Buddhism:The majority of people of Cambodia are followers of Theavada, or Hinayana, Buddhism.Buddhism was introduced to Cambodia between 13th and 14th centuries and was the state religion until 1975. The Theravada school is also called the "southern" school as it took the southern route from India. its place of origin, through South-East Asia - in this case Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos and Cambodia - while the "northern school proceeded north into Nepal, Tibet, China, Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam and Japan. Because the southern school tried to preserve or limit the Buddhist doctrines to only those canons codified in the early Buddhist era, the northern school gave Theravada Buddhism the name Hinayana, meaning the
"Lesser Vehicle". The norther school considered itself Mahayana, the
"Grant Vehicle", because it built upon the earlier teachings, "expanding" the doctrine to respond more to the needs of lay people, or so it claimed. Theravada doctrine stresses the three principal aspects of existence: Tukha (suffering, unsatisfactory, disease), Anicha (impermanence, transience of all things) and annatto (no substantiation or no essential of reality, no permanent "soul"). These concepts, when "discovered"by Siddhartha Gautama in the 6th century BC, were in direct contrast to the Hindu belief in eternal, blissful Self, or Paramatman, hence Buddhism was originally a "heresy"against India's Brahmanic religion. Gautama, an Indian price turned ascetic, subjected himself to many years of severe austerities to arrive at this vision of the world and was given the title Buddha, "the Enlightened" or "the Awakened". Gautama Buddha spoke of four noblr truths, which had the power to liberate any human being who could realize them. Between 1975 to 1979 the vast majority of Cambodia's buddhist monks were murdered by the Khmer Rouge and virtually all of the country's more than 3,000 Wats were damaged or destroyed. In the late 1980s Buddhism was again made the state religion. At that time, Cambodia had about 6,000 monks, who by law had to be at least 60 years old. The age requirements have been relaxed and young monks are once again a normal sight, Hinduism, Islam, Caodaism and Christianity are also practices in Cambodia.
