Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम Siddhāṛtha Gautama, c. 563/480 – c. 483/400 BCE) or Siddhattha Gotama (शिद्धत्थ गोतम) in Pali,[note 4] also called the Gautama Buddha,[note 5][note 1] the Shakyamuni (i.e. "Sage of the Shakyas") Buddha,[4][note 6] or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was a monk (śramaṇa),[5][6] mendicant, sage,[4] philosopher, teacher and religious leader on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.[7] He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the northeastern part of ancient India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.[8][note 7]



Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most people accept that the Buddha lived, taught, and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara (c. 558 – c. 491 BCE, or c. 400 BCE),[11][12][13] the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajatasatru, who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara.[14][15] While the general sequence of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" is widely accepted,[16] there is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies.[17][18]

The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE.[1][19] More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988,[20][21][22] the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death.[1][23][note 7] These alternative chronologies, however, have not been accepted by all historians.[28][29][note 8]


The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE.[34] One of his usual names was "Sakamuni" or "Sakyamunī" ("Sage of the Shakyas"). It was either a small republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain, or oligarch.[34] According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, now in modern-day Nepal, and raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilvastu, which may have been either in what is present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India.[note 2] According to Buddhist tradition, he obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and died in Kushinagar.

Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential Śramaṇa schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism, and Ajñana.[51] Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought. In this context, a śramaṇa refers to one who labors, toils, or exerts themselves (for some higher or religious purpose). It was also the age of influential thinkers like Mahavira,[52] Pūraṇa Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalī, Pakudha Kaccāyana, and Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, as recorded in Samaññaphala Sutta, whose viewpoints the Buddha most certainly must have been acquainted with.[53][54][note 10] Indeed, Sariputta and Moggallāna, two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, the sceptic;[56] and the Pali canon frequently depicts Buddha engaging in debate with the adherents of rival schools of thought. There is also philological evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques.[57] Thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time.[58] In an era where holiness of person was judged by their level of asceticism,[59] Buddha was a reformist within the śramaṇa movement, rather than a reactionary against Vedic Brahminism.[60]

Historically, the life of the Buddha also coincided with the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley during the rule of Darius I from about 517/516 BCE.[61] This Achaemenid occupation of the areas of Gandhara and Sindh, which was to last for about two centuries, was accompanied by the introduction of Achaemenid religions, reformed Mazdaism or early Zoroastrianism, to which Buddhism might have in part reacted.[61] In particular, the ideas of the Buddha may have partly consisted of a rejection of the "absolutist" or "perfectionist" ideas contained in these Achaemenid religions.[61]


"Sakamuni" in also mentioned in the reliefs of Bharhut, dated to circa 100 BCE, in relation with his illumination and the Bodhi tree, with the inscription Bhagavato Sakamunino Bodho ("The illumination of the Blessed Sakamuni").[64]



The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā.[70] Of these, the Buddhacarita[71][72][73] is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE.[74] The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE.[75] The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE.[75] The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra,[76] and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoṣa.[77]


In the earliest Buddhist texts, the nikāyas and āgamas, the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience (sabbaññu)[79] nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent (lokottara) being. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, ideas of the Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu.[79] In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing [80] while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made a claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the "higher knowledges" (abhijñā).[81] The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a śramaṇa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty-five-year career as a teacher.[82]





The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal to be the birthplace of the Buddha.[89][note 2] He grew up in Kapilavastu.[note 2] The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown.[90] It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, in present-day India,[46] or Tilaurakot, in present-day Nepal.[91] Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles (24 km) apart.[91]

Gautama was born to a Hindu Kshatriya family,[92][note 13] the son of Śuddhodana, "an elected chief of the Shakya clan",[8] whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the family name. His mother, Maya (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side,[94][95] and ten months later[96] Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilavastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.[citation needed]



Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition.[100] The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy and seems to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic.[101] The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the śramanic Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.[102]




Accompanied by Channa and riding his horse Kanthaka, Gautama quit his palace for the life of a mendicant. It's said that "the horse's hooves were muffled by the gods"[107] to prevent guards from knowing of his departure.


He left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit teachers of yogic meditation.[108][109][110] After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama (Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), he was asked by Kalama to succeed him. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practice, and moved on to become a student of yoga with Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra).[111] With him, he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness and was again asked to succeed his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied, and again moved on.[112]

According to the early Buddhist texts,[113] after realising that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama discovered what Buddhists know as being, the Middle Way[113]—a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path, as described in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which is regarded as the first discourse of the Buddha.[113] In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata.[114] Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.[114]

Following this incident, Gautama was famously seated under a pipal tree—now known as the Bodhi tree—in Bodh Gaya, India, when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth.[115] Kaundinya and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, ceased to stay with him, and went to somewhere else. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained Enlightenment,[115][116] and became known as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").

