Siddhārtha Gautama (
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
: सिद्धार्थ गौतम;
Pali
:
Siddhattha Gotama) was a
spiritualSpirituality is relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. Synonyms include immaterialism, dualism, incorporeality and eternity....
teacher in the north eastern region of the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a peninsula which extends southward into the Indian Ocean...
who founded
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
. He is regarded by Buddhists as the Supreme
Buddha (Sammāsambuddha) of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as
c.Circa means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
563 BCE to 483 BCE; more recently, however, at a specialist symposium on this question,
the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates.
Gautama, also known as
Śākyamuni or
Shakyamuni ("sage of the
ShakyaShakya was an ancient janapada of Iron Age India. In Buddhist texts, the are mentioned as a clan. The s formed an independent kingdom at the foothills of the...
s"), is the key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and
monasticMonasticism is the religious practice in which one renounces worldly pursuits in order to fully devote one's life to spiritual work...
rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to Gautama were passed down by
oral traditionOral tradition, oral culture and oral lore are messages or testimony transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
, and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Early Western scholarship tended to accept the biography of the Buddha presented in the Buddhist scriptures as largely historical, but currently "scholars are increasingly reluctant to make unqualified claims about the historical
factA fact is a pragmatic truth, a statement that can, at least in theory, be checked and confirmed. Facts are often contrasted with opinions and beliefs, statements which are held to be true, but are not amenable to pragmatic confirmation....
s of the Buddha's life and teachings."
Life
The primary sources of information regarding Siddhārtha Gautama's life are the
Buddhist textsBuddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized...
. The Buddha and his monks spent four months each year discussing and rehearsing his teachings, and after his death his monks set about preserving them. A council was held shortly after his death, and another was held a century later. At these councils the monks attempted to establish and authenticate the extant accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha following systematic rules. They divided the teachings into distinct but overlapping bodies of material, and assigned specific monks to preserve each one. In some cases, essential aspects of the Buddha's teaching were incorporated into stories and chants in order to preserve them accurately.
From then on, the teachings were transmitted orally. From internal evidence it seems clear that the oldest texts crystallized into their current form by the time of the second council or shortly after it. The scriptures were not written down until three or four hundred years after the Buddha's death. By this point, the monks had added or altered some material themselves, in particular magnifying the figure of the Buddha.
The ancient Indians were generally not concerned with chronologies, being far more focused on philosophy. The Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Shakyamuni may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which substantial accounts exist. According to Michael Carrithers, there are good reasons to doubt the traditional account, though the outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.
Conception and birth
Siddhartha was born in
LumbiniLumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who in turn, as the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563...
and raised in the small kingdom or principality of Kapilvastu, both of which are in modern day
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
. At the time of the Buddha's birth, the area was at or beyond the boundary of Vedic civilization, the dominant culture of northern India at the time; it is even possible that his mother tongue was not an Indo-Aryan language. At the time, a multitude of small city-states existed in ancient India, called
janapadasMahajanapadas , literally "Great realms," were Ancient Indian kingdoms or countries...
. Republics and chiefdoms with diffused political power and limited social stratification, were not uncommon amongst them, and were referred to as gana-sanghas. The Buddha's community does not seem to have had a caste system, and their society was not structured according to Brahminical theory. It was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an
oligarchyAn Oligarchy is a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royal, wealth, intellectual, family, military, or religious hegemony. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for "few" and "rule"...
, or as a form of republic. The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the
ShramanaA shramana is a wandering monk in certain ascetic traditions of ancient India, including Jainism, Buddhism, and Ājīvika religion . Famous include religious leaders Mahavira and Gautama Buddha....
type Jain and Buddhist
sanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
s, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.
According to the traditional biography, his father was King
SuddhodanaKing Suddhodana was the father of Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. He was a leader of the Shakya people, who lived in southern Nepal. Suddhodana's father was Sinahana...
, the leader of
ShakyaShakya was an ancient janapada of Iron Age India. In Buddhist texts, the are mentioned as a clan. The s formed an independent kingdom at the foothills of the...
clan, whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of
KosalaKosala was an ancient Indian region, corresponding roughly in area with the region of Oudh in the present day Uttar Pradesh state. According to the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya and the Jaina text, the Bhagavati Sutra, Kosala was one of the Solasa Mahajanapadas in 6th century BCE and its...
during the Buddha's lifetime; Gautama was the
family nameA family name is a type of surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world...
. His mother,
Queen Maha MayaQueen Māyā of Sakya was the birth mother of the historical Gautama Buddha, Siddhārtha of the Gautama gotra, and sister of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī the first woman ordained by the Buddha. "Māyā" means "illusion" or "enchantment" in Sanskrit and Pāli. Māyā is also called Mahāmāyā or Māyādevī . In...
(Māyādevī) and Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. On the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten
lunar monthIn lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two identical syzygies . There are many variations. In Middle-Eastern and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon becomes first visible at evening after conjunction with the Sun 1 or 2 days before that evening...
s later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, she gave birth on the way, at
LumbiniLumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who in turn, as the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563...
, in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in
TheravadaTheravada Theravada Theravada (Pāli: थेरवाद theravāda (cf Sanskrit: स्थविरवाद sthaviravāda); literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
countries as
VesakVesak is an annual holiday observed traditionally by practicing Buddhists in South Asian and South East Asian countries like Nepal, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Pakistan and India...
. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhatta), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit
seerThe term clairvoyance is used to refer to the alleged ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
AsitaAsita was a hermit ascetic of ancient India in the 6th century BCE. He is best known for having predicted that Prince Siddhartha of Kapilavastu would either become a great king or become a supreme religious leader ....
journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (
chakravartinA Chakravartin A Chakravartin A Chakravartin ( , a Sanskrit bahuvrīhi, literally "whose wheels are moving", in the sense of "whose chariot is rolling everywhere without obstruction"...
) or a great
holy manIn Hinduism, sadhu is a common term for a mystic, an ascetic, practitioner of yoga and/or wandering monks. The sadhu is solely dedicated to achieving the fourth and final Hindu goal of life, moksha , through meditation and contemplation of Brahman...
. This occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight
brahminBrahmins have historically been the class of educators, scholars and preachers in Hinduism. They are considered as belonging to the "forward castes" of the four varnas of Hinduism....
scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man.
KaundinyaKaundinya also known as Ajnata Kaundinya was a Buddhist bhikkhu in the sangha of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arahant...
(Pali: Kondanna), the youngest, and later to be the first arahant, was the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.
While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary
monarchA monarch is the person who heads a monarchy, a form of government in which the country or entity usually ruled or controlled by an individual who usually rules for life or until abdication...
, the descendant of the Solar Dynasty of
{{redirect4|Buddha|Gautama}}
{{pp-semi-indef|small=yes|expiry=December 21, 2008}}
{{Buddhism}}
Siddhārtha Gautama (SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
: सिद्धार्थ गौतम;
Pali
:
Siddhattha Gotama) was a
spiritualSpirituality is relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. Synonyms include immaterialism, dualism, incorporeality and eternity....
teacher in the north eastern region of the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a peninsula which extends southward into the Indian Ocean...
who founded
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
. He is regarded by Buddhists as the Supreme
Buddha (Sammāsambuddha) of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as
c.Circa means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
563 BCE to 483 BCE; more recently, however, at a specialist symposium on this question,
the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates.
