# Buddhism and Jainism > How Buddhism and Jainism grew from the shramana movements of the Ganges plain: Mahavira and the Jain ideals of ahimsa, aparigraha and anekantavada; the life of Siddhartha Gautama in tradition and in historians' dating, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, the Sangha and the Pali Canon; Ashoka's missions, Mahayana and Vajrayana along the Silk Road to China, Korea, Japan and Tibet, the decline of Buddhism in India and Ambedkar's revival, and Theravada from Pagan and Sukhothai to Thailand today. Episode 06 of the Origins of Religions series. Interactive film: https://www.planetpast.com/stories/religion-buddhism-jainism/ Publisher: PlanetPast (https://www.planetpast.com/) · Published 2026-10-13 · Religion, History ## Prologue ### Buddhism and Jainism *Origins of Religions · Episode 06* Two paths from the same world. About 320 million people today are Buddhists. In Thailand, more than nine in ten people are Buddhist, and the Thai calendar counts years from the Buddha’s passing: 2026 is the year 2569. Jainism is much smaller, with perhaps four to six million followers, mostly in India. But it grew from the same society, at the same time, and asks many of the same questions. Prologue · Episode 06 of the Origins of Religions series #### Two paths - **Buddhists**: ~320 million 2020 - **Jains**: ~4–6 million - **Thai Buddhist Era**: 2026 = 2569 BE counted from 543 BC For Buddhists and Jains, their teachers rediscovered timeless truths. Historians study when and how these teachings arose. Both are given below. Sources: [Pew Research Center (2025)](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/how-the-global-religious-landscape-changed-from-2010-to-2020/); [Wikipedia: Buddhism in Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Thailand) ## Chapter I · The renouncers ### A new urban world *Chapter I · 600–450 BC* Kingdoms, money and questions. By the 6th and 5th centuries BC, the Ganges plain was changing fast. Sixteen great kingdoms and republics competed; Magadha and Kosala were the strongest. Cities, trade and coins spread. Brahmin priests performed costly Vedic sacrifices and taught a society divided by birth into varnas. Merchants and kings, newly rich, did not always fit. A movement of shramanas, “strivers”, rejected the authority of the Vedas. They left home to wander, beg and meditate, seeking release from the cycle of rebirth. Many groups competed: Jains, Ajivikas, sceptics and materialists, and, among them, a young man who would be called the Buddha. Chapter I · Step 1 #### A new urban world - Kingdoms Magadha, Kosala, Vatsa, Avanti - Republics Vajji (Licchavi), Shakya, Malla - Shramanas Jains, Ajivikas, Buddhists, sceptics The shared ideas of karma and rebirth appear in the Upanishads (Episode 03) and in these movements at about the same time. Sources: [Wikipedia: Śramaṇa movements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Arama%E1%B9%87a) ### Mahavira *Chapter I · 5th century BC* The great hero of non-violence. Vardhamana, called Mahavira, “great hero”, was born to a ruling family near Vaishali. Jain tradition dates him 599 to 527 BC; many historians place him a little later, in the 5th century BC. Jains see him not as a founder but as the 24th Tirthankara, a “ford-maker” across the river of rebirth. His predecessor Parshva may also have been a historical teacher. He taught ahimsa, non-violence towards every living being, even insects; aparigraha, non-possession; and anekantavada, the many-sidedness of truth. Karma, in Jain thought, is fine matter that sticks to the soul. Strict ascetic practice burns it away until the soul rises, free, to the top of the universe. Chapter I · Step 2 #### Mahavira - Ahimsa Non-violence - Aparigraha Non-possession - Anekantavada Many-sidedness of truth - Tirthankaras 24 “ford-makers”; Mahavira the last Sources: [Britannica: Jainism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jainism) ### The Jain community *Chapter I · after Mahavira* Monks, merchants and temples. Jain tradition says that Chandragupta, founder of the Maurya Empire, became a Jain monk and died at Shravanabelagola in the south. Jain communities spread west and south. The community divided into Digambaras, whose monks go naked, and Svetambaras, whose monks wear white. Lay Jains, strictly vegetarian and avoiding trades that harm life, often became merchants and bankers. They built magnificent marble temples, like those on the holy hill of Palitana. Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of non-violence owed much to Jain influence in his home state of Gujarat. Chapter I · Step 3 #### The Jain community - Digambara “Sky-clad” monks - Svetambara “White-clad” monks and nuns - Palitana Hill of over 800 temples - Today ~4–6 million Jains Sources: [Britannica: Jainism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jainism) ## Chapter II · The Buddha ### Siddhartha Gautama *Chapter II · 5th century BC* From prince to the Awakened One. Buddhist tradition tells that Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince of the Shakya clan at Lumbini, in today’s Nepal. Seeing old age, sickness and death, he left his palace at 29 to seek freedom from suffering. For six years he practised extreme austerity, and nearly died. Then he chose a middle way between indulgence and self-torment. Meditating beneath a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya, at the age of 35, he attained awakening, bodhi. From then on he was the Buddha, the Awakened One. Thai tradition dates his life to 623 to 543 BC. Many historians now place his death around 400 BC, within a range of 480 to 370. An inscription of Ashoka at Lumbini, around 249 BC, honours it as his birthplace. Chapter II · Step 4 #### Siddhartha Gautama - **Thai tradition**: 623–543 BC - **Many historians**: c. 480–400 BC death between c. 480 and 370 Lumbini and Bodh Gaya are UNESCO World Heritage sites. Sources: [Wikipedia: the Buddha, dating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buddha#Dating); [UNESCO: Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/666/); [UNESCO: Mahabodhi Temple Complex at Bodh Gaya](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1056/) ### The Four Noble Truths *Chapter II · the teaching* Turning the wheel of the Dhamma. In the deer park at Sarnath, near Varanasi, the Buddha gave his first sermon to five companions. He taught the Four Noble Truths: life involves suffering, dukkha; suffering arises from craving; it can end; and there is a path to its end. That path is the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration. He taught that all things are impermanent and arise from causes, and that there is no unchanging self. Nibbana is the blowing out of craving. He founded the Sangha, a community of monks and later nuns, open to people of any caste. For about 45 years he walked the cities of the Ganges plain, teaching. Chapter II · Step 5 #### The Four Noble Truths - Dukkha Suffering - Samudaya Its arising, from craving - Nirodha Its ending: nibbana - Magga The Noble Eightfold Path - Anatta, anicca Non-self, impermanence Sources: [Britannica: Buddhism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism) ### Passing and memory *Chapter II · after the Buddha* From oral teaching to the Pali Canon. At 80, the Buddha passed away at Kushinagar: his parinibbana. His relics were divided and enshrined in stupas. According to tradition, his disciples met at Rajagriha to recite his teachings and the monastic rules. For centuries they were passed on by memory, in chanting. Disputes over rules and doctrine split the Sangha into schools. In Sri Lanka, around the 1st century BC, monks wrote down the teachings in Pali: the Pali Canon, the scripture of Theravada Buddhism and of Thailand. Chapter II · Step 6 #### Passing and memory - Kushinagar Parinibbana - First council Rajagriha, by tradition - c. 1st c. BC Pali Canon written in Sri Lanka - Tipitaka Vinaya, Sutta, Abhidhamma Sources: [Wikipedia: Pāli Canon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81li_Canon) ## Chapter III · Spread and change ### Ashoka *Chapter III · c. 250 BC* An emperor spreads the Dhamma. After his bloody conquest of Kalinga, the Maurya emperor Ashoka turned to the Buddha’s teaching and carved messages of dhamma across India (World Empires, Episode 04). Sri Lankan chronicles say his son Mahinda brought Buddhism to Sri Lanka, which became the great centre of Theravada Buddhism. They also tell of monks sent to Suvarnabhumi, the “Golden Land”, a tradition that both Thailand and Myanmar claim. Chapter III · Step 7 #### Ashoka - c. 261 BC Kalinga war - c. 250 BC Missions to Sri Lanka and beyond Sources: [Britannica: Buddhism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism) ### Mahayana