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BUDDHISM
who had succeeded Bhaddiya, the successor of Shuddhodana. Gautama's father-in-law Suprabuddha, the king of Koli, publicly abused Gautama for deserting Yashodhara but is said to have been swallowed up by the earth shortly after.
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In the seventeenth year he delivered discourse on the death of Shrimati, a courtezan; in the next year he converted a weaver who had accidentally killed his daughter; in the following year he released a deer caught in a snare and converted the angry hunter who had wanted to shoot him; and in the twentieth year he similarly converted the famous robber Angulimala of the Chaliya forest.
For twenty-five years more Gautama wandered through the Gangetic valley, preached piety and holy life to the poor, the lowly and misguided, made converts among the high and the low, the rich and the poor and proclaimed his law wherever he went. He died at the age of 80. He lived 45 years from the date of his proclaiming the new religion.
Jain Education International
3. This evening we proceed with the literature and philosophy of Buddhism :
(a) The form of Buddhism prevailing in Nepal, Tibet, China and Japan is called northern Buddhism, while the form prevailing in Ceylon and Burma is called Southern Buddhism. The Northern Buddhists furnish us with scanty material directly illustrating the religion in its earliest form in India. The sacred books of the Northern Buddhists are not included in any comprehensive common name and as far as is known none of them can be referred to the period immediately following on Gautama's death. Kanishka, the king of Kashmir, convened a great council of the Northern Buddhists in the first century after Christ, but the council instead of collecting together the sacred
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