Founding story
Buddhism was founded a man called Siddhartha Gautama he was a man who was born a prince. He lived around the fifth century B.C.E his father had locked him up in order for him to become a great king in all ways but if he left he became a spiritual leader. So one day he left the palace and saw things that he had never seen before for example sickness,old age, death and a mendicant ascetic. He became troubled by what he saw so he decided to give up his life as a prince. So after he gave up being a prince he went on a journey to confront human suffering. So he went to a tree and mediated there for days until he got the answer and also he became enlightened. So he wrote a doctrine known as The Four Noble Truths which leads to the 8 folds path which explained the way to free yourself from suffering. And achieve nirvana which frees you from suffering and traveled around preaching
Classification
There aren't really Classifications in Buddhism that is the difference from Hinduism and that's why alot of the lower caste from hinduism left and joined Buddhism.
Key Figures
The Buddha was the first one to discover this and find the way how to free yourself from suffering. And his followers the monks are also a big part of Buddhism since they were basically the closest to Buddha himself.
Religious Authority
The Tipitaka is the most important Buddhist scriptures. They are recordings of what Buddha has taught over time written by some monks on palm leaves. This was written 400 years after his death. Which were split into 3 different parts. The first part which is called the Vinaya pitaka states the rules for the monks(227 rules) and the rules for the nuns (311 rules). It also includes some stories how these rules came to be and why they showed be followed and Buddhas comments and quotes. The second part called the sutta pitaka has the teachings of Buddha and his followers which has over 10,000 of his talks or speeches that he did. Lastly the third part would be Abhidhamma pitaka has writings that Explain Buddhas teachings which can be very important for studing
Core Beliefs
You must follow the ways that Buddha left to achieve nirvana and become enlightened to do that you must free yourself from suffering just follow the 8 fold path (Right Understanding, Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.)
Goal
The whole goal of Buddhism is to free yourself from suffering and achieve Enlightenment or nirvana which can free you from suffering.
Beliefs about afterlife
They believe that when they die they go through re carnation which means that they come back but just in a different physical form. But if they are able to become enlightened and achieve nirvana they will be able to escape the cycle of rebirth.
Rules\ guidelines to daily life
- Life is suffering.Suffering is caused by desire, greed, jealousy. It is possible to end that suffering. First you must get rid of these which you can do by following the 8 fold path (Right Understanding, Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.) If you follow this then you can become Enlightened.
Concept of a higher power.
They believe in Buddha and that he has shown the path to freeing them selfs from pain and suffering.
Key holidays
There are 2 very important holidays or festivals they are called Wesak or Vesak. This is the celebration of the birth or Buddha, his Enlightenment and his death of Buddha. They also have a new year in which people celebrate by eating different foods and giving gifts and slaphing water on each other as a sign of respect and hopefully a rainy season. Lastly they tie strings to each others wrists for good luck and you must leave it on until it falls off by itself.
Sights and symbols
Some of the sights and symbols that are in Buddhism are stupas which are burial mounds which belong to buddha and contain some of his body parts or ashes this makes the people feel closer to him. There are also temples that were built to honor Buddha and his followers. They are also there to show off the talents of the architects and builders from the past. The 8 fold path (Above)
Sect and branches
There are 2 branches the Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. The Theravada Buddhism is mostly just achieving nirvana by themselves they don't pray and only see Buddha as a man and nothing more. They also see monks as perfect role models and seem to want to follow them. Mahayana Buddhism would be people who believe in Buddha and seem to think to achieve nirvana you work together and seem to have their own gods that they worship