Gautama, also known as
Śākyamuni or
Shakyamuni ("sage of the
ShakyaShakya was an ancient janapada of Iron Age India. In Buddhist texts, the are mentioned as a clan. The s formed an independent kingdom at the foothills of the...
s"), is the key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and
monasticMonasticism is the religious practice in which one renounces worldly pursuits in order to fully devote one's life to spiritual work...
rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to Gautama were passed down by
oral traditionOral tradition, oral culture and oral lore are messages or testimony transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
, and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Early Western scholarship tended to accept the biography of the Buddha presented in the Buddhist scriptures as largely historical, but currently "scholars are increasingly reluctant to make unqualified claims about the historical
factA fact is a pragmatic truth, a statement that can, at least in theory, be checked and confirmed. Facts are often contrasted with opinions and beliefs, statements which are held to be true, but are not amenable to pragmatic confirmation....
s of the Buddha's life and teachings."
Life
The primary sources of information regarding Siddhārtha Gautama's life are the
Buddhist textsBuddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized...
. The Buddha and his monks spent four months each year discussing and rehearsing his teachings, and after his death his monks set about preserving them. A council was held shortly after his death, and another was held a century later. At these councils the monks attempted to establish and authenticate the extant accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha following systematic rules. They divided the teachings into distinct but overlapping bodies of material, and assigned specific monks to preserve each one. In some cases, essential aspects of the Buddha's teaching were incorporated into stories and chants in order to preserve them accurately.
From then on, the teachings were transmitted orally. From internal evidence it seems clear that the oldest texts crystallized into their current form by the time of the second council or shortly after it. The scriptures were not written down until three or four hundred years after the Buddha's death. By this point, the monks had added or altered some material themselves, in particular magnifying the figure of the Buddha.
The ancient Indians were generally not concerned with chronologies, being far more focused on philosophy. The Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Shakyamuni may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which substantial accounts exist. According to Michael Carrithers, there are good reasons to doubt the traditional account, though the outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.
Conception and birth
Siddhartha was born in
LumbiniLumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who in turn, as the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563...
and raised in the small kingdom or principality of Kapilvastu, both of which are in modern day
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
. At the time of the Buddha's birth, the area was at or beyond the boundary of Vedic civilization, the dominant culture of northern India at the time; it is even possible that his mother tongue was not an Indo-Aryan language. At the time, a multitude of small city-states existed in ancient India, called
janapadasMahajanapadas , literally "Great realms," were Ancient Indian kingdoms or countries...
. Republics and chiefdoms with diffused political power and limited social stratification, were not uncommon amongst them, and were referred to as gana-sanghas. The Buddha's community does not seem to have had a caste system, and their society was not structured according to Brahminical theory. It was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an
oligarchyAn Oligarchy is a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royal, wealth, intellectual, family, military, or religious hegemony. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for "few" and "rule"...
, or as a form of republic. The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the
ShramanaA shramana is a wandering monk in certain ascetic traditions of ancient India, including Jainism, Buddhism, and Ājīvika religion . Famous include religious leaders Mahavira and Gautama Buddha....
type Jain and Buddhist
sanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
s, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.
According to the traditional biography, his father was King
SuddhodanaKing Suddhodana was the father of Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. He was a leader of the Shakya people, who lived in southern Nepal. Suddhodana's father was Sinahana...
, the leader of
ShakyaShakya was an ancient janapada of Iron Age India. In Buddhist texts, the are mentioned as a clan. The s formed an independent kingdom at the foothills of the...
clan, whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of
KosalaKosala was an ancient Indian region, corresponding roughly in area with the region of Oudh in the present day Uttar Pradesh state. According to the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya and the Jaina text, the Bhagavati Sutra, Kosala was one of the Solasa Mahajanapadas in 6th century BCE and its...
during the Buddha's lifetime; Gautama was the
family nameA family name is a type of surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world...
. His mother,
Queen Maha MayaQueen Māyā of Sakya was the birth mother of the historical Gautama Buddha, Siddhārtha of the Gautama gotra, and sister of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī the first woman ordained by the Buddha. "Māyā" means "illusion" or "enchantment" in Sanskrit and Pāli. Māyā is also called Mahāmāyā or Māyādevī . In...
(Māyādevī) and Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. On the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten
lunar monthIn lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two identical syzygies . There are many variations. In Middle-Eastern and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon becomes first visible at evening after conjunction with the Sun 1 or 2 days before that evening...
s later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, she gave birth on the way, at
LumbiniLumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who in turn, as the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563...
, in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in
TheravadaTheravada Theravada Theravada (Pāli: थेरवाद theravāda (cf Sanskrit: स्थविरवाद sthaviravāda); literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
countries as
VesakVesak is an annual holiday observed traditionally by practicing Buddhists in South Asian and South East Asian countries like Nepal, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Pakistan and India...
. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhatta), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit
seerThe term clairvoyance is used to refer to the alleged ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
AsitaAsita was a hermit ascetic of ancient India in the 6th century BCE. He is best known for having predicted that Prince Siddhartha of Kapilavastu would either become a great king or become a supreme religious leader ....
journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (
chakravartinA Chakravartin A Chakravartin A Chakravartin ( , a Sanskrit bahuvrīhi, literally "whose wheels are moving", in the sense of "whose chariot is rolling everywhere without obstruction"...
) or a great
holy manIn Hinduism, sadhu is a common term for a mystic, an ascetic, practitioner of yoga and/or wandering monks. The sadhu is solely dedicated to achieving the fourth and final Hindu goal of life, moksha , through meditation and contemplation of Brahman...
. This occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight
brahminBrahmins have historically been the class of educators, scholars and preachers in Hinduism. They are considered as belonging to the "forward castes" of the four varnas of Hinduism....
scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man.
KaundinyaKaundinya also known as Ajnata Kaundinya was a Buddhist bhikkhu in the sangha of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arahant...
(Pali: Kondanna), the youngest, and later to be the first arahant, was the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.
While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary
monarchA monarch is the person who heads a monarchy, a form of government in which the country or entity usually ruled or controlled by an individual who usually rules for life or until abdication...
, the descendant of the Solar Dynasty of
{{redirect4|Buddha|Gautama}}
{{pp-semi-indef|small=yes|expiry=December 21, 2008}}
{{Buddhism}}
Siddhārtha Gautama (SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
: सिद्धार्थ गौतम;
Pali
:
Siddhattha Gotama) was a
spiritualSpirituality is relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. Synonyms include immaterialism, dualism, incorporeality and eternity....
teacher in the north eastern region of the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent and other terms, is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate south of the Himalayas, forming a peninsula which extends southward into the Indian Ocean...
who founded
BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
. He is regarded by Buddhists as the Supreme
Buddha (Sammāsambuddha) of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as
c.Circa means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
563 BCE to 483 BCE; more recently, however, at a specialist symposium on this question,
the majority of those scholars who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates.
