About Buddhism

The prime sources of information regarding Siddhārtha Gautama’s life are the Buddhist Texts. The Buddha and his monks spent four months each year discussing and rehearsing his teachings, and after his death his monks set about preserving them. A council was held shortly after his death, and another was held a century later. At these councils the monks attempted to establish and authenticate the extant accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha following systematic rules. They divided the teachings into distinct but overlapping bodies of material, and assigned specific monks to preserve each one. The teaching was thus preserved orally for three centuries after the Buddha’s death when they were finally recorded on palm-leaf scrolls that were arranged in three baskets. From these teachings arose the Buddhist sects of today: Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism.