Buddhism—A Search for Enlightenment Without God
SCARCELY known outside Asia at the turn of the 20th century, Buddhism today has assumed the role of a world religion. In fact, many people in the West are quite surprised to find Buddhism thriving right in their own neighborhood. Much of this has come about as a result of the international refugee movement. Sizable Asian communities have established themselves in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and other places. As more and more immigrants put down roots in their new land, they also bring along their religion. At the same time, more of the people in the West are coming face-to-face with Buddhism for the first time. This, along with the permissiveness and spiritual decline in the traditional churches, has caused some people to become converts to the “new” religion.—2 Timothy 3:1, 5.
2 Thus, according to the 1989 Britannica Book of the Year, Buddhism claims a worldwide membership of some 300 million, with about 200,000 each in Western Europe and, North America, 500,000 in Latin America, and 300,000 in the Soviet Union. Most of Buddhism’s adherents, however, are still found in Asian countries, such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Japan, Korea, and China. Who, though, was the Buddha? How did this religion get started? What are the teachings and practices of Buddhism?
A Question of Reliable Source
3 “What is known of the Buddha’s life is based mainly on the evidence of the canonical texts, the most extensive and comprehensive of which are those written in Pali, a language of ancient India,” says the book World Religions—From Ancient History to the Present. What this means is that there is no source material of his time to tell us anything about Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of this religion, who lived in northern India in the sixth century B.C.E. That, of course, presents a problem. However, more serious is the question of when and how the “canonical texts” were produced.
4 Buddhist tradition holds tha