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The Prequel to Shakyamuni:

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What Was the World Thinking Before the Buddha's Appearance? Two thousand five hundred years ago,

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a man named Siddhartha Gautama sat under a Bodhi tree and,

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in one night, saw through the ultimate secret of human consciousness. When

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we talk about this now, it seems as if

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he appeared out of thin air, as if

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he invented an entire worldview on his own that night.

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But that's not the case.

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Before him, there had been

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a thousand years of accumulated thought—a

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thousand years of questions, a

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thousand years of conjectures, a thousand years of answers—most of which were wrong,

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but each one was seriously sought.

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Siddhartha was the inheritor of this thousand years,

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and also its terminator.

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If you don't know what he inherited,

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you can't truly understand what he overturned. Hello

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everyone,

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I'm Wang Lijie.

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Starting today,

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I'm going to create a new series

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called <Practicing Buddhism Along the Historical Context>.

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This series will only do one thing: follow the timeline

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from before the Buddha's appearance to today,

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clearly dissecting the origins and development of Buddhism over the past two thousand five hundred years.

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What was the background of each sutra?

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How did each sect originate? What are the

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Buddha's original insights, and what

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are the adaptations made by later generations for dissemination?

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I hope that before you truly embark on your path of practice...  First, here's

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a reliable map so you

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know how the roads branch out, preventing

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you from getting lost at crossroads.

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Why doesn't the first episode start with the Buddha,

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but with what happened before his appearance?

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Because Siddhartha wasn't a genius who appeared out of thin air. He

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entered a world that had been pondering for a thousand years.

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His breakthrough was both an inheritance and a subversion of that thousand years. If

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you don't know what he inherited, you

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can't truly understand what he overturned.

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So today,

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we won't talk about what the Buddha said;

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we'll talk about what answers

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the world had regarding consciousness, the universe, and the self before he spoke,

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and what unresolved questions remained.

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If you want to truly understand Buddhism,

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this is the first lesson you must learn.

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Okay,

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let's start from the beginning. In the

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5th century BC, in the

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Indian subcontinent, in what is

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now Nepal and northern India,

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this place

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already had a system of thought that had been operating for nearly a thousand years when Siddhartha was born.

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This system was called Brahmanism, and

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its core texts were called the Vedas,

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Sanskrit for "knowledge."

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There are four Vedas, the oldest being the Rigveda, which was written around

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1500 BC or even earlier.

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Think about this time – China was still in the Shang Dynasty, and

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ancient Greece didn't yet have Homer.

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Meanwhile, Indians were already writing poems in Sanskrit about the essence of the universe. What questions were they asking after a

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thousand years of accumulation?

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The answer is very clear: What is the fundamental nature of this universe?

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What is "I"? What is the relationship

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between "I" and the ultimate essence of the universe?

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These three questions

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were the main

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theme of the entire Indian intellectual world before Siddhartha's birth.

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Let's look at them one by one. The

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first question: What is the fundamental nature of the universe?

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Brahmanism's answer is "Brahman."

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Brahman is not a god,

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nor is it God; it is

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not a personified being. Brahman

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is the ultimate foundation of the universe, the

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source from which all things emerge, the

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basis of all existence. In the

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early Vedic period,

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people used many gods to explain the universe—Indra was the thunder god,

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Agni was the fire god,

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Varuna was the water god—

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the number of gods was vast.

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But as thought deepened,

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philosophers began to discover whether there was something

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more fundamental behind these gods. The

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culmination of this inquiry

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appeared in

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a series of texts written between approximately 800 BCE and 400 BCE,

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called the Upanishads. The

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Upanishads are one of the most important intellectual leaps in the history of Indian philosophy.

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They pushed the concept of "Brahman," the essence of the universe, to its

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ultimate extreme.

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They said: Brahman is everything.

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Brahman is that ineffable ultimate reality.

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It transcends time, space, and even life and death. At this point,

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you might think this is similar to the Buddhist concept of "emptiness,"

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but the crucial difference is about to emerge. The

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second question: What is the self? The

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Upanishads answer with "Atman."

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Atman is your inner true self, the eternal existence

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hidden behind your body, feelings,

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thoughts, and memories.

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Atman is immortal.

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Atman is pure consciousness.

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Atman is your true essence.

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Then the Upanishads utter one of the most famous statements in the history of Indian philosophy, which

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I

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discussed in detail in my previous video on emptiness, Brahman, and God:

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"Brahman and Atman are one,"

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also called "That is you." The

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ultimate essence of the universe

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and your inner true self

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are the same thing.

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Your consciousness

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and universal consciousness

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are one. The

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individual soul

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and the universal soul

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are cut from the same piece of cloth.

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This idea

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is an incredibly astonishing epiphany in the history of philosophy.

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This is not the polytheistic "gods managing the universe,"

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nor the monotheistic "God creating humanity."

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It is a more thorough insight. There

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is no separation between "I" and "the universe."

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Separation is an illusion.

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Unity is the true reality. By the time

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Siddhartha was born,

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this system of thought was already very mature. The

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Upanishads were extremely sophisticated, and the

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Brahmin priests had established a complete

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cosmology and system of practice based on it.

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However,

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a huge problem remained unresolved.

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If the unity of Brahman and Atman is true,

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if your true self and the essence of the universe are one,

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then why can't you feel it?

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Why do you feel pain, separation, limitation, and death?

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This chasm was the

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core problem Siddhartha had to confront.

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Before him, the

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Brahmins had offered an answer: because of

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samsara. The concept of samsara had already taken shape in the Upanishad era.

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This concept states that your soul is constantly reincarnated in countless lives

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because your actions leave behind

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karma, which drives the next reincarnation. The

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reason you feel pain

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is because you are trapped in this cycle of reincarnation and have

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not yet returned to Brahman. The

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direction of liberation is clear – liberation from samsara,

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allowing Atman to return to Brahman.

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But

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how to achieve liberation,

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through what methods?

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Here, the

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divergence arises.

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And behind this divergence

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lies an extremely dangerous social control system.

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Before Siddhartha was born,

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two main paths were competing.  The

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first route is the orthodox Brahmanical route. It involves accumulating good karma and purifying the soul

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through meticulous sacrificial rituals,

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studying the Vedas, and through the

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mediation of Brahman priests.

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This route has a fundamental premise: liberation requires the

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help of professionals—the Brahman class.

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You cannot do it yourself;

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you need rituals,

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scriptures, and

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priests.

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Brahmins are the priestly class,

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standing at the top of the caste system.

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They control the scriptures, the

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rituals, and hold the

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absolute power to decide "how your soul returns to Brahman." The

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scriptures are written in Sanskrit, which

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lower castes cannot understand.

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Every step on the path to liberation is a tollbooth for them. The

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most terrifying aspect of this system is

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its incredibly sophisticated self-locking mechanism. The

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logic is this: your Atman is eternal;

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it carries the karma from your past lives. If

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you are born into a Brahman family, it's because you did good deeds in your past life—you

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deserve it. If

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you are born into a Shudra family, accept the

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karma from your past life. It's

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not society that owes you anything; it

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's your soul that owes itself something.

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Can you resist?

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No,

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because resistance means you refuse to accept the law of karma.

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Refusing to accept it means you violate the law.

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Disobeying the Dharma will aggravate your bad karma.

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Increased bad karma means a more miserable rebirth in the next life.

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Every path points to "accepting fate."

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Even the space for doubt is sealed off.

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Habits, traditions, superstitions, religious beliefs,

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plus the fear of punishment—all these forces combine to

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firmly lock everyone into the position assigned to them at birth.

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You don't need prisons

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because the entire worldview is a prison itself.

