Buddha Jayanti or also known as Buddha Purnima is the most sacred festivals of Buddhist.
Buddha Purnima (Buddha Birthday) is celebrated in remembrance Lord Buddha. Lord
Buddha is the founder of Buddhism. This day is the birth anniversary of Lord Buddha.
It falls on the full moon of the fourth lunar month (month of Vaisakh) i.e. April
or May. This day commemorates three important events of Buddha's life
- His birth in 623 BC.
- His enlightment i.e. attainment of supreme wisdom, in 588 BC.
- His attainment of Nirvana i.e. the complete extinction of his self at the age
of 80.
This day is a thrice blessed day. Lord Buddha is considered the ninth avatar (incarnation)
of Vishnu (Preserver in the Hindu Holy Trinity of Creator-Preserver-Destroyer).
Gautam Buddha "lived and died in about the fifth century before the Christian era".
Buddha means "enlightened one" - someone who is completely freefrom all faults and
mental obstructions.
Gautam Buddha was not a god and the philosophy of Buddhism does not entail any theistic
world-view. The teachings of the Buddha are solely to liberate human beings from
the misery and sufferings of life.
According to the Buddhism, sorrow and desire are the main cause of all the evil and suffering of this world. Lord Buddha advocated the Eightfold Path consisting
of precepts like right conduct, right motive, right speech, right effort, right
resolve, right livelihood, right attention and right meditation to gain mastery
over suffering. It is only after following this path one can reach the ultimate
aim of Nirvana. Nirvana is the transcendental state of complete liberation. Gautama
Buddha lived and taught in northern Inda in the 6th Century B.C.
Buddha travelled far and wide teaching hundreds of followers. Even after death his
disciples continued to spread his teachings.
Rich and poor alike were attracted by the simplicity of Buddha’s teaching and his
emphasis on complete equality of all, a notion antithetical to the existing Hindu
caste system. The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka espoused the Buddhist religion in the 3rd
century B.C. and helped in spreading it far and wide. Sarnath and Bodhgaya are two
of the most important pilgrimage centres for the Buddhists.
Though Buddhism originated in India and the religion has gained tremendous popularity
throughout the Far East in Asia, there are very few practising Buddhists in the
country. The number of Buddhists in the world ranges "from less than two hundred
million, to more than five hundred million, with the lower number closer to reality."
|