Gautama, also known as
Śākyamuni or
Shakyamuni ("sage of the
ShakyaShakya was an ancient janapada of Iron Age India. In Buddhist texts, the are mentioned as a clan. The s formed an independent kingdom at the foothills of the...
s"), is the key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and
monasticMonasticism is the religious practice in which one renounces worldly pursuits in order to fully devote one's life to spiritual work...
rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to Gautama were passed down by
oral traditionOral tradition, oral culture and oral lore are messages or testimony transmitted orally from one generation to another. The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants...
, and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Early Western scholarship tended to accept the biography of the Buddha presented in the Buddhist scriptures as largely historical, but currently "scholars are increasingly reluctant to make unqualified claims about the historical
factA fact is a pragmatic truth, a statement that can, at least in theory, be checked and confirmed. Facts are often contrasted with opinions and beliefs, statements which are held to be true, but are not amenable to pragmatic confirmation....
s of the Buddha's life and teachings."
Life
The primary sources of information regarding Siddhārtha Gautama's life are the
Buddhist textsBuddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized...
. The Buddha and his monks spent four months each year discussing and rehearsing his teachings, and after his death his monks set about preserving them. A council was held shortly after his death, and another was held a century later. At these councils the monks attempted to establish and authenticate the extant accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha following systematic rules. They divided the teachings into distinct but overlapping bodies of material, and assigned specific monks to preserve each one. In some cases, essential aspects of the Buddha's teaching were incorporated into stories and chants in order to preserve them accurately.
From then on, the teachings were transmitted orally. From internal evidence it seems clear that the oldest texts crystallized into their current form by the time of the second council or shortly after it. The scriptures were not written down until three or four hundred years after the Buddha's death. By this point, the monks had added or altered some material themselves, in particular magnifying the figure of the Buddha.
The ancient Indians were generally not concerned with chronologies, being far more focused on philosophy. The Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Shakyamuni may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which substantial accounts exist. According to Michael Carrithers, there are good reasons to doubt the traditional account, though the outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.
Conception and birth
Siddhartha was born in
LumbiniLumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who in turn, as the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563...
and raised in the small kingdom or principality of Kapilvastu, both of which are in modern day
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
. At the time of the Buddha's birth, the area was at or beyond the boundary of Vedic civilization, the dominant culture of northern India at the time; it is even possible that his mother tongue was not an Indo-Aryan language. At the time, a multitude of small city-states existed in ancient India, called
janapadasMahajanapadas , literally "Great realms," were Ancient Indian kingdoms or countries...
. Republics and chiefdoms with diffused political power and limited social stratification, were not uncommon amongst them, and were referred to as gana-sanghas. The Buddha's community does not seem to have had a caste system, and their society was not structured according to Brahminical theory. It was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an
oligarchyAn Oligarchy is a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royal, wealth, intellectual, family, military, or religious hegemony. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for "few" and "rule"...
, or as a form of republic. The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the
ShramanaA shramana is a wandering monk in certain ascetic traditions of ancient India, including Jainism, Buddhism, and Ājīvika religion . Famous include religious leaders Mahavira and Gautama Buddha....
type Jain and Buddhist
sanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
s, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.
According to the traditional biography, his father was King
SuddhodanaKing Suddhodana was the father of Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. He was a leader of the Shakya people, who lived in southern Nepal. Suddhodana's father was Sinahana...
, the leader of
ShakyaShakya was an ancient janapada of Iron Age India. In Buddhist texts, the are mentioned as a clan. The s formed an independent kingdom at the foothills of the...
clan, whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of
KosalaKosala was an ancient Indian region, corresponding roughly in area with the region of Oudh in the present day Uttar Pradesh state. According to the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya and the Jaina text, the Bhagavati Sutra, Kosala was one of the Solasa Mahajanapadas in 6th century BCE and its...
during the Buddha's lifetime; Gautama was the
family nameA family name is a type of surname and part of a person's name indicating the family to which the person belongs. The use of family names is widespread in cultures around the world...
. His mother,
Queen Maha MayaQueen Māyā of Sakya was the birth mother of the historical Gautama Buddha, Siddhārtha of the Gautama gotra, and sister of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī the first woman ordained by the Buddha. "Māyā" means "illusion" or "enchantment" in Sanskrit and Pāli. Māyā is also called Mahāmāyā or Māyādevī . In...
(Māyādevī) and Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. On the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten
lunar monthIn lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two identical syzygies . There are many variations. In Middle-Eastern and European traditions, the month starts when the young crescent moon becomes first visible at evening after conjunction with the Sun 1 or 2 days before that evening...
s later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, she gave birth on the way, at
LumbiniLumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who in turn, as the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563...
, in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in
TheravadaTheravada Theravada Theravada (Pāli: थेरवाद theravāda (cf Sanskrit: स्थविरवाद sthaviravāda); literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
countries as
VesakVesak is an annual holiday observed traditionally by practicing Buddhists in South Asian and South East Asian countries like Nepal, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Pakistan and India...
. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhatta), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit
seerThe term clairvoyance is used to refer to the alleged ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
AsitaAsita was a hermit ascetic of ancient India in the 6th century BCE. He is best known for having predicted that Prince Siddhartha of Kapilavastu would either become a great king or become a supreme religious leader ....
journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (
chakravartinA Chakravartin A Chakravartin A Chakravartin ( , a Sanskrit bahuvrīhi, literally "whose wheels are moving", in the sense of "whose chariot is rolling everywhere without obstruction"...
) or a great
holy manIn Hinduism, sadhu is a common term for a mystic, an ascetic, practitioner of yoga and/or wandering monks. The sadhu is solely dedicated to achieving the fourth and final Hindu goal of life, moksha , through meditation and contemplation of Brahman...
. This occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight
brahminBrahmins have historically been the class of educators, scholars and preachers in Hinduism. They are considered as belonging to the "forward castes" of the four varnas of Hinduism....
scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man.
KaundinyaKaundinya also known as Ajnata Kaundinya was a Buddhist bhikkhu in the sangha of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arahant...
(Pali: Kondanna), the youngest, and later to be the first arahant, was the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.
While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary
monarchA monarch is the person who heads a monarchy, a form of government in which the country or entity usually ruled or controlled by an individual who usually rules for life or until abdication...
, the descendant of the Solar Dynasty of
{{IASTIkshvaku was the first king of the Ikshvaku dynasty and founder of the Solar Dynasty of Kshatriyas in Vedic civilization in ancient India.-In Hinduism:...
(Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars believe that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.
Early life and marriage
Siddhartha, destined to a luxurious life as a prince, had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) especially built for him. His father, King Śuddhodana, wishing for Siddhartha to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings or knowledge of human
sufferingDukkha is a Pali term roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress,...