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Moreover, this system has a more secular consequence:

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it provides religious legitimacy for the caste system.

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Your suffering in this life

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is what you deserve.

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Your class status

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is written by karma.

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Don't complain;

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accept your fate. A

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symbiotic relationship formed between the Brahmin and Kshatriya classes.

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Priests gave legitimacy to the king, and the

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king protected the caste order.

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The two pillars supported each other; neither could do without the

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other.

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This is the world Siddhartha entered—

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not a world without answers.

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Quite the opposite—there are too many answers, too

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heavy,

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and each answer is bound by chains. The

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second path is the path of asceticism.

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In Siddhartha's time, a

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large number of ascetics were active on the Indian subcontinent.

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They rejected the Brahmin monopoly,

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rejected rituals and sacrifices, and

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went into the jungles and wilderness.

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Through extreme physical asceticism to temper their will and purify their souls,

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they were called "Shramanas,"

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meaning strivers or ascetics. The

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Shramana movement was an intellectual rebellion,

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proclaiming: liberation is not needed with Brahmins,

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sacrifices,

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or class privileges;

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you can achieve liberation with your own body and will.

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Beyond these two main paths, there was

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another crucial intellectual landscape in Siddhartha's time.

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You must know that at that time,

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India had six highly influential philosophical schools, known as the

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"Six Teachers."

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I'll quickly go over them for you

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because these six worldviews

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still live on in our minds today.

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First,

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moral nihilism. The

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core viewpoint is: no karma,

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no reincarnation,

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no karmic retribution. When

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a person dies, it's like the four elements dispersing and returning to their places—earth to earth,

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water to water,

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fire to fire,

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wind to wind—there is no such thing as a soul.

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This is materialism from 2,500 years ago.

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Second,

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determinism. Everything is

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determined by fate.

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Humans have no free will; whether

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you practice or not is irrelevant. Liberation

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only occurs naturally at the time predetermined by fate.

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This is complete fatalism.

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Third,

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relativism.

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All questions cannot be answered definitively.

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You ask if there is a soul after death—

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maybe yes,

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maybe no,

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maybe both.

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This is utter agnosticism. The

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fourth type is the

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ascetic path of moral causality.

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This is the path of Mahavira, the founder of Jainism.

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He was almost a contemporary of Siddhartha.

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Mahavira believed that everyone has an eternal, unchanging soul

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covered by the dust of karma. Asceticism

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can eliminate old karma, and

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discipline can prevent new karma.

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As long as karma is completely purified, the

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soul can be liberated and ascend to heaven. The

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fifth,

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and most important, is the Upanishad philosophy of orthodox Brahmanism, which

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is the Brahman-Atman unity system discussed in detail earlier.

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After Siddhartha renounced his worldly life, he followed the

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path of a Shramana.

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He studied meditation under the most famous meditation masters of the time. His

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first teacher taught him to reach the "sphere of nothingness," and his

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second teacher taught him to reach the "sphere of neither perception nor non-perception."

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This is the pinnacle of meditation practice in the Upanishad tradition.

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He also

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practiced extreme asceticism in the forest with five fellow practitioners,

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almost starving themselves to death.

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But Siddhartha left.

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Why?

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Because he discovered that even if one reaches the highest state of meditation, suffering is still there

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after leaving meditation. The

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problem is not fundamentally solved; it is

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only temporarily obscured.

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We have arrived at the most crucial rift in all the intellectual legacy Siddhartha inherited.

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Before him,

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all systems of thought—whether it was the Brahmanical concept of the unity of Brahman and Atman, the

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Jain asceticism of purification,

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or the elevation of meditative states—shared a common presupposition that had never been

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questioned: there exists a real,

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eternal "self" that needs to be liberated.

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All paths,

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regardless of which one they took,

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assumed: there is an Atman, a self, a

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soul, a

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core "I,"

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and the purpose of practice was to liberate,

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purify, or merge this "I" with Brahman.

