Buddhist tours to India
Gautam Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama (Sanskrit; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama)
was a spiritual teacher from ancient Nepal andthe founder
of Buddhism. He is universally recognized by Buddhists
as the Supreme Buddha (Sammasambuddha) of our age. The
time of his birth and death are uncertain: a majority
of 20th-century historians date his lifetime from circa
563 BCE to 483 BCE, but some more recent scholars have
suggested dates around 410 or 400 BCE for his death. This
alternative chronology, however, has not yet been accepted
by other historians.
Gautama, also known as Shakyamuni (“sage of the
Shakyas”, in Pali "sakamu?i"), is the
key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses,
and monastic rules were summarized after his death and
memorized by the sangha. Passed down by oral tradition,
the Tripitaka, the collection of discourses attributed
to Gautama, was committed to writing about 400 years
later.
Buddha's life
As few of the details of the Buddha's life can be independently
verified, it is difficult to gauge the historical accuracy
of these accounts. The main sources of information on
Siddhartha Gautama's life are the earliest available
Buddhist texts. The following is a summary of those
events.
Conception and birth
According to tradition, Siddhartha was born more than
200 years before the reign of the Maurya king Asoka
(273–232 BCE)
.
The birth of Siddhartha, (2nd-3rd century).
Siddhartha was born in Lumbini, Ancient India now in
modern day Nepal. His father was King Suddhodana, the
chief of the Shakya nation, one of several ancient tribes
in the growing state of Kosala; Gautama was the family
name. His mother, Queen Maha Maya (Mayadevi) 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 months later Siddhartha was born from her right
side (see image right). As was the Shakya tradition,
when his mother Queen Maya fell pregnant, she returned
to her father's kingdom to give birth, but after leaving
Kapilavastu, she gave birth along the way at Lumbini
in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated
in Theravada countries as Vesak. 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
(Pali: Siddhatta), meaning “he who achieves his
aim”. During the birth celebrations, the hermit
seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode and announced
that this baby would either become a great king (chakravartin)
or a great holy man. This occurred after Siddhartha
placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the
birthmarks. Suddhodarna held a naming ceremony on the
fifth day, and invited eight brahmin scholars to read
the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby
would either become a great king or a great holy man.
Kaundinya (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 Suddhodana
as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Solar
Dynasty of Ik?vaku (Pali: Okkaka), many scholars believe
that Suddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy
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