§ 3. The Discovery of a New Dhamma
1. Gautama, when he sat in meditation for getting new light, was greatly in the grip of the Sankhya Philosophy.
2. That suffering and unhappiness [were] in the world, he thought was an incontrovertible fact.
3. Gautama was, however, interested in knowing how to do away with suffering. This problem the Sankhya Philosophy did not deal with.
4. It is, therefore, on this problem--how to remove suffering and unhappiness--that he concentrated his mind.
5. Naturally, the first question he asked himself was--"What are the causes of [the] suffering and unhappiness which an individual undergoes?"
6. His second question was--"How to remove unhappiness?"
7. To both these questions he got a right answer, which is called 'Samma Bodhi' (Right Enlightenment).
8. It is because of this that the Banyan Tree has come to be known as the Bodhi Tree.
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THE BUDDHA AND HIS DHAMMA
SpiritualThe Buddha and His Dhamma, a treatise on Lord Buddha's life and Buddhism, was the last work of Indian statesman and scholar B. R. Ambedkar. The book is treated as a holy text by Indian Buddhists. It was first published in 1957 after Ambedkar's death...
