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Similarities Between Confucianism And Buddhism

Decent Essays

Despite their similar origins from societies filled with turmoil and suffering, in the era of 1000 BCE to 400 BCE, Confucianism and Buddhism diverged greatly when it came to Buddhism’s egalitarian attitude and Confucianism’s more patriarchal attitude towards gender relations and the status of women. Also, the two belief systems also differed substantially in the types of obligations and requirements their adherents took part in with Confucianist requirements focused on society as a whole, and Buddhist requirements focused on personal and spiritual fulfillment.
Both Confucianism and Buddhism developed from similar origins filled with turmoil, suffering, and founders in similar positions. Just years before Siddhartha Gautama created Buddhism, he was feeling the intense burden of suffering throughout society. To seek the root of this suffering, Siddhartha became an ascetic. When he became displeased with asceticism and the unnecessary suffering it caused, Gautama created Buddhism; the middle way. Around the same time, Confucius, feeling the weight of a …show more content…

While Buddhism allowed women to be almost equal to men, Confucianism gave a distinct disadvantage to women. In the five key relationships the third relationship shows that husbands were superior to their wives. Aside from wives, other women are not even mentioned in these five key relationships, further proving women’s non-superior social status. Just this belief alone promised the creation of a patriarchal society. Because of Siddhartha Gautama’s breaking up of the caste system, women were granted the gift of equality and social mobility. This was not the case in caste-centric Confucianism. While under no circumstances were Confucianist women to be granted real positions of power or bureaucracy, this was not the case at all in the more egalitarian Buddhist

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