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Summary The Brahmins, seeing that the people began to adopt the doctrines of Jesus, their opponent whom they had hoped to win to themselves, resolved to kill him; but being warned by his faithful followers of the dangers menacing him, he fled to the mountains of Nepal.
Buddhism had taken deep roots in this country at this period. This schism was remarkable on account of its moral principles and ideas on the nature of divinity-ideas which brought man and nature, and men among themselves nearer together.
The founder of this sect, Shakya Muni, was born 1500 B.C. at Kapila, the capital of his father's kingdom, near Nepal in the Himalayas. He belonged to the race of the Gautamides and to the ancient family of the Shakyas. From his infancy he displayed a great interest in religion, and, contrary to the wishes of his father, he left the palace with all its alluring luxuries and began to preach against the Brahmins, purifying their doctrines. He died at Kushinagara surrounded by many faithful disciples. His body was burned and his ashes were distributed among the villages from which his new doctrine had driven Brahmanism.. .:. According to the Buddhist doctrine, the Creator always remains in a condition of perfect inaction which nothing can disturb and from which He emerges, only at times determined by fate in order to create earthly Buddhas. To this end the Spirit separates itself from the sovereign Creator, and becomes incarnated in a Buddha and dwells upon the earth for some time, where it creates Bodhisattvas (masters), whose mission it is to preach the divine law and to found new churches of believers, to whom they give laws and for whom they institute a new religious order, following the traditions of Buddhism.
An earthly Buddha is, in several ways, a reflection of the sovereign Creator Buddha, to whom he is united again after having ended his life upon earth; the Bodhisattvas, too, as a reward for
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