Is Buddhism An Independent Religion

Aykhan Mammadov

CRN 157

Is Buddhism a branch of Hinduism or an independent religion?

Most researchers agree that the time of the emergence of Buddhism refers to the 6th century BC. Of course, the dominant position at that time was occupied by Hinduism and, first of all, the Vedic culture, which arose seven hundred years before Buddhism. Buddhism developed in India in the general context of Indian philosophy and religion, which also included Hinduism and Jainism. Hence, it has some common features with these religions, which leads to an argument, is Buddhism just another branch of Hinduism or it can be considered as completely independent religion.

Unlike, for example, Abrahamic religions, which started from common unified idea and later acquired new branches, Hinduism from its beginning consisted of different beliefs, more or less unified, but at the same time different in some aspects; hence, we don’t know the exact creation period and name(s) of creator(s). During centuries, the borders between these beliefs were becoming more and more blurry, and now we have 4 main branches of Hinduism: Vaishnavism (Vishnu), Shaivism (Shiva), Shaktism (Devi) and Smartism – and these list does not include regional versions of those. In the contrary, we know, by whom and thus when Buddhism had appeared and developed – Gautama Buddha lived in 6-5th centuries B.C.. Talking about the structure of Buddhism – it consists of only 2 parts, Theravada and Mahayana, which do not intersect one another, but are still connected. Lesser fragmentation and from-the-scratch creation format implies that Buddhism is more exact and less blurry in its definitions, whereas in Hinduism finding exact answer may be complicated - even though all 4 branches of Hinduism are open for dialog and exchange of ideas for finding the compromise solution, they still bear the burden of excessive amount of old

In Hinduism we speak of the atman, or "I," permanent, unchanging, separate from the body and mind, always the same and passing from life to life; all these "I", or atman, are one with the universe, or Brahma. Consequently, the diversity that we see around us is an illusion, for in reality we are all one. Buddhism treats this problem differently: there is no constant "I", or atman, that passes from life to life. Here, the analogy of the "I" with a statue moving like a conveyor from one life to another is unacceptable. Another significant difference is that in Hinduism and Buddhism particular importance is given to various activities leading to the liberation from problems and difficulties. In Hinduism, external physical aspects and techniques are usually emphasized; in Buddhism, great importance is attached not to external, but to internal techniques that affect the mind and heart. This can be seen from the example of such expressions as "the development of a good heart," "the development of wisdom for the vision of reality," etc. This difference also manifests itself in the approach to the utterance of mantras-special Sanskrit syllables and phrases. The Hindu approach focuses on the reproduction of sound. Since the time of the Vedas it was believed that the sound is eternal and has its own huge power. In contrast, in the Buddhist approach to meditation involving mantras,