and the Silk Road *Chapter III · 1st century BC – AD 800* A “Great Vehicle” travels east. From around the 1st century BC, new scriptures taught the Mahayana, the “Great Vehicle”, whose ideal is the bodhisattva who delays final nirvana to help all beings. In Gandhara, in today’s Pakistan, artists made some of the first images of the Buddha in human form. Monks and merchants carried Buddhism along the Silk Road to China by the 1st century AD. From China it reached Korea in 372 and Japan in the 6th century. In the 7th and 8th centuries it entered Tibet, where Vajrayana, the “Diamond Vehicle”, flourished. Chapter III · Step 8 #### Mahayana and the Silk Road - 1st c. AD Buddhism in China - 372 Korea - 538 or 552 Japan - 7th–8th c. Tibet; Vajrayana Theravada (“way of the elders”) remains the main school of Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia; Mahayana of East Asia; Vajrayana of Tibet and Mongolia. Sources: [Wikipedia: Mahayana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana) ### Fading from its homeland *Chapter III · 1000–1956* Why Buddhism almost vanished from India. By about 1000, Buddhism in India depended on great monastic universities like Nalanda, supported by kings. Hindu devotional movements absorbed many Buddhist ideas, and some Hindu texts made the Buddha an avatar of Vishnu. Royal support shifted away. Around 1200, Turkic armies destroyed Nalanda and other monasteries. Historians weigh these causes differently, but by the 13th century Buddhism had almost disappeared from India. In 1956, the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism at Nagpur, with hundreds of thousands of followers, as a rejection of caste. Chapter III · Step 9 #### Fading from its homeland - 5th–12th c. Nalanda flourishes - c. 1200 Nalanda destroyed - 1956 Ambedkar’s conversion, Nagpur Sources: [Wikipedia: Decline of Buddhism in India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_Buddhism_in_the_Indian_subcontinent); [UNESCO: Nalanda Mahavihara](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1502/) ### Theravada in Southeast Asia *Chapter III · 1050–today* How Thailand became Buddhist. Buddhism of many kinds had reached Southeast Asia by the early centuries AD, alongside Hindu traditions. From the 11th century, Theravada from Sri Lanka gained ground. King Anawrahta of Pagan, in Burma, adopted Theravada around 1056. In the 13th century, Sukhothai invited Sri Lankan-trained monks, and Theravada became the religion of Thai kings and people. Ayutthaya and Bangkok continued as Theravada kingdoms, with the king as protector of the Sangha. The faith mixed with older spirit beliefs and Brahmin rites, as Episode 12 explores. Today Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Laos are the heartlands of Theravada Buddhism. Chapter III · Step 10 #### Theravada in Southeast Asia - c. 1056 Pagan adopts Theravada - 13th c. Sukhothai; Lankavamsa monks - Today Over 90% of Thais are Buddhist Sources: [Wikipedia: Buddhism in Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Thailand) ## Epilogue ### A middle way across Asia *Epilogue* Two answers to suffering. Jainism stayed small and close to its Indian home, but kept its path of non-violence for 2,500 years. Buddhism left its homeland and became a religion of all Asia. Next: China, where in the same centuries Confucius and the Daoists asked how to live in harmony with society and with nature. Epilogue #### A middle way across Asia - 5th c. BC Mahavira; the Buddha - c. 250 BC Ashoka - 1st c. BC Pali Canon written; Mahayana - c. 1200 Decline in India - 13th c. Theravada in Sukhothai #### The series - **00**The Origins of Religions (overview) - **01**The First Beliefs - **02**The Ancient Gods - **03**Hinduism - **04**Zoroastrianism - **05**Judaism - **06** Buddhism and Jainism (this film) - **07**Confucianism and Daoism - **08**Shinto - **09**Christianity - **10** Islam (coming soon) - **11** Sikhism (coming soon) - **12** Spirits, Brahmins and the Buddha: Southeast Asia (coming soon) The still images on the chapter cards are AI-generated illustrations; they do not depict the Buddha or other religious figures. Outlines are approximate. Sources: [Britannica: Buddhism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism); [Britannica: Jainism](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jainism)