Buddhism and Jainism: Teachings, Sects and the Story of the Stupa

Buddhism and Jainism questions cluster around a handful of specific facts: the Buddha's own life story, the exact texts that preserved his teaching, a terminology trap between three named sects, and the building history of one particular monument, the stupa at Sanchi. Getting the specific fact right, not just the general period, is what separates a confident answer from a guess.

The Buddha's life and the four sights that changed everything

Siddhartha, born into the Sakya clan, had a sheltered upbringing within the palace. On his first journey outside it, he was shaken by the sight of an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, evidence that decay was inevitable, then by a homeless mendicant who had made peace with all three. He left the palace, explored several paths including severe bodily mortification, abandoned that extreme too, and finally attained enlightenment through meditation, becoming the Buddha, "the Enlightened One". His last words to his followers, per Buddhist tradition, urged them to work out their own liberation rather than rely on any external saviour.

Core teachings: anicca, anatta, dukkha, and the sangha

The Buddha taught that the world is transient (anicca) and constantly changing, soulless (anatta) since nothing in it is permanent, and that sorrow (dukkha) is intrinsic to existence within it. The way past this was the middle path, moderation between severe penance and self-indulgence, leading to nibbana, literally the extinguishing of the ego and desire. He founded the sangha, an order of monks (bhikkhus) who lived on alms with only essential possessions like a bowl. Women were admitted later, through the mediation of the disciple Ananda; the Buddha's own foster mother, Mahapajapati Gotami, became the first bhikkhuni.

How the Buddha's word survived: the Tipitaka

None of the Buddha's teachings were written down in his lifetime. After his death (around the fifth to fourth century BCE), his teachings were compiled by a council of "elders" (senior monks) at Vesali, into three collections known as the Tipitaka, literally "three baskets": the Vinaya Pitaka (rules for the sangha), the Sutta Pitaka (the Buddha's own teachings), and the Abhidhamma Pitaka (philosophical matters). As Buddhism spread, later regional histories such as Sri Lanka's Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa were composed; the oldest surviving Buddhist texts are in Pali, later ones in Sanskrit.

Jainism: Mahavira and the tirthankaras

Jaina philosophy existed in north India before Vardhamana, who came to be known as Mahavira, in the sixth century BCE. By Jaina tradition itself, he was preceded by 23 other tirthankaras, literally "those who guide men and women across the river of existence". Jainism's central idea is that the entire world is animated, even stones, rocks and water have life, which makes non-injury to living beings (ahimsa) central to the philosophy. Jaina monks and nuns took five vows: to abstain from killing, stealing, and lying, to observe celibacy, and to abstain from possessing property. As in Buddhism, karma shapes the cycle of rebirth, and only renouncing the world through asceticism and penance can free a person from it.

The stupa: from relic mound to Sanchi's survival

Stupas were mounds built over relics of the Buddha, his bodily remains or objects he had used. The Buddhist text Ashokavadana credits Ashoka with distributing the Buddha's relics to important towns and ordering stupas built over them; by the second century BCE, stupas stood at Bharhut, Sanchi and Sarnath. A stupa's structure had specific named parts: the anda (the mound itself), the harmika (a balcony-like structure above it, representing the abode of the gods), and a mast called the yashti rising from the harmika, often topped with an umbrella (chhatri). A railing separated the sacred mound from the secular world, and donations recorded on inscriptions came from kings such as the Satavahanas, guilds, and ordinary bhikkhus and bhikkhunis.

Sanchi and Amaravati had very different fates after their nineteenth-century "discovery". Sanchi's gateways and railings were found largely intact in 1818, and a proposal to move one gateway to a Paris or London museum ultimately failed, so the site survives largely in situ. Amaravati was far less fortunate: a local raja stumbled on its ruins in 1796 while searching for treasure, and by 1854 the British official Walter Elliot had shipped sculpture panels away to Madras (the "Elliot marbles"), with more scattered to Calcutta, London, and colonial gardens. The archaeologist H.H. Cole called this "a suicidal and indefensible policy", but only Sanchi's in situ preservation was actually adopted.

The exam trap: Hinayana, Theravada, and Mahayana

By the first century CE, a new tradition, Mahayana ("the great vehicle"), had developed the idea of the Buddha as a saviour and of Bodhisattvas, compassionate beings who postponed their own nibbana to help others attain liberation; image-worship of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas became central to this tradition. Mahayana supporters described the older tradition as Hinayana ("the lesser vehicle"), but that is not what its own followers called themselves: they used Theravadins, "those who followed the path of the old, respected teachers (theras)". A question is far more likely to test which name the older tradition used for itself (Theravada) than the dismissive label attached to it by a rival school (Hinayana), so keep the two straight rather than treating them as interchangeable.

Quick revision points

• The Buddha: Sakya clan, four sights (old man, sick man, corpse, mendicant), the middle path, nibbana.
• Core teachings: anicca (transient), anatta (soulless), dukkha (sorrow intrinsic to existence).
• Tipitaka: Vinaya (rules), Sutta (teachings), Abhidhamma (philosophy), compiled by a council of elders at Vesali.
• Jainism: Mahavira, 23 tirthankaras before him, ahimsa, the five vows, sixth century BCE.
• Stupa parts: anda (mound), harmika (balcony above it), yashti (mast); relic distribution credited to Ashoka in the Ashokavadana.
• Sanchi survived in situ from 1818; Amaravati did not (the "Elliot marbles", scattered from 1854).
• The trap: the older tradition called itself Theravada, not Hinayana, a dismissive term coined by Mahayana followers.

Once the sect names and the Tipitaka's three baskets are secure, practise the matching-style questions UPSC builds around this period.