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Philosophy and Religion
Art & Science of Meditation
As well as the Buddha's own teachings, new ethical and spiritual philosophies such as those of Mahavira became established during this period when alternatives to the mainstream religion arose in an atmosphere of free thought and renewed vitality in spiritual endeavour. This general cultural movement is today known as the Sramanic tradition and the epoch of new thought as the axial era.
These heterodox groups held widely divergent opinions but were united by a critical attitude towards the established religion whose explanations they found unsatisfactory and whose animal sacrifices increasingly distasteful and irrelevant. In Greece, China and India there was a return to fundamental questions and a new interest in the question of how humans should live
Life and teachings of the Buddha
According to the traditional accounts, Gautama, the future Buddha, born into a Vedic Kshatriya family, was a prince who grew up in an environment of luxury and opulence. He became convinced that sense-pleasures and wealth did not provide the satisfaction that human beings longed for deep within. He abandoned worldly life to live as a mendicant. He studied under a number of teachers, developing his insight into the problem of suffering.
After his awakening he regarded himself as a physician rather than a philosopher. Whereas philosophers
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