. Siddhartha was brought up by his mother's younger sister,
Maha PajapatiMahāpajāpatī Gotamī was the first woman to request ordination from the Buddha and to join the Saṅgha. She was both the Buddha's maternal aunt and adoptive mother, raising him after her sister, Queen Maya , the Buddha's birth mother, died...
.
As the boy reached the age of 16, his father arranged his marriage to
YaśodharāPrincess Yasodharā is chiefly famous as the wife of Prince Siddhartha, who became known as Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.-Life:Yasodhara was the daughter of King Suppabuddha, and Pamitā, sister of the Buddha's father, King Suddhodana. Her father was a Koliya chief and her mother came...
(Pāli: Yasodharā), a cousin of the same age. According to the traditional account, in time, she gave birth to a son,
RahulaRāhula was the only son of Siddhartha Gautama , later known as the Buddha, and his wife Princess Yasodharā.Accounts of his life differ in certain points...
. Siddhartha spent 29 years as a Prince in
KapilavastuKapilavastu is the name of a region of ancient Shakya kingdom that is considered a holy pilgrimage place for Buddhists, located close to Lumbini...
. Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Siddhartha felt that material wealth was not the ultimate goal of life.
Departure and Ascetic Life
At the age of 29, Siddhartha left his palace in order to meet his subjects. Despite his father's effort to remove the sick, aged and suffering from the public view, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. Disturbed by this, when told that all people would eventually grow old by his charioteer
ChannaChanna was a royal servant and head charioteer of Prince Siddhartha, who was to become the Buddha...
, the prince went on further trips where he encountered, variously, a
diseaseA disease or medical condition isan abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and signs...
d man, a decaying
corpseWith regard to living things, a body is the physical body of an individual. "Body" often is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death...
, and an
asceticAsceticism describes a life-style characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
. Deeply depressed by these sights, he sought to overcome old age, illness, and death by living the life of an ascetic.
Siddhartha escaped his palace, accompanied by Channa aboard his horse
KanthakaKanthaka was a favourite white horse of length eighteen cubits that was a royal servant of Prince Siddhartha, who later became Gautama Buddha. Siddhartha used Kanthaka in all major events described in Buddhist texts prior to his renunciation of the world...
, leaving behind this royal life to become a
mendicantThe term mendicant refers to begging or relying on charitable donations, and is most widely used for religious followers or ascetics who rely exclusively on charity to survive....
. It is said that, "the horse's hooves were muffled by the gods" to prevent guards from knowing the Bodhisatta's departure. This event is traditionally called "The Great Departure".
Siddhartha initially went to
RajagahaRajgir is a city and a notified area in Nalanda district in the Indian state of Bihar. The city of Rajgir was the first capital of the kingdom of Magadha, a state that would eventually evolve into the Mauryan Empire...
and began his ascetic life by begging for alms in the street. Having been recognised by the men of King
BimbisaraBimbisara, was a king of the Magadha empire from 543 BC to his death and belonged to the Hariyanka dynasty.-Career:There are many accounts of Bimbisara in the Jain texts and the Buddhist Jatakas, since he was a contemporary of Mahavira and Gautama Buddha...
, Bimbisara offered him the throne after hearing of Siddhartha's quest. Siddhartha rejected the offer, but promised to visit his kingdom of
MagadhaMagadha formed one of the sixteen Mahājanapadas or regions in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganges; its first capital was Rajagaha then Pataliputra...
first, upon attaining enlightenment.
Siddhartha left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit teachers. After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama (Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), Siddhartha was asked by Kalama to succeed him, but moved on after being unsatisfied with his practices. He then became a student of Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra), but although he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness and was asked to succeed Ramaputta, he was still not satisfied with his path, and moved on.
Siddhartha and a group of five companions led by
KaundinyaKaundinya also known as Ajnata Kaundinya was a Buddhist bhikkhu in the sangha of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arahant...
then set out to take their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenment through near total deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising
self-mortificationMortification of the flesh literally means "putting the flesh to death". The term is primarily used in religious and spiritual contexts. The institutional and traditional terminology of this practice in Catholicism is corporal mortification....
. After nearly starving himself to death by restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he collapsed in a river while bathing and almost drowned. Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's plowing, and he had fallen into a naturally concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing, the
jhanaJhāna is a meditative state of profound stillness and concentration. It is sometimes taught as an abiding in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed in the chosen object of attention,characterized by non-dual consciousness...
.
Enlightenment
After asceticism and concentrating on
meditationMeditation is used here as a broad term for practices done by a sole practitioner without much, if any, external aide, often for the purpose of self-transformation...
and Anapana-sati (awareness of breathing in and out), Siddhartha is said to have discovered what Buddhists call the
Middle WayIn general, the Middle Way or Middle Path is the Buddhist practice of non-extremism.More specifically, in Theravada Buddhism's Pali Canon, the Middle Way crystallizes the Buddha's Nirvana-bound path of moderation away from the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification and toward the...
—a path of moderation away from the extremes of
self-indulgenceHedonism is a school of ethics which argues that pleasure has an ultimate importance, and that humanity's most important pursuit is sensual self-indulgence.-Etymology:...
and self-mortification. He accepted a little milk and rice pudding from a village girl named
SujataSujata is a Sanskrit word meaning "from a good family origin". 'Su' means 'good' and 'jata' implies 'jati' or 'caste'. Thus the implied and correct meaning of the word Sujata means 'of good caste' or 'the well born'. It has to be noted here that the caste-system is the spine of Hinduism...
, who wrongly believed him to be the spirit that had granted her a wish, such was his emaciated appearance. Then, sitting under a
pipalPipal may refer to:*Sacred fig*Pipal, NepalThe Sacred Fig or Bo-Tree is a species of banyan fig native to India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, southwest China and Indochina east to Vietnam...
tree, now known as the
Bodhi treeThe Bodhi Tree, also known as Bo , was a large and very old Sacred Fig tree located in Bodh Gaya , under which Siddhartha Gautama, the spiritual teacher and founder of Buddhism later known as Gautama Buddha, achieved enlightenment, or Bodhi...
in
Bodh GayaBodh Gaya or Bodhgaya is a city in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is famous for being the place of Gautama Buddha's attainment of nirvana ....
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, he vowed never to arise until he had found the Truth.
KaundinyaKaundinya also known as Ajnata Kaundinya was a Buddhist bhikkhu in the sangha of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arahant...
and the other four companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, left. After 49 days meditating, at the age of 35, he attained
EnlightenmentBodhi is both a Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English as enlightenment, but frequently translated as "awakening"...
; according to some traditions, this occurred approximately in the fifth lunar month, and according to others in the twelfth. Gautama, from then on, was known as the
Buddha or "Awakened One." Buddha is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One." Often, he is referred to in Buddhism as Shakyamuni Buddha or "The Awakened One of the Shakya Clan."
At this point, he is believed to have realized complete awakening and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering which was ignorance, along with steps necessary to eliminate it. This was then categorized into '
Four Noble TruthsThe Four Noble Truths is one of the most fundamental Buddhist teachings. In broad terms, these truths relate to suffering , its nature, its origin, its cessation and the path leading to its cessation...
