Hinduism Vs Buddhism Research Paper

All religions of the world have various differences, but many have some shared concepts. Those shared concepts may have been caused by the evolution the religions. A great example of that is Hinduism and Buddhism. Buddhism started out in India, which is dominated with Hinduism as its religion and, many aspects of Buddhism are rooted out of the core beliefs of Hinduism. One topic that is very evident in both religions is the the belief of the self, also known as atman in Hinduism, and no-self, known as anatman in Buddhism. Though the topics are similar, the meaning, function, and significance are different, and the rest of this article will take a closer look at that.

Both hinduism and Buddhism share many cultural values such as living a ego-less

Atman is nothing that is physical, it is that part in your body that makes a person whole, or as other people like to call it, your soul. This part of your body is the only part that matters, as it is the only thing that will remain at the end of your life. The key belief in Hinduism is to make your life revolve around your atman, so that you can get out of the cycle of reincarnation, and attain the ultimate goal of reaching heaven. Atman is the core of Hinduism, and it makes all of the other concepts of the religion fall in place. In Buddhism, they use the word anatman instead of atman. Anatman means no-self rather than atman which means the self. They believe that the atman is something that a person is stuck with in their life, and followers of the religion must work their way to let go of them self and all of the materialist objects in the world, to reach an understanding of anatman, and to attain the ultimate goal of Buddhism, which is to attain nirvana. In an article written by the University of Hawaii, the author, Kenneth K. Inada writes,“The whole of Buddhist thought is permeated with the notion that life is transitory, not only in the fact that life terminates in death, but, more

Hinduism want’s a follower to be able to drone out everything in a life expect the ability to connect with Brahman, while Buddhism want’s a follower to live a life of simplicity to attain nirvana. Both religions require a person to realize what the atma (soul) is, and once that is realized, the future actions will correlate to that knowledge to help attain the overall goal. In the Journal of Hindu Studies, it states that, “ It is possible to understand prayatna(effort) as that which gives momentum to ‘reaching out for something’, the impetus to action, an action that is controlled (niyata) and directed towards something (abhimata) specific, due to desire or aversion. It will also be shown below that prayatna could be understood as having a more passive function, as connected to being alive, that is, breathing during sleep and propelling the inner sense into motion when we wake up.”(Sjodin 89)The understanding of atma serves as a starting point in Hinduism that connects to all of the other aspects of the religion.The function of atma in Hinduism is to help the followers follow a lifestyle of good deeds, as it gives you a motive to achieve the overall goal of being a Hindu. Hindus strive to live a life that is centered around making sure that you can do the most possible in your lifespan to make sure you can attain the liberation. Once you understand that you are only the atma