佛教诞生于印度，如今已经是世界级的宗教，信众遍布东亚、东南亚。而在他的老家，印度却已经完全消失失，这还要从佛教的起源开始说起。佛教诞生于婆罗门教这个母体。而婆罗门教的建立是由雅利安征服者结合自己的萨满教自然崇拜与印度河本土文化的吠陀思想，辅之以等级制的种姓制度，同时加上轮回世界观进行洗脑，而形成了一套既包括深刻思辨，同时由政教合一的政治宗教形式，其核心就是维护婆罗门至上的统治。很明显就是一整套阶级压迫的体制，哪里有压迫，哪里就有反抗。所以到了公元前四世纪的时候，众多反对种姓制度的沙门主义思想开始兴起，而其中脱颖而出的就是由佛陀释迦摩尼创立的佛教。
佛教的核心观点，就是强调众生平等。这个众生不仅包括人体人类，还包括所有知觉的生物，甚至是蝼蚁。同时佛教也讲轮回，但佛教和道家有些类似，认为世界的本源是空。道家认为世界本源是道，但道的一个重要特性就是无。所以佛教认为，为这个世界上并不存在什么特定的事物。万事万物本质上都是幻象，万事万物包括人实际上都是各种因果关系的集合。所谓因缘聚就形成了某种事物，而因缘散则这样事物就走向了终结。这套观点已经相当接近近代粒子物理了。现代物理学认为，世界上的事物不过是大量的基本粒子的组合而已。这些基本例子包括电子、光子、夸克，它们组成一个我们被称为标准模型的粒子家族。而这些基本粒子在时空中运行，这些粒子在某个时间和空间坐标处相聚，就形成了你我。而随着时间和空间的变化，主要是时间，他们又会四散而去，也就是我们的生命从这个世界上消失。这一点比婆罗门教又上升到了一个层次。婆罗门教认为人的肉身是暂时的，但是还有一个被称为阿特曼的类似灵魂的概念是永恒的。阿特曼通常被叫做我，而这个奥特曼就是轮回的主体。佛教者认为，只有因果关系在不断的轮回，所以主张的是“无我”——安奥特曼。而佛教修行的目的就是通过艰苦的修行和参悟，达到觉醒认识世界的本质，跳出因果循环，而觉醒的人则被称为佛。
可以看出，佛教连灵魂的存在都是否认的。而且他对世界本源的认识几乎达到了和近代量子物理相同甚至更高的水准。严格来说，佛教近乎是一门无神论的宗教，它的信仰门槛实际上是非常非常高的。而实话实说，大部分普通人信仰宗教的动机其实是非常功利性的。说白了，他们都是想借用神的力量来解决自己的问题，才信仰宗教的，比如说消灾免祸、升官发财之类的。当然，也有的人是为了寻求精神上的解脱与慰藉，克服对死亡的恐惧等等。不过总的来说，还是有很高的现实目的性。而佛教更像是一种哲学思维，它并不能帮你解决什么实际问题，而是让你觉醒看清世界的本质。所以是一种对个人智慧要求高的宗教。虽然佛教也是积极鼓励信众去传教的，但他仍然很难流行起来。
佛教的真正兴起要归功于印度孔雀王朝的一位伟大君王——阿育王。他类似秦始皇一样统一了印度的大部分版图，建立孔雀王朝。他在统一印度的战争中杀了大量战俘，但却被残酷的场面所震撼，心生悔意，皈依了佛教。之后，他将佛教定为国教，广召全国高僧集结辩论佛法。这与古罗马康斯坦丁大帝因看到十字架神迹而将基督教定为国教有些相似。当然，受佛法感化只是阿育王推广佛教的一个很小的因素。作为政治家，他的行为逻辑还是从政治出发的。婆罗门教的种姓制度将阿育王这样的军事贵族排在婆罗门祭司之后，阿育王需要借助佛教强调众生平等，来取代婆罗门教，否认种姓制度。同时，佛教僧侣主要从事修行和辩论，不会像婆罗门祭司那样广泛参与政治，也不会对王权形成威胁。这些因素使佛教成为阿育王定义的国教。
Buddhism was born in India and is now a world-class religion with followers throughout East and Southeast Asia. In his native country, India has completely disappeared, which also dates back to the origin of Buddhism. Buddhism was born out of Brahmanism. Brahmanism was established by the Aryan conquerors combining their own shamanic nature worship with the Vedic thoughts of Indus native culture, supplemented by the hierarchical caste system, and brainwashed by the reincarnation world view, and formed a set of political and religious forms that included both profound thinking and theocracy, the core of which was to maintain the supremacy of Brahmanism. It is clearly a whole system of class oppression, and where there is oppression, there is resistance. So by the 4th century B.C., a number of anti-caste Samanist ideas had begun to emerge, and the one that stood out was Buddhism, founded by Buddha Sakyamuni.