'; the state of supreme liberation—possible for any being—was called
NirvanaIn sramanic thought, Nirvana is the state of being free from suffering. It is an important concept in Buddhism and Jainism....
. He then allegedly came to possess the Nine Characteristics, which are said to belong to every Buddha.
According to one of the stories in the
Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1), a scripture found in the
Pāli
and other canons, immediately after his Enlightenment, the Buddha was wondering whether or not he should teach the
DharmaDhamma or Dharma in Buddhism has two primary meanings:* the teachings of the Buddha which lead to enlightenment * the constituent factors of the experienced world...
to human beings. He was concerned that, as human beings were overpowered by greed, hatred and delusion, they would not be able to see the true
dharma, which was subtle, deep and hard to understand. However, Brahmā Sahampati, interceded and asked that he teach the
dharma to the world, as "there will be those who will understand the
Dharma". With his great compassion to all beings in the universe, the Buddha agreed to become a teacher.
Formation of the sangha
After becoming enlightened, two merchants whom the Buddha met, named Tapussa and Bhallika became the first lay disciples. They are given some hairs from the Buddha's head, which are believed to now be enshrined in the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon, Burma. The Buddha intended to visit
AsitaAsita was a hermit ascetic of ancient India in the 6th century BCE. He is best known for having predicted that Prince Siddhartha of Kapilavastu would either become a great king or become a supreme religious leader ....
, and his former teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta to explain his findings, but they had already died.
The Buddha thus journeyed to Deer Park near
{{IASTVaranasi , also commonly known as Benares or Banaras and Kashi , is a city situated on the left bank of the River Ganga in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, regarded as holy by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains...
(Benares) in northern India, he set in motion the
Wheel of DharmaThe Dharmacakra or Dhammacakka , Tibetan chos kyi 'khor lo, Chinese fălún 法輪, "Wheel of Dharma" or "Wheel of Law" is a symbol that has represented dharma, the Buddha's teaching of the path to enlightenment, since the early period of Indian Buddhism. It is also sometimes translated as wheel of...
by delivering his first sermon to the group of five companions with whom he had previously sought enlightenment. They, together with the Buddha, formed the first
{{IASTSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
, the company of Buddhist monks, and hence, the first formation of Triple Gem (Buddha,
DharmaDhamma or Dharma in Buddhism has two primary meanings:* the teachings of the Buddha which lead to enlightenment * the constituent factors of the experienced world...
and
SanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
) was completed, with
KaundinyaKaundinya also known as Ajnata Kaundinya was a Buddhist bhikkhu in the sangha of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arahant...
becoming the first stream-enterer. All five soon become arahants, and with the conversion of
YasaYasa was a bhikkhu during the time of Gautama Buddha. He was the sixth bhikkhu in the Buddha’s sangha and was the sixth to achieve arahanthood. Yasa lived in the 6th century BCE in what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in northern India....
and fifty four of his friends, the number of arahants swelled to 60 within the first two months. The conversion of the three Kassapa brothers and their 200, 300 and 500 disciples swelled the sangha over 1000, and they were dispatched to explain the dharma to the populace.
It is unknown what the Buddha's mother tongue was, and no conclusive documentation has been made at this point. It is likely that he preached and his teachings were originally preserved in a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which
Pali
may be a standardization.
Travels and teaching
For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain, in what is now
Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh , [often referred to as U.P.] is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 190 million people,...
,
BiharBihar is a state in eastern India. Bihar is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at 38,202 sq mi , and 3rd largest by population. Close to 85 percent of the population lives in villages...
and southern
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, teaching his doctrine and discipline to an extremely diverse range of people— from nobles to outcaste street sweepers, mass murderers such as
AngulimalaAngulimala is an important early figure in Buddhism, particularly within the Theravada school. Depicted in the suttas as a ruthless killer who is redeemed by conversion to Buddhism, his story is seen as an example of the redemptive power of the Buddha's teaching and the universal human potential...
and cannibals such as Alavaka. This extended to many adherents of rival philosophies and religions. The Buddha founded the community of Buddhist monks and nuns (the
SanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
) to continue the dispensation after his
ParinirvānaIn Buddhism, parinirvana is the final nirvana, which occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained complete awakening...
(
Pāli
: Parinibbāna) or "complete Nirvāna", and made thousands of converts. His religion was open to all races and classes and had no
casteA caste is a combined social system of occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power. Caste should not be confused with class, in that members of a caste are deemed to be alike in function or culture, whereas not all members of a defined class may be so alike.Although Indian...
structure. He was also subject to attack from opposition religious groups, including attempted murders and framings.
The sangha travelled from place to place in India, expounding the dharma. This occurred throughout the year, except during the four months of the vassana rainy season. Due to the heavy amount of flooding, travelling was difficult, and ascetics of all religions in that time did not travel, since it was more difficult to do so without stepping on submerged animal life, unwittingly killing them. During this period, the sangha would retreat to a monastery, public park or a forest and people would come to them.
The first vassana was spent at
VaranasiVaranasi , also commonly known as Benares or Banaras and Kashi , is a city situated on the left bank of the River Ganga in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, regarded as holy by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains...
when the sangha was first formed. After this, he travelled to Rajagaha, the capital of
MagadhaMagadha formed one of the sixteen Mahājanapadas or regions in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganges; its first capital was Rajagaha then Pataliputra...
to visit King
BimbisaraBimbisara, was a king of the Magadha empire from 543 BC to his death and belonged to the Hariyanka dynasty.-Career:There are many accounts of Bimbisara in the Jain texts and the Buddhist Jatakas, since he was a contemporary of Mahavira and Gautama Buddha...
, in accordance with his promise after enlightenment. It was during this visit that Sariputta and Mahamoggallana were converted by
AssajiAssaji was one of the first five arahants of Gautama Buddha. He is known for his conversion of Sariputta and Mahamoggallana, the Buddha's two chief disciples. He lived in what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in northern India, during the 6th century BCE.- Background :Assaji was born into a brahmin...
, one of the first five disciples; they were to become the Buddha's two foremost disciples. The Buddha then spent the next three seasons at Veluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, the capital of
MagadhaMagadha formed one of the sixteen Mahājanapadas or regions in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganges; its first capital was Rajagaha then Pataliputra...
. The monastery, which was of a moderate distance from the city centre was donated by Bimbisara.
Upon hearing of the enlightenment, Suddhodana dispatched royal delegations to ask the Buddha to return to
KapilavastuKapilavastu is the name of a region of ancient Shakya kingdom that is considered a holy pilgrimage place for Buddhists, located close to Lumbini...