According to some sutras of the Pali canon, at the time of his awakening he realised complete insight into the Four Noble Truths, thereby attaining liberation from samsara, the endless cycle of rebirth, suffering and dying again.[117][118][119] According to scholars, this story of the awakening and the stress on "liberating insight" is a later development in the Buddhist tradition, where the Buddha may have regarded the practice of dhyana as leading to nirvana and moksha.[120][121][117][note 14]



















Waley suggests that Theravadins would take suukaramaddava (the contents of the Buddha's last meal), which can translate literally as pig-soft, to mean "soft flesh of a pig" or "pig's soft-food", that is, after Neumann, a soft food favoured by pigs, assumed to be a truffle. He argues (also after Neumann) that as "plant names tend to be local and dialectical", as there are several plants known to have suukara- (pig) as part of their names,[note 15] and as Pali Buddhism developed in an area remote from the Buddha's death, suukaramaddava could easily have been a type of plant whose local name was unknown to those in Pali regions. Specifically, local writers writing soon after the Buddha's death knew more about their flora than Theravadin commentator Buddhaghosa who lived hundreds of years and hundreds of kilometers remote in time and space from the events described. Unaware that it may have been a local plant name and with no Theravadin prohibition against eating animal flesh, Theravadins would not have questioned the Buddha eating meat and interpreted the term accordingly.[127]


According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha died at Kuśināra (present-day Kushinagar, India), which became a pilgrimage centre.[128] Ananda protested the Buddha's decision to enter parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra of the Malla kingdom. The Buddha, however, is said to have reminded Ananda how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous wheel-turning king and the appropriate place for him to die.[129]


Life scenes of Buddha, sandstone: Birth, Enlightenment, Descent from Heaven, First Sermon, Passing Away, c. 2nd century CE, Government Museum, Mathura.



While in the Buddha's days he was addressed by the very respected titles Buddha, Shākyamuni, Shākyasimha, Bhante and Bho, he was known after his parinirvana nirvana as Arihant, Bhagavā/Bhagavat/Bhagwān, Mahāvira,[132] Jina/Jinendra, Sāstr, Sugata, and most popularly in scriptures as Tathāgata.

After his death, Buddha's cremation relics were divided amongst 8 royal families and his disciples; centuries later they would be enshrined by King Ashoka into 84,000 stupas.[133][134] Many supernatural legends surround the history of alleged relics as they accompanied the spread of Buddhism and gave legitimacy to rulers.






Among the 32 main characteristics it is mentioned that Buddha has blue eyes.[138]




Sacrifices have the Agnihotra as foremost; of meter, the foremost is the Sāvitrī.[140]

One method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest versions of the Pali Canon and other texts, such as the surviving portions of Sarvastivada, Mulasarvastivada, Mahisasaka, Dharmaguptaka,[141][142] and the Chinese Agamas.[citation needed] The reliability of these sources, and the possibility of drawing out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute.[143][144][145][146] According to Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies.[141][note 16]

According to Schmithausen, there are three positions held by scholars of Buddhism:[149]

A core problem in the study of early Buddhism is the relation between dhyana and insight.[144][143][146] Schmithausen notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36.[147][143][144]

According to Tilmann Vetter, the core of earliest Buddhism is the practice of dhyāna,[154] as a workable alternative to painful ascetic practices.[155][note 21] Bronkhorst agrees that Dhyāna was a Buddhist invention,[143][page needed] whereas Norman notes that "the Buddha's way to release [...] was by means of meditative practices."[157] Discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development.[158][159]

According to the Mahāsaccakasutta,[note 22] from the fourth jhana the Buddha gained bodhi. Yet, it is not clear what he was awakened to.[157][143][page needed] According to Schmithausen and Bronkhorst, "liberating insight" is a later addition to this text, and reflects a later development and understanding in early Buddhism.[147][143][page needed] The mentioning of the four truths as constituting "liberating insight" introduces a logical problem, since the four truths depict a linear path of practice, the knowledge of which is in itself not depicted as being liberating:[160]




According to both Bronkhorst and Anderson, the four truths became a substitution for prajna, or "liberating insight", in the suttas[121][117][page needed] in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas.[163] According to Bronkhorst, the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight".[164] Gotama's teachings may have been personal, "adjusted to the need of each person."[163]

The three marks of existence[note 24] may reflect Upanishadic or other influences. K.R. Norman supposes that these terms were already in use at the Buddha's time, and were familiar to his listeners.[165]

The Brahma-vihara was in origin probably a brahmanic term;[166] but its usage may have been common to the Sramana traditions.[143]


Some Hindus regard Gautama as the 9th avatar of Vishnu.[note 12][167] However, Buddha's teachings deny the authority of the Vedas and the concepts of Brahman-Atman.[168][169][170] Consequently Buddhism is generally classified as a nāstika school (heterodox, literally "It is not so"[note 25]) in contrast to the six orthodox schools of Hinduism.[173][174][175]

The Buddha is regarded as a prophet by the minority Ahmadiyya[176] sect of Muslims—a sect considered deviant and rejected as apostate by mainstream Islam.[177][178] Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought the Buddha to be a reincarnation of Laozi.[179]

Disciples of the Cao Đài religion worship the Buddha as a major religious teacher.[180] His image can be found in both their Holy See and on the home altar. He is revealed during communication with Divine Beings as son of their Supreme Being (God the Father) together with other major religious teachers and founders like Jesus, Laozi, and Confucius.[181]

The Christian Saint Josaphat is based on the Buddha. The name comes from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva via Arabic Būdhasaf and Georgian Iodasaph.[182] The only story in which St. Josaphat appears, Barlaam and Josaphat, is based on the life of the Buddha.[183] Josaphat was included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology (feast day 27 November)—though not in the Roman Missal—and in the Eastern Orthodox Church liturgical calendar (26 August).



