About Me
Also called the Tathagata [he who has come thus], Bhagavat [the Lord], and Sugata [well-gone]. He probably lived from 563 to 483 The story of his life is overlaid with legend, the earliest written accounts dating 200 years after his death (see Buddhist literature).Early Life
My given name was Siddhartha and my family name Gautama (or Gotama). I was born the son of a king of the Sakya clan of the Kshatriya, or warrior, caste (hence his later epithet Sakyamuni, "the sage of the Sakyas" ) in the Himalayan foothills in what is now S Nepal. It was predicted at my birth that I would become either a world ruler or a world teacher; therefore my father, King Suddhodana, who wished Siddhartha to succeed him as ruler, took great pains to shelter me from all misery and anything that might influence him toward the religious life.I spent my youth in great luxury, married, and fathered a son. The scriptures relate that at the age of 29, wishing to see more of the world, I left the palace grounds in my chariot. I saw on successive excursions an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a mendicant monk. From the first three of these sights I learned the inescapability of suffering and death, and in the serenity of the monk I saw his destiny. Forsaking my wife, Yashodhara, and my son, Rahula, I secretly left the palace and became a wandering ascetic.EnlightenmentI first studied yogic meditation under the teachers Alara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra, and after mastering their techniques, decided that these did not lead to the highest realization. I then undertook fasting and extreme austerities, but after six years gave these up fearing that they might cause my death before I attained illumination. Taking moderate food, I seated himself under a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya and swore not to stir until I had attained the supreme enlightenment. On the night of the full moon, after overcoming the attacks and temptations of Mara, "the evil one," I reached enlightenment, becoming a Buddha at the age of 35.Founding of BuddhismLeaving what was now the Bodhi Tree, or Tree of Enlightenment, I proceeded to the Deer Park at Sarnath, N of Benares (Varanasi), where I preached my first sermon to five ascetics who had been with him when he practiced austerities. They became my first disciples. The first sermon, known as "the setting into motion of the wheel of the dharma," contained the basic doctrines of the "four noble truths" and the "eightfold path."For the remainder of my life he traveled and taught in the Gangetic plain, instructing disciples and giving his teaching to all who came to him, regardless of caste or religion. I spent much of my time in monasteries donated to the sangha, or community of monks, by wealthy lay devotees. Tradition says that I died at the age of 80. I appointed no successor but on my deathbed told my disciples to maintain the sangha and achieve their own liberation by relying on his teaching. I was cremated and my relics divided among eight groups, who deposited them in shrines called stupas.