. Nine delegations were sent in all, but the delegates joined the sangha and became arahants. Neglecting worldly matters, they did not convey their message. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhood friend, resulted in the message being successfully conveyed as well as becoming an arahant. Since it was not the vassana, the Buddha agreed, and two years after his enlightenment, took a two month journey to Kapilavastu by foot, preaching the dharma along the way. Upon his return, the royal palace had prepared the midday meal, but since no specific invitation had come, the sangha went for an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana hastened to approach the Buddha, stating "Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warrior has gone seeking alms", to which the Buddha replied
{{quote|That is not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone by seeking alms}}
Suddhodana invited the sangha back to the royal palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk, after which he became a
sotapannaIn Buddhism, Sotapanna or Śrotāpanna means "stream-winner" and refers to a person, who has eradicated the first three fetters of the mind. Sotapanna literally means "one who entered the stream", after a simile that compares attaining nibbāna with crossing a stream and reaching the furthest shore...
. During the visit, many members of the royal family joined the
sanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
. His cousins
AnandaĀnanda was one of many principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...
and
AnuruddhaAnuruddha was one of the five head disciples and a cousin of Gautama Buddha.-Early years:Anuruddha was the son of Sukkhodana and brother to Mahanama. Since Sukkhodana was the brother of Suddhodana, king of the Sakyas in Kapilavastu, Anuruddha was cousin to Siddhartha, . He was a kshatriya by...
were to become two of his five chief disciples. His son
RahulaRāhula was the only son of Siddhartha Gautama , later known as the Buddha, and his wife Princess Yasodharā.Accounts of his life differ in certain points...
also joined the sangha at the age of seven, and was one of the ten chief disciples. His half-brother
NandaNanda is a surname of Punjab origin. Nanda is a Lohar, Khatri, Jatt, Ramgarhia, Gujjar, Kamboj and Rajput surname. All the clans of Jat, Rajput, Tarkhan , Lohar, Gujjar, Khatri and Kamboj tribes have close Genetic as well as Ancestral relation with each other.-Among Khatris:Nanda clan is mostly...
also joined the sangha and became an arahant. Another cousin
DevadattaDevadatta was a Buddhist monk and the cousin of Gautama Buddha. He was recorded as having created a schism in the sangha, or monastic community. This schism was later undone when all his followers came back to the Buddha, after which Devadatta also wanted to come back...
also became a monk although he later became an enemy and tried to kill the Buddha on multiple occasions.
Of his disciples, Sariputta, Mahamoggallana,
MahakasyapaMahākāśyapa or Kāśyapa was a brahman of Magadha, who became one of the principal disciples of Śākyamuni Buddha and who convened and directed the first council. Mahākāśyapa is one of the most revered of the Buddha's early disciples...
,
AnandaĀnanda was one of many principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...
and
AnuruddhaAnuruddha was one of the five head disciples and a cousin of Gautama Buddha.-Early years:Anuruddha was the son of Sukkhodana and brother to Mahanama. Since Sukkhodana was the brother of Suddhodana, king of the Sakyas in Kapilavastu, Anuruddha was cousin to Siddhartha, . He was a kshatriya by...
comprised the five chief disciples. His ten foremost disciples were completed by the quintet of
UpaliUpali was a monk, one of the ten chief disciples of the Buddha. Before joining the order, he worked as a barber. He asked the Buddha if a person of "low birth" such as he could join the order...
, Subhoti,
RahulaRāhula was the only son of Siddhartha Gautama , later known as the Buddha, and his wife Princess Yasodharā.Accounts of his life differ in certain points...
, Mahakaccana and
Punna' was an arahant and one of the ten leading disciples of the Buddha.When asked by the Buddha what he would think if people were to assault or kill him, each time explained how he would find himself fortunate. As a result, the Buddha commended on his self-control and peacefulness. went on to...
.
In the fifth vassana, the Buddha was staying at Mahavana near Vesali. Hearing of the impending death of Suddhodana, the Buddha went to his father and preached the dharma, and Suddhodana became an arahant prior to death. The death and cremation led to the creation of the order of nuns. Buddhist texts record that he was reluctant to ordain women as nuns. His foster mother Maha Pajapati approached him asking to join the sangha, but the Buddha refused, and began the journey from Kapilavastu back to Rajagaha. Maha Pajapati was so intent on renouncing the world that she led a group of royal Sakyan and Koliyan ladies, following the sangha to Rajagaha. The Buddha eventually accepted them five years after the formation of the
SanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups...
on the grounds that their capacity for enlightenment was equal to that of men, but he gave them certain additional rules (
VinayaThe Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
) to follow. This occurred after
AnandaĀnanda was one of many principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...
interceded on their behalf. Yasodhara also became a nun, with both becoming arahants.
During his ministry,
DevadattaDevadatta was a Buddhist monk and the cousin of Gautama Buddha. He was recorded as having created a schism in the sangha, or monastic community. This schism was later undone when all his followers came back to the Buddha, after which Devadatta also wanted to come back...
(who was not an arahant) frequently tried to undermine the Buddha. At one point Devadatta asked the Buddha to stand aside to let him lead the sangha. The Buddha declined, and stated that Devadatta's actions did not reflect on the Triple Gem, but on him alone. Devadatta conspired with Prince Ajatasattu, son of Bimbisara, so that they would kill and usurp the Buddha and Bimbisara respectively. Devadatta attempted three times to kill the Buddha. The first attempt involved the hiring of a group of archers, whom upon meeting the Buddha became disciples. A second attempt followed when Devadatta attempted to roll a large boulder down a hill. It hit another rock and splintered, only grazing the Buddha in the foot. A final attempt by plying an elephant with alcohol and setting it loose again failed. Failing this, Devadatta attempted to cause a schism in the sangha, by proposing extra restrictions on the
vinayaThe Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
. When the Buddha declined, Devadatta started a breakaway order, criticising the Buddha's laxity. At first, he managed to convert some of the bhikkhus, but Sariputta and Mahamoggallana expounded the dharma to them and succeeded in winning them back.
When the Buddha reached the age of 55, he made Ananda his chief attendant.
Death / Mahaparinirvana
According to the
Mahaparinibbana SuttaFor the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra see Nirvana Sutra.----The Mahaparinibbana Sutta is a Buddhist sutra in the Digha Nikaya of the Tripitaka...
of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon reach
ParinirvanaIn Buddhism, parinirvana is the final nirvana, which occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained complete awakening...
or the final deathless state abandoning the earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named
CundaIn Buddhism in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta Cunda was a blacksmith who gave the last meal of either mushrooms or pork to Buddha. The Buddha fell violently ill but told Cunda not to worry. Buddha recovered from his illness before he attained parinirvana....
. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant
ĀnandaĀnanda was one of many principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...
to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Mettanando and von Hinüber argue that the Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning. The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms; the
TheravadaTheravada Theravada Theravada (Pāli: थेरवाद theravāda (cf Sanskrit: स्थविरवाद sthaviravāda); literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the
MahayanaMahayana is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice. It was founded in India...
tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom.
The Mahayana
Vimalakirti SutraThe Vimalakīrti Sūtra or Vimalakirti Nirdesa is a Mahayana sutra, belonging to Mahayana Buddhism. The sutra expounds the Mahāyāna as opposed to Hinayana teachings...
claims, in Chapter 3, that the Buddha doesn't really become ill or old but purposely presents such an appearance only to teach those born into samsara about the impermanence and pain of defiled worlds and to encourage them to strive for Nirvana.
