Taking a Look at Buddhism and Hinduism

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Recommended: Differences and similarities of Buddhism and Hinduism

Buddhism and Hinduism are two of the most well known religions around the world. Along with Christianity, Islam and Sikhism; Buddhism and Hinduism are among the top five religions worldwide. Buddhism is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), who was born a Hindu. He attained Nirvana at thirty six years of age and was no longer a Hindu follower. Hinduism's is believed to of begun around 4000 BCE, a religion combined of few other religions combined with many laws and ways of living. While Buddhism and Hinduism teach similar principles, the path they use to teach these principles are different.
The founder of Buddhism was Siddhartha Gautama. He lived from 565 to 483 B.C. In 563 B.C. there were no worshiped gods in Buddhism. Gautama, being raised a Hindu, still believed in certain Hindu ideas. Because he rejected the caste system, he kept the ideas of meditation, and the doing good works to reach enlightenment.
Buddhism was formed as a result of the decline of Hinduism. Hinduism was complex in many different ways including their rituals and daily lifestyle. Gautama became tired of it and went his separate way, and started a new lifestyle in hope others would follow.
All Buddhist final and ultimate goals are to reach Nirvana. Nirvana is a state of being perfect, ending the process of reincarnation and beginning re-birth. There is a significant difference in the way Buddhist and Hindus view re-birth. The Buddhist believe in re-birth meaning that neither the soul nor the person gets transferred, while Hindus believe in reincarnation where the soul would travel from one body to another (the same person but in different bodies). However both believe in Samsara along with their views on suffering and that everyone will even...

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... governing different aspects of Hindu everyday life. The three main gods in Hinduism are Vishnu who is the sustainer; Brahma is the creator and Shiva the destroyer. The Hindus pray to natural sources such as the sun and trees, while Buddhists only pray to Buddha.
Today there are an estimated six hundred million Buddhists and about eight hundred twenty-eight million practicing Hinduism. Both believe in an ultimate spiritual reality beyond the physical world, both practice meditation and other forms of yoga and both these religions originated in India. Although there are many similarities between Buddhism and Hinduism they both have fair differences. The small differences have a huge impact on the two religions, because they are altogether two separate beliefs. They share a special history with each other, which is to be expected since they are from the same region.

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