Silvery resin Thai Buddha statue

In the 5th century BC, Siddharta, or the Buddha, belonged to a main family in India. He poses as a reformer by opposing sacrificial practices and the prohibitions of Brahmanism. Kindness, charity, renunciation, non-violence (Ahimsa) and vegetarianism were the principles preached by Buddha. He was supported by the main and intellectual classes who saw through this emerging movement a means of concentrating political and religious powers; less by the popular classes attached to Brahmin rites. Buddhism spread to eastern Asia, mixing more or less with local religions. The Hindu counteroffensive, several hundred years later, led to its virtual disappearance in India.