{{quote|"Reverend Ánanda, the Tathágatas have the body of the Dharma—not a body that is sustained by material food. The Tathágatas have a transcendental body that has transcended all mundane qualities. There is no injury to the body of a Tathágata, as it is rid of all defilements. The body of a Tathágata is uncompounded and free of all formative activity. Reverend Ánanda, to believe there can be illness in such a body is irrational and unseemly!' Nevertheless, since the Buddha has appeared during the time of the five corruptions, he disciplines living beings by acting lowly and humble."[14]}}
Ananda protested Buddha's decision to enter Parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of
KuśināraKushinagar, Kusinagar or Kusinara is a town and a nagar panchayat in Kushinagar district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is an important Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Gautama Buddha died.-Demographics:...
(present-day
KushinagarKushinagar, Kusinagar or Kusinara is a town and a nagar panchayat in Kushinagar district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is an important Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Gautama Buddha died.-Demographics:...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
) of the
MallaMall or Malla was one of the solasa mahajanapadas of ancient India mentioned in the Anguttara Nikaya. It was named after the ruling clan of the same name. The Mahabharata mentions the territory as the Mallarashtra . The Mall mahajanapada was situated north of Magadha. It was a small mahajanapada...
kingdom. Buddha, however, reminded Ananda how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous wheel-turning king that resounded with joy:
{{quote|
44. Kusavati, Ananda, resounded unceasingly day and night with ten sounds—the trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, the rattling of chariots, the beating of drums and tabours, music and song, cheers, the clapping of hands, and cries of "Eat, drink, and be merry!"}}
Buddha then asked all the attendant Bhikshus to clarify any doubts or questions they had. They had none. He then finally entered Parinirvana. The Buddha's final words were, "All composite things pass away. Strive for your own liberation with diligence." The Buddha's body was cremated and the
relicA relic is an object or a personal item of religious significance, carefully preserved with an air of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Shamanism, and many other religions....
s were placed in monuments or
stupaA stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, once thought to be places of Buddhist worship, typically the remains of a Buddha or saint...
s, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. For example, The
Temple of the ToothSri Dalada Maligawa or The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is a Buddhist temple in the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka. It is located in the royal palace complex which houses the Relic of the tooth of Buddha. Since ancient times, the relic has played an important role in local politics because it is...
or "Dalada Maligawa" in
Sri LankaSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
is the place where the
relic of the right tooth of BuddhaThe Sacred Relic of the tooth of Buddha is venerated in Sri Lanka as a relic of the founder of Buddhism.-The relic in India:...
is kept at present.
According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the
{{IASTThe Dipavamsa, or "Deepavamsa", is the oldest historical record of Sri Lanka. The chronicle is believe to be compiled from Atthakatha and other sources around the 3-4th century. Together with Mahavamsa, it is the source of many accounts of ancient history of Sri Lanka and India...
and {{IAST, the coronation of Aśoka (Pāli: Asoka) is 218 years after the death of Buddha. According to one Mahayana record in Chinese (十八部論 and 部執異論), the coronation of Aśoka is 116 years after the death of Buddha. Therefore, the time of Buddha's passing is either 486 BCE according to Theravāda record or 383 BCE according to Mahayana record. However, the actual date traditionally accepted as the date of the Buddha's death in Theravāda countries is 544 or 543 BCE, because the reign of Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about 60 years earlier than current estimates.
At his death, the Buddha told his disciples to follow no leader, but to follow his teachings (
dharmaThe term , is an Indian spiritual and religious term, that means one's righteous duty or any virtuous path in the common sense of the term. A Hindu's Dharma is affected by a person's age, class, occupation, and sex. In Indian languages it can be equivalent simply to "religion", depending on context...
). However, at the
First Buddhist CouncilThe First Buddhist council was convened in the year following the Buddha's Parinibbana, which would be 499/8 BCE according to Theravada tradition, at various earlier dates according to various Mahayana traditions, and various later dates according to various Western estimates. According to late...
,
MahakasyapaMahākāśyapa or Kāśyapa was a brahman of Magadha, who became one of the principal disciples of Śākyamuni Buddha and who convened and directed the first council. Mahākāśyapa is one of the most revered of the Buddha's early disciples...
was held by the sangha as their leader, with the two chief disciples Mahamoggallana and Sariputta having died before the Buddha.
Physical characteristics
{{main|Physical characteristics of the Buddha}}
Buddha is perhaps one of the few sages for whom we have mention of his rather impressive physical characteristics. A
kshatriyaKshatriya is one of the four varnas in Hinduism. It constitutes the military and ruling order of the traditional Vedic-Hindu social system as outlined by the Vedas and the Laws of Manu...
by birth, he had military training in his upbringing, and by Shakyan tradition was required to pass tests to demonstrate his worthiness as a warrior in order to marry. He had a strong enough body to be noticed by one of the kings and was asked to join his army as a general. He is also believed by Buddhists to have "the 32 Signs of the Great Man".
The Brahmin Sonadanda described him as "handsome, good-looking, and pleasing to the eye, with a most beautiful complexion. He has a godlike form and countenance, he is by no means unattractive."(D,I:115).
"It is wonderful, truly marvellous, how serene is the good Gotama's appearance, how clear and radiant his complexion, just as the golden jujube in autumn is clear and radiant, just as a palm-tree fruit just loosened from the stalk is clear and radiant, just as an adornment of red gold wrought in a crucible by a skilled goldsmith, deftly beaten and laid on a yellow-cloth shines, blazes and glitters, even so, the good Gotama's senses are calmed, his complexion is clear and radiant." (A,I:181)
A disciple named Vakkali, who later became an Arahant, was so obsessed by Buddha's physical presence that Buddha had to tell him to stop and reminded Vakkali to know Buddha through the Dhamma and not physical appearances.
Although the Buddha was not represented in human form until around the 1st century CE (see
Buddhist artBuddhist art originated on the Indian subcontinent following the historical life of Siddhartha Gautama, 6th to 5th century BCE, and thereafter evolved by contact with other cultures as it spread throughout Asia and the world....
), the physical characteristics of fully-enlightened Buddhas are described by the Buddha in the
Digha NikayaThe Digha Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the first of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism...
's
{{IAST|Lakkhaṇa Sutta}} (D,I:142). In addition, the Buddha's physical appearance is described by Yasodhara to their son
RahulaRāhula was the only son of Siddhartha Gautama , later known as the Buddha, and his wife Princess Yasodharā.Accounts of his life differ in certain points...
upon the Buddha's first post-Enlightenment return to his former princely palace in the non-canonical Pali devotional hymn,
Narasīha Gāthā ("The Lion of Men").
Many Westerners associate the name "Buddha" with figurine depictions of a certain fat, bald, smiling person. This is inaccurate, as the person in these figurines is not Buddha at all, but
BudaiBudăi may refer to one place in Romania:* Budăi, a village administered by Podu Iloaiei town, Iaşi Countyand to several in Moldova:* Budăi, a commune in Taraclia district* Budăi, a commune in Teleneşti district...
