man learns to control his desires and be satisfied. Buddhism teaches how man can understand the nature of reality and transcend human suffering. Buddha enriched by his own experience encouraged people to follow a path of balance rather than extremism. He called this The Middle Way, a path between a worldly life and extremes of self-denial.
Impermanence, suffering and impersonality are the three characteristics of existence taught by the Buddha. Those who realise this, their minds will be freed from delusions of permanence, pleasure and the self.
Buddha preached Four Noble Truths:

1. There is struggle in life and existence itself is a suffering
2. Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance and attachment
3. To stop disappointment and suffering one must curb desire and ignorance.
4. The way to curb desire and suffering is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path, which in a nutshell is morality, samadhi (concentration), and wisdom.

1. right understanding
2. right thought
3. right speech
4. right action
5. right mode of living
6. right endeavour
7. right awareness
8. right concentration

• To study the way of the Buddha is to study oneself.
• To study oneself is to forget oneself.
• To forget oneself is to be enlightened by everything.

Sects
Two sects emerged from Buddhism which were called the Hinayana school (Lesser Vehicle) and the Mahayana School.
The Hinayana school lays emphasis on personal rather than collective liberation and does not believe that the Buddha has a human form. It is also called School of the Elders or the Theravada school. Its teachings focus on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. Buddha is represented in symbolic forms of the Bodhi tree, the elephant or the wheel of life.
The Mahayana school (Great Vehicle) is less austere and ascetic and developed in India during the 1st century BC. They believe in the Bodhisattva ideal and the desire to liberate all beings. (Bodhisattvas were incarnations of Buddha and holy men who postponed their enlightenment so that others could attain liberation first) Mahayanists strongly emphasise compassion and wisdom as the ultimate form of practice and direct path to enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhism entered Japan with the rapid assimilation of Chinese culture in general.
Other forms of Buddhism are Zen Buddhism, which had rapidly grown in China where it was known as Chan, became the most popular of these newly transplanted forms of Mahayana Buddhism.
Vajrayana Buddhism or Tantric Buddhism (Diamond Vehicle) was a scion of the Mahayana teachings in northwest India around 500 BC. Today it is practised mainly in the Himalayan regions and involves rituals and mantras that can only be learned by study with a master.

Literature
The Theravada (Doctrine of the Elders) canon of sacred scriptures consists of the Tipitaka (The Three Baskets), all written in the Pali language, and includes

• the Vinaya Pitaka (Basket of Discipline)
• the Sutta Pitaka (Basket of Discourses)
• Abhidhamma Pitaka (Basket of Scholasticism)

Holy Places
The temple is the main place of worship, in which both public and private services are performed. Statues represent the Buddha in postures of meditating, teaching, or reclining. The monks and nuns are the preachers of the religion and chanting of mantras is an important ritual.
The monks and nuns live in monasteries, which is a complex of buildings. An important features of temples, monasteries, and shrines in both Theravada and Mahayana are the images.
In Mahayana sanctuaries images of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Saints, and guardian deities are represented. Stupas, Dagobas, and Pagodas dot the landscape in Buddhist land.
Sarnath and Shravasti in Uttar Pradesh, Bodh Gaya, Vaishali and Rajgir in Bihar, and the monastries in Laddakh and Arunachal Pradesh are some of the important holy places of the Buddhists in India.
Japan, China, Tibet, Myanmar, Combodia, Thailand and Nepal also boast of beautiful Buddhist monastries and Pagodas.