Buddhism and Hinduism: A Comparative Analysis

People around the world have many religions to choose from. Even though that is the case, Buddhism and Hinduism are two religions that are well known for their popularity around the globe. A diverse background of people practice both Buddhism and Hinduism. The practitioner of Buddhism would describe the religion practice as ultimately trying to seek the nirvana (enlightment) through the eight fold path, while a Hinduism practitioner would describe the religion as trying to obtain moska (liberation) through the practices of Hinduism.
In most religions there is always a fundamental human problem that everyone is believed to face. These problems can disrupt the way of life and cause conflict with the self-being. In the religion of Buddhism Siddhartha

Gautama (Buddha) comes into conflict with the idea of dukkha (suffering). Since Buddha was isolated majority of his life by his father, he never got to witness the reality of suffering. Once he explored the real world and witnessed the sufferings that every person eventually had to endure, such as sickness, growing old, and eventually death, he denounced his thrown in seek of the nirvana. Buddha realized that everyone has to endure suffering in a repeated cycle that never ends. This repeated cycle of rebirth is what it means to suffer for Buddha, because everyone is born and there is no permanent way of life. For instance, one day a person can be healthy with no sign of any illnesses and the next week they can be diagnosed with a brain tumor. This is an idea that Buddha pondered on for a long time and then goes on to seek the solution to this ongoing problem. He believed the way to end suffering is through the 8-fold path (right view, aspirations, speech, actions, way of living, effort, mindfulness, concentration). The solution to this problem of suffering was nirvana. Nirvana is when a person will go beyond the repeating cycle of being reborn countlessly and achieve enlightment.
Similar to Buddhism, Hinduism essential fundamental problem is called samsara.

Samsara is the cycle of birth and re-birth, which causes people to suffer. Unlike Buddhism, the religion of Hinduism has no exact founder. Hinduism solution to the problem of samsara is moksa. Moksa means to break free of the endless cycle of being reborn. The idea of moksa is almost identical to the idea of nirvana in Buddhism. Hinduisms methods to achieving moska is to practice Hinduism. Throughout the history of Hinduism, the religion has evolved into what is called Devotional Hinduism. Devotional Hinduism differs from Buddhism because Hindus have devotion to many gods and goddesses, and they can be monotheistic, worshiping one god or polytheistic worshiping many gods. The most common deities in Hinduism include Visnu, Siva, Devi (goddesses), and Ganesa. These deities help shape the way of life for Hindus and many Hindus serve one above the other. In addition, Hinduism consist of many ritual practices such as Puja. Puja is worshipping within a temple or a home. When Hindus are practicing Puja, they treat the deities as if they were honored guest. The pictures of deities are bathed in perfume, and flowers. The deities are offered food and are commonly entertained by the reciting of sacred texts. The two epics that are most commonly performed are Mahabharata, and Ramayana. Recently, Hinduism has been a universal trend because they are becoming more social and gender equal, as well as converting

to the western because of its ethical background.
In conclusion, Buddhism and Hinduism are both similar and different in many ways.

They are similar because they have the same essential problem, rebirth. Both Hindus and Buddhist find rebirth negative, because humans have to suffer and they are not able to have a permanent lifestyle. Although, they are the same when it comes to the type of problem that they have, they are completely different when it comes to the practices that each religion does. In the beginning of Buddhism, Buddhist did not worship any deities on the other hand, Hindus worship many deities through sacred rituals such as the

puja.