Buddhist Festival
Buddha- The Royal Prince
One of the world’s greatest
spiritual leaders and the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha was born in
563 b.c. as the son of King Shuddhodana and Queen Maya of Kapilavastu
at Lumbini, which is now in Nepal. The Buddha or the Enlightened One
was also known as Shakyamuni because he belonged to the Shakya clan,
while his family name was Gautama. The world is acquainted with the
story of the Buddha’s life prior to his departure from the
luxurious palace.
¤ Buddha Left Worldly Pleasure and Meander For The Truth of
Life
Fearing the prophecy that disillusioned with the material world,
Siddhartha would venture out as a sage in search of wisdom to overcome
suffering, Suddhodana brought up his son in the lap of luxury. But
fate had ordained otherwise. The three sights depicting old age, pain
due to disease, and death transformed the course of Prince Siddhartha’s
life overnight. Gradual disenchantment with worldly pleasures
compelled him to leave his beautiful wife Yashodhara and son in the
middle of the night to lead the life of a mendicant. The Great
Renunciation occurred on a full moon night in the month of Vaishakha
(April-May).
¤ Buddha Enlighted
Siddhartha wandered throughout the country for six years in search of
wisdom through asceticism and self-denial. But he understood the
futility of self-imposed austerity because it did not get him anywhere
near his goal. Thus he resolved to sit under the Bodhi Tree in
Bodhgaya near Benaras and attained enlightenment after 49 days of
intense meditation.
After he became the Enlightened One, he preached the sermon of the
Middle Path, which shows the way to a balanced and harmonious life.
The famous sermon was held at the Deer Park in Sarnath. According to
the Buddha’s philosophy, sorrow was the cause of evil and
suffering in the world which in turn arose from desire.
Thus the 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. Only then can one reach the ultimate aim
of Nirvana, the transcendental state of complete liberation.
¤ Buddhism in India
Princes and peasants 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. Hindus
view Buddhism as an offshoot of Hinduism and hold the Buddha in very
high esteem as he is seen as an incarnation of Vishnu (Preserver in
the Hindu Holy Trinity of Creator-Preserver-Destroyer). 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.
¤ Buddhist School of Thought
Buddhism was bifurcated into two schools of thought by the 1st
millennium b.c., when a new cult, known as Mahayana emerged as a
reaction against the orthodoxy of the existing sect called the
Theravadins or Hinayanas.
The older version of Buddhism (the Hinayanas) believed that the only
way to attain nirvana was by leading a monastic life of austerity,
abandoning all worldly pleasures. There was no scope for a lay person
to attain liberation. Prince Siddhartha, who later became the Buddha,
was accepted as the sole possessor of the Eternal Truth.
Cutting across China, Tibet, Japan and Korea, the Mahayana sect has a
much larger following because of their more liberal interpretation of
the teachings of the Buddha than the Hinayanas. The newer school
allowed for the possibility of enlightenment to all those who followed
the path of righteousness, irrespective of their status in society.
Synonymous with the Mahayana sect are the values of love and
compassion combined with that of knowledge. Equal importance is given
to both these key concepts of Mahayana, and that might be one of the
reasons this denomination attracts devotees in great numbers.
¤ Buddha Jayanti - The Birth Anniversary
Buddha Jayanti, the Buddha‘s birth anniversary that falls on the
full moon of the fourth lunar month (May or June), is celebrated in
many places.
¤ Buddhist Festivals
Buddhist festivals are a photographer’s delight as visually they
are simply spectacular. The Lamaistic (lamas are Buddhist monks)
festival is held at the Hemis Gompa in Ladakh and Towang in Arunachal
Pradesh to honour the birth of Padmasambhava (the Buddha). People come
from far and wide for this festival to add to the enthusiasm and joy
with which it is celebrated. Ritual dances representing the triumph of
Good over Evil are part of the festivities. These dances depict the
victory of the powerful deities of Mahayana Buddhism over evil
spirits. The dancers are a swirl of colours as they gracefully execute
the movements, wearing multi-hued robes and grotesque masks
symbolising both evil and good spirits. It is an amazing sight
guaranteed to hold every spectator spellbound till the very end.
Though the Buddhists are mainly concentrated in the foothills of the
Himalayas, their colourful festivals are objects of great fascination
for globetrotters who cannot resist the siren song of their
breath-taking backdrop and their fun-filled festivals. |