, a Chinese Buddhist monk who lived in the 10th century CE.
Teachings
{{main|Buddhist philosophy}}
Some scholars believe that some portions of the
Pali CanonThe Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pali language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
and the Agamas could contain the actual substance of the historical teachings (and possibly even the words) of the Buddha. This is
not the case for the later Mahayana sutras. The scriptural works of
Early BuddhismThe term Early Buddhism can refer to:* Pre-sectarian Buddhism, which refers to the Teachings and monastic organization and structure, founded by Gautama Buddha.* The Early Buddhist schools, into which pre-sectarian Buddhism split....
precede the Mahayana works chronologically, and are treated by many Western scholars as the main credible source for information regarding the actual historical teachings of Gautama Buddha.
Some of the fundamentals of the teachings of Gautama Buddha are:
- The Four Noble Truths
The Four Noble Truths is one of the most fundamental Buddhist teachings. In broad terms, these truths relate to suffering , its nature, its origin, its cessation and the path leading to its cessation...
: that suffering is an inherent part of existence; that the origin of suffering is ignorance and the main symptoms of that ignorance are attachment and craving; that attachment and craving can be ceased; and that following the Noble Eightfold PathThe Noble Eightfold Path is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...
will lead to the cessation of attachment and craving and therefore suffering.
- The Noble Eightfold Path
The Noble Eightfold Path is one of the principal teachings of the Buddha, who described it as the way leading to the cessation of suffering and the achievement of self-awakening. It is used to develop insight into the true nature of phenomena and to eradicate greed, hatred, and delusion...
: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
- Dependent origination
The doctrine of pratītyasamutpāda , often translated as "dependent arising," is a cardinal doctrine within Buddhist Philosophy. Common to all schools of Buddhism, it states that phenomena arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect...
: that any phenomenon 'exists' only because of the ‘existence’ of other phenomena in a complex web of cause and effect covering time past, present and future. Because all things are thus conditioned and transient (anicca), they have no real independent identity (anattaIn Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self". One scholar describes it as "meaning non-selfhood, the absence of limiting self-identity in people and things."...
).
- Rejection of the infallibility
Infallibility, from Latin origin , is a term with a variety of meanings related to knowing truth with certainty.-In common speech:...
of accepted scriptureScripture is that corpus of literature deemed authoritative for establishing doctrine within any of a number of specific religious traditions, especially the Abrahamic religions.Such bodies of writings are also sometimes known as the canon of scripture...
: Teachings should not be accepted unless they are borne out by our experience and are praised by the wise. See the Kalama SuttaThe Kesamutti Sutta , or better known as Kalama Sutta , is a Buddhist sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya of the Tipitaka. It is often cited by Mahayana and Theravada Buddhists alike...
for details.
- Anicca (Sanskrit: anitya): That all things are impermanent.
- Dukkha
Dukkha is a Pali term roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress,...
(Sanskrit: {{IAST|duḥkha}}): That all beings suffer from all situations due to unclear mind.
- Anatta
In Buddhism, anattā or anātman refers to the notion of "not-self". One scholar describes it as "meaning non-selfhood, the absence of limiting self-identity in people and things."...
(Sanskrit: anātman): That the perception of a constant "selfSelf is broadly defined as the essential qualities that make a person distinct from all others. The task in philosophy is defining what these qualities are, and there have been a number of different approaches...
" is an illusion.
However, in some Mahayana schools, these points have come to be regarded as more or less subsidiary. There is some disagreement amongst various
schools of BuddhismSchools of Buddhism are classified in various ways. Normal English-language usage divides Buddhism into Theravada and Mahayana...
over more esoteric aspects of Buddha's teachings, and also over some of the
disciplinary rulesThe Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
for monks.
According to tradition, the Buddha emphasized ethics and correct understanding. He questioned the average person's notions of divinity and salvation. He stated that there is no intermediary between mankind and the
divineDivinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world...
; distant gods are subjected to
karmaKarma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies..'Karma' is an Eastern religious concept in contradistinction to...
themselves in decaying heavens; and the Buddha is solely a guide and teacher for the sentient beings who must tread the path of
{{IASTIn sramanic thought, Nirvana is the state of being free from suffering. It is an important concept in Buddhism and Jainism....
(
Pāli
: Nibbāna) themselves to attain the spiritual awakening called
bodhiBodhi is both a Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English as enlightenment, but frequently translated as "awakening"...
and see truth and reality as it is. The Buddhist system of insight and
meditationMeditation is used here as a broad term for practices done by a sole practitioner without much, if any, external aide, often for the purpose of self-transformation...
practice is not believed to have been revealed divinely, but by the understanding of the true nature of the mind, which must be discovered by personally treading a spiritual path guided by the Buddha's teachings.
See also
- Iconography of the Buddha
- Buddha as an Avatar of Vishnu
The Buddha in Hinduism is sometimes viewed as an Avatar of Vishnu. In the Puranic text Bhagavata Purana, he is the twenty-fourth of twenty-five avatars, prefiguring a forthcoming final incarnation. Similarly, a number of Hindu traditions portray Buddha as the most recent of ten principal avatars,...
- Buddha as viewed in other religions
- Buddhahood
- List of the 28 Buddhas
- Maitreya Buddha (Future Buddha)
- History of Buddhism
The History of Buddhism spans the 6th century BCE to the present, starting with the birth of Buddha Siddhartha Gautama in Lumbini, Nepal. This makes it one of the oldest religions practiced today. Starting in Nepal, the religion evolved as it spread through Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast...
- The Light of Asia
The Light of Asia, subtitled The Great Renunciation, is a book by Edwin Arnold. The first edition of the book was published in London in July 1879....
Further reading
- Armstrong, Karen. Buddha. (New York: Penguin Books, 2001).
- Bechert, Heinz (ed.) (1996) When Did the Buddha Live? The Controversy on the Dating of the Historical Buddha. Delhi: Sri Satguru.
- Sathe, Shriram: Dates of the Buddha. Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, Hyderabad 1987.
External links
{{commons|Gautama Buddha|Gautama Buddha}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author|Gautama Buddha}}
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{{Gautama Buddha}}
{{Buddhism topics}}
{{Buddhism2}}
{{Persondata
|NAME=Gautama Buddha
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Siddhārtha Gautama (birth name); Siddhattha Gotama (Pali); Śākya-muni (honorific); Sakyamuni (honorific); Tathāgata (honorific)
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Founder of Buddhism
|DATE OF BIRTH=c. 563 BCE
|PLACE OF BIRTH=
LumbiniLumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kapilavastu district of Nepal, near the Indian border. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi is said to have given birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who in turn, as the Buddha Gautama, gave birth to the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563...
,
NepalNepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and the world's youngest republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
|DATE OF DEATH=c. 483 BCE
|PLACE OF DEATH=Kusinagara, India
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buddha, Gautama}}