Gautama Buddha Biography

Buddha	Siddhartha Gautama Born: 0563-04-08 Birthplace: Lumbini, Nepal Died: 0483-00-00 Cause of Death: Old Age Race: Asian/Indian Religion: Buddhist Field: Religion Famous for: Enlightened One
Top 100 Influencial People #18 Field: Religion

Siddhartha Gautama was a spiritual teacher in the ancient Indian subcontinent and the historical founder of Buddhism. He is universally recognised by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are not certain; most modern historians date his lifetime from 563 BCE to 483 BCE, though some alternative research may suggest a date about a century later than this.[1] (However, see Against the Short Date.) By tradition, he was born with the name Siddhārtha Gautama (Pāli: Siddhattha Gotama). After a quest for the truth behind life and death, he underwent a transformative spiritual change that led him to claim the name of Buddha. He is also commonly known as Śākya-muni, "sage of the Śākya clan") and as the Tathāgata ("thus-come-one" or "thus-gone-one").

Gautama is the key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules were summarized after his death and memorized by the saṅgha. Passed down by oral tradition, the Tripiṭaka, the collection of discourses attributed to Gautama, was committed to writing about 400 years later.

As few of the details of the Buddha's life can be independently verified, it is difficult to gauge the historical accuracy of the these accounts. The main sources of information on Siddhārtha Gautama's life are the earliest available Buddhist texts. The following is a summary of those narratives.

According to tradition, Siddhārtha was born more than 200 years before the reign of the Maurya king Aśoka (lived 304–232 BCE).

Siddhārtha was born in Lumbini, Nepal, under the full moon of the sixth lunar month, in the spring. His father was Śuddhodana (Pāli Suddhodana), of the Kṣatriya varṇa, was the chief (rājā, or king) of the Śākya nation, one of several ancient tribes on the margins of the growing state of Kośala (Pāli Kosala). His mother was Māyādevī, King Sudhodhana's wife.

The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Buddhist countries as Vesak. Gautama was born a prince, destined to a luxurious life, with three palaces. All traditions agree that the Buddha's mother died at his birth or a few days later. During the birth celebrations, the seer Asita announced that this baby would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great holy man. His father, King Śuddhodana, wishing for Gautama to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings or knowledge of human suffering.

While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Solar Dynasty of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars believe that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy. Since Siddhārtha belonged to the Śākya clan, he came to be known as Śākyamuni ("sage of the Śākyas"), with "Muni" meaning "sage who is still".

When the young Prince Siddhartha Gautama was still a baby, an ascetic named Kaladevala went into the heaven of the Thirty-three gods and predicted that the young prince would become the Buddha. As the boy reached the age of 16, his father arranged his marriage to Yaśodharā (Pāli: Yasodharā), a cousin of the same age. In time, she gave birth to a son, Rahula. Gautama spent 29 years of his life as a prince in Kapilavastu, a place now situated in Nepal. Although his father ensured that Gautama was provided with everything he could want or need, Gautama was troubled and dissatisfied.

While venturing outside of his palace, Gautama saw an old crippled man (old age), a diseased man (illness), a decaying corpse (death), and an ascetic. These four scenes are referred to as the four sights, or the four heavenly messengers (Pali: devaduta). Gautama was deeply depressed by these sights -- he sought to overcome old age, illness, and death by living the life of an ascetic. Gautama soon left his home, his possessions, and his entire family at age 29, to take up the lonely life of a wandering monk.

Abandoning his inheritance, he dedicated his life to learning how to overcome suffering. He meditated with two hermits, and, although he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, he was still not satisfied with his path.

Gautama then chose the robes of a mendicant monk and headed to Magadha in what is today Bihar in India. He began his training in the ascetic life and practicing vigorous techniques of physical and mental austerity. Gautama proved quite adept at these practices, and surpassed even his teachers.

However, he found no answer to his questions. Leaving behind his caring teachers, he and a small group of close companions set out to take their austerities even further. Gautama tried to find enlightenment through complete deprivation of worldly goods, including food, and became a complete ascetic. After nearly starving himself to death (some sources claim that he nearly drowned), Gautama 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.

After asceticism and concentrating on meditation, Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way—a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. He accepted a little rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. Then, sitting under a pipal tree, now known as the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, he vowed never to arise until he had found the Truth. At the age of 35, he attained Enlightenment; according to some traditions, this occurred approximately in May, and according to others in December. Gautama, from then on, was known as "The Perfectly Self-Awakened One", the Samyaksambuddha (Pāli: Sammāsambuddha).

He stated that he had realized complete awakening and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering which was ignorance, along with steps necessary to eliminate it. These truths were then categorized into the Four Noble Truths; the state of supreme liberation—possible for any being—was called Nirvana.

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 Dharma. 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, a divine spirit, 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, the Buddha agreed to become a teacher.

At the Deer Park near Vārāṇasī (Benares) in northern India, he set in motion the Wheel of Dharma 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 saṅgha, the company of Buddhist monks.

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 divine; distant gods are subjected to karma themselves in decaying heavens; and the Buddha is solely a guide and teacher for the sentient beings who must tread the path of Nirvāṇa (Pāli: Nibbāna) themselves to attain the spiritual awakening called bodhi and see truth and reality as it is. The Buddhist system of insight, thought, and meditation practice was not revealed divinely, but by the understanding of the true nature of the mind, which could be discovered by anybody.

For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha traveled in the Gangetic Plain of Northeastern India and Southern Nepal, teaching his doctrine and discipline to an extremely diverse range of people— from nobles to outcaste street sweepers, including many adherents of rival philosophies and religions. The Buddha founded the community of Buddhist monks and nuns (the Sangha) to continue the dispensation after his Parinirvāna (Pāli: Parinibbāna) or "complete Nirvāna", and made thousands of converts. His religion was open to all races and classes and had no caste structure. On the other hand, Buddhist texts record that he was reluctant to ordain women as nuns: he eventually accepted them on the grounds that their capacity for enlightenment was equal to that of men (and the Lotus Sutra, in Chapter 12, contains a description of the dragon king's daughter attaining enlightenment in her present body), but he gave them certain additional rules (Vinaya) to follow.

According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon enter Parinirvana or the final deathless state abandoning the earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which, according to different translations, was either a mushroom delicacy or soft pork, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda 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.

Ananda protested Buddha's decision to enter Parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra (Pāli: Kusināra) of the Mallas. Buddha, however, reminds Anand how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous king that resounded with joy:

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 Parinivana. The Buddha's final words were, "All composite things pass away. Strive for your own salvation with diligence." The Buddha's body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. (For example, "The Temple of the Tooth" or "Dalada Maligawa" in Sri Lanka is the place where the right tooth relic of Buddha is kept at present.)

According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, 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 (based on Aśoka's own inscriptions, and therefore among the soundest dates in early Indian history).