The core idea of Buddhism is to emphasize the equality of all beings. This being includes not only human beings, but also all sentient beings, even ants. At the same time, Buddhism also talks about reincarnation, but Buddhism and Taoism are similar in that the origin of the world is emptiness. Taoism believes that the origin of the world is Tao, but an important characteristic of Tao is nothing. So Buddhism believes that there is no specific thing in this world. Everything is essentially an illusion, and everything, including man, is actually a collection of causal relationships. The so-called convergence of causes and causes forms a certain thing, and the separation of causes and causes leads to the end of things. This view is fairly close to modern particle physics. Modern physics sees things in the world as nothing more than a large number of elementary particles. These basic examples include electrons, photons, and quarks, which form a family of particles that we call the Standard Model. And these elementary particles move through space-time, and these particles come together at a certain time and space coordinate to form you and me. And with the change of time and space, mainly time, they will disperse, that is, our life will disappear from this world. This is a step up from Brahmanism. Brahmanism holds that the human body is temporary, but there is also a soul-like concept called Atman that is eternal. Atman is usually called me, and this Atman is the subject of reincarnation. Buddhists believe that only cause and effect are constantly reincarnated, so they advocate "no self" - Anotman. The purpose of Buddhist practice is to awaken to understand the nature of the world through arduous practice and enlightenment, and to jump out of the cycle of cause and effect, and awakened people are called Buddhas.
It can be seen that Buddhism denies the existence of the soul. And his understanding of the origin of the world has almost reached the same level or even higher than that of modern quantum physics. Strictly speaking, Buddhism is almost an atheist religion, and its threshold for belief is actually very, very high. And to be honest, most ordinary people are motivated by very utilitarian beliefs. To put it bluntly, they all believe in religion because they want to use God's power to solve their own problems, such as eliminating disasters and avoiding disasters, promoting officials and getting rich. Of course, some people are seeking spiritual relief and comfort, overcoming the fear of death and so on. But overall, there is a high degree of practical purpose. Buddhism, on the other hand, is more like a philosophical thinking, which does not help you solve any practical problems, but allows you to wake up and see the nature of the world. So it's a religion that demands a lot of personal wisdom. Although Buddhism actively encourages its followers to preach, it is still difficult for it to catch on.
The true rise of Buddhism is attributed to Ashoka, one of the great Kings of the Maurya Dynasty in India. Like Qin Shi Huang, he unified most of India and established the Maurya Dynasty. He killed a large number of prisoners of war in the war to unify India, but was shocked by the brutal scenes and became regretful and converted to Buddhism. Later, he established Buddhism as the state religion and called for eminent monks from all over the country to gather and debate Dharma. This is similar to the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who saw the miracle of the cross and made Christianity the state religion. Of course, being influenced by the Dharma was only a small factor in Ashoka's promotion of Buddhism. As a politician, the logic of his actions is still based on politics. The caste system of Brahmanism placed military nobles like King Ashoka second to the Brahmin priests, and Ashoka needed to replace Brahmanism with a Buddhist emphasis on the equality of all beings and deny the caste system. At the same time, Buddhist monks were mainly engaged in practice and debate, and did not participate in politics as extensively as Brahmin priests, nor did they pose a threat to royal power. These factors made Buddhism the state religion as defined by King Ashoka.
