The Buddha teaches in the Ganges valley

Siddhartha Gautama taught a path out of suffering through understanding its causes: craving and ignorance, addressed by ethics, meditation and insight.

Why it matters

Buddhism made attention and the examined mind a central human project, and spread across Asia as monastic networks, universities and the largest pre-modern cultural transmission in history.

People

Siddhartha Gautama

Related events

• c. 800 BCE – 300 BCE

  The Upanishads are composed

  Vedic speculation turned inward: the Upanishads ask what the self (ātman) is and how it relates to ultimate reality (brahman).

  Philosophy · south asia

• 268 BCE – 232 BCE

  Ashoka rules by edict

  The Mauryan emperor Ashoka, after witnessing the slaughter of his Kalinga war, publicly renounced conquest and inscribed principles of tolerance, welfare and restraint on stone pillars across his realm.

  Civilizations · south asia

• c. 130 BCE – 1453

  The Silk Road opens

  After Zhang Qian's missions to Central Asia, caravan routes linked Chang'an to the Mediterranean, moving silk, horses, faiths, technologies and plagues.

  Economics

Sources

• Encyclopædia Britannica — Buddha