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All methods

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were built on the same premise: there is an "I" practicing, and

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this "I" is to achieve a certain goal.

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No one asked: what if this "I" itself doesn't exist at all?

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No one asked: what

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if the "soul" we have been so painstakingly protecting and liberating is

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essentially an illusion? This

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question

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is the shackle that Siddhartha broke under the Bodhi tree.

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But—note—he was able to break it

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because he thoroughly inherited this thousand-year legacy.

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When he sat under that tree,

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he was not a blank slate;

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he was someone extremely well-versed in the Brahmanical tradition.  Someone who

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has reached the pinnacle of this tradition in meditation,

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yet is extremely dissatisfied with its answers,

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can see the cracks

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because he has delved deeper into the system than anyone else.

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Here,

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I want to make a more macro-level observation. There

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's a historical concept called the "Axial Age," an

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observation proposed by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers in the 20th century.

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He noted a striking coincidence:

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around 800-200 BC, four

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major civilizations of humankind almost simultaneously experienced philosophical awakenings.

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In China,

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Confucius taught rites and music in the State of Lu; Lao Tzu

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rode a blue ox out of Hangu Pass, leaving behind the *Tao Te Ching*;

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Zhuangzi dreamt of exchanging identities with a butterfly.

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In ancient Greece,

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Socrates asked questions in the streets of Athens;

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Plato described the prisoners in the cave;

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Aristotle taught all subjects at the Academy.

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In Israel, the

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prophets cried out in the wilderness;

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Isaiah, Jeremiah, and

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Ezekiel left behind texts that fundamentally changed the course of monotheism.

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In India,

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Upanishad philosophers reached the pinnacle of the union of Brahman and Atman; the

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six masters fiercely debated the nature of the universe; Mahavira

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founded Jainism;

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and Siddhartha achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. The

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same era,

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different civilizations.  The

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same set of questions were asked: What am I?

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What is the world?

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Why is there suffering?

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How can we achieve liberation?

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Karl Jaspers believed this was not a coincidence.

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He saw it as a collective evolution of human consciousness, a

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leap from mythological thinking to reflective thinking. For

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the first time, humanity began systematically questioning the ultimate questions about its own existence.

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This was the world Siddhartha was born into—an

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era of simultaneous global awakening.

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In India,

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this awakening had been accumulating for nearly a thousand years,

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producing extremely sophisticated cosmologies,

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extremely systematic methods of practice, and extremely intense philosophical debates.

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Siddhartha did not enter a blank slate;

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he entered a highly developed intellectual battlefield.

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His teacher was the most outstanding master in this tradition, and

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his fellow practitioners were the most dedicated practitioners of the era. The

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questions he faced were problems that this tradition had pondered for

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a thousand years without fully resolving.

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His answer was

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so thorough

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because he stood on the shoulders of a thousand years of accumulation

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and took that step—a step

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no one had taken before him.

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Before him,

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everyone believed: there is an "I" that

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needs to be liberated.

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After that night under the Bodhi tree,

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he said: that "I"

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never existed.

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Reincarnation exists,

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but there is no subject of reincarnation.

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Karma exists.

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But there is no unchanging soul that bears karma.

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Suffering exists,

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but the root of suffering is not that the soul is trapped,

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but that it takes something that doesn't exist as itself.

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This answer

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overturns the underlying assumptions of all his previous answers over the past thousand years.

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It's like a scalpel,

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directly cutting into the root of all problems.

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But—why can this scalpel cut so

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accurately? What is

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it cutting? After it's cut,

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how does that illusion of "I" operate?

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And what is in the cycle of reincarnation?

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In this episode, we will

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answer these questions for you one by one. Dear

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viewers,

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what are your expectations and opinions for this series?

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Welcome to leave your valuable comments in the comment section. In the

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next episode,

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we will enter that night under the Bodhi tree.

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I am Wang Lijie.

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See you next time.