Buddha, Buddha Buddhism, Buddha Buddhist, Buddha dharma, Buddhism enlightenment, Buddhism meditation, Buddhism and Christianity, Buddhism four noble truths.

Most of the sects developed own traditions and mythology, often based on a combination of local beliefs and deities blended with Buddhist teaching and Buddhism meditation.

Early Buddhism in India was influenced by Brahmanism, a form of the Hindu religion. Both religions shared the idea of the cycle of birth, reincarnation and karma. Also both included Devas, traditional Indian gods, and Asuras, the demons.
A important figure in Indian Buddhism was Amitabha, who was a bodhisattva—a person who found Buddhism enlightenment but postponed entering nirvana in order to help others gain enlightenment mainly by Buddhism meditation.

According to legend, Amitabha was born from a lotus flower and came to the aid of Buddhists who worshiped  him and pronounced his sacred name. Buddhists in India were the first and China followed. Buddhism in China started about A  D  65,

Buddhist teaching

and developed into one of that country's three most important religions, the other were Taoism and Confucianism. Among Buddhist, gods could be worshiped in Taoist temples and vice versa, and in some temples, the three religions were practiced side by side.

The Mahayana Buddhism practiced in China was an elaborate form of the religion, with more gods and myths than Theravada Buddhism. In about A . D . 600, questions arose about certain Buddhist teachings, so a monk named Xuan Zang  went to India to find out more about the life of Buddha and to obtain copies of official scriptures (also called Tripitaka, canonical texts or Buddhist scriptures). An account of his legendary trip was published in the 1500s as Journey to the West. In the story, the monkey god Sun Wukong and the pig god Zhu Bajie joined Xuan Zang on his journey. During the 14-year expedition to gain some Buddhists enlightenment, the three travelers had to

endure many ordeals and tests of their sincerity, they were fighting demons and monsters with the help of a magic stick.

Chinese Buddhists established a complex hierarchy of gods and goddesses. One of the more important deities was Shang Di, whose main assistant, Dongyue Dadi, was known as Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak. Under him were various departments where the souls of virtuous people worked to manage every aspect of human and animal life.

Some of the other important Chinese Buddhist gods were the Four Kings of Heaven, the Four Kings of Hell, and the kitchen god, the most important deity of the home. Another major deity was the bodhisattva Mi-le (known in India as Maitreya), considered to be the future Buddha.

Portrayed as a fat, cheerful man, Mi-Le was sometimes called the Laughing Buddha. Buddhist Worshipers prayed to join him in paradise. Each district in China had its own local deity, as did all activities and ways of making a living. Even the smallest details of life were controlled by various minor gods and goddesses. The Buddha predicted that, shortly after the Buddha's time, there would be many different variants of Buddhism, each of which would think of it as something different. So, Buddhism has a history of pluralism from the very beginning.

- Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam are the three most overtly universalistic religions, as they are not nation-specific.

Buddhism is a rather modern Philosophy, its more than 2000 years old but the elements of pluralism and humanity are definitely included.

The totally opposite to Buddhism are religions such as Islam and Christianity who claim only they are right in terms of religion. As a matter of fact one can easily distinguish a primitive religion from a advanced and humanitarian religion by checking the tolerance giving to others with a different thinking pattern.

Buddhism is on the top of any religion by this parameter. In Buddhism nobody give you a problem when you think in a different way, in Islam, if you think different, they stone you, they hang you and they kill you by some other means, strange religion isn't it ?

As you can see in the Islam stoning picture at right what this stone age people are doing. As a matter of fact they do even the same when a women make some "winkle - twinkle" to a other guy and the Turks, Kurds, Moroccans and so on even kill their sisters and brothers if they mingle with people of other religion. This happen in the 21. century. 

-In the center of the Buddhist religion is Gautama Buddha as the main object of veneration.

The word Buddha is not a proper name. It means "the enlightened one". There where countless Buddhas before, but the highest veneration was to
Prince Siddhartha.

Buddhism has many ideas, sects and local, national versions and is characterized by a complicated dogmatic expression. But aside of all this diversity and variants of Buddhism, there are some common values in Buddhism. One of this is the doctrine of the eternal changeability in the world and the lack of an eternal soul, the doctrine of the reincarnation, rebirth, karma and the belief in the inevitable practical effect of human activity. It also includes the doctrine of the "Four noble truths".

The main directions of Buddhism are called Theravada or Hinayana "Little Vehicle", and the Mahayana "Big vehicle" but in all versions Buddha as the main object of veneration.