The historical Buddha: the religious setting of Buddhism

As a child of a local leader (kshatriya), the Buddha would have been familiar with the religious ideas of Brahminism, which was based on both written holy books (Vedas) and complicated rituals

Meditation was also a vital feature of Brahminism and became a substitute for sacrifice and used a means of mental focus or internalisation
The idea of the brahmin (the universal spirit) and the atman (the individual soul) became dominant in later Indian thought, as did the notion of a continual cycle of reincarnation, known as samsara

The basic idea of karma developed in Brahminism - although early Brahminism taught…