The Buddha (563-480 B.C.) was an Indian philosopher, religious teacher, and the historical founder of Buddhism. He is regarded variously as a human spiritual teacher or an omniscient, active deity.

India during the 6th century B.C. was a land of religious and political turmoil. The Northwest was dominated by the Indo-Aryan invaders who had entered India in the 2d millennium, bringing their own religious and social institutions, which were dominated by a great sacrificial cult and hereditary priestly elite, the Brahmins. Their cultural influence was wide-spread even in areas to the east beyond their political authority. But their claims to religious and social superiority were often regarded as pretentious and superficial by the older, indigenous aristocracy.

It was an era of great brutality which undermined traditional religious moorings and, for men of deeper religious sensibilities, called into question the value of all worldly activities and the...