The founder of Buddhism was a man named Siddhartha, who was a member of the Gautama Clan. The dates given for his life are 560-480 B.C.E.; however, the life of Gautama, as he has come to be known, is surrounded by legend and the exact dates of his life are subject to question.

Siddhartha probably lived during the sixth century B.C.E. and was a contemporary of Mahavira.

Gautama was the son of a Kshatriya raja called Suddhodana and his wife, Maya. The legends say that the birth of the child was surrounded by extraordinary events and portents. According to one story, a soothsayer predicted that the child would either become a great king, who would rule the entire world, or a great Buddha (Enlightened One). Gautama's mother died soon after his birth, and he was reared by his maternal aunt, who became his father's second wife.

When Gautama was born, it was predicted that he could become a great king, but that if he ever saw the sights of human misery or the tranquillity of a monk, he would grow up to be a religious teacher. Because his father did not wish this, he sought to protect him from the ugliness and distress of humanity. The raja specifically sought to keep the young prince from seeing four sights: a dead body, an aged person, a diseased person, and an ascetic monk. (Is this starting to sound like something you may have heard before as a child. I know I remember seeing a small cartoon, possibly of this story.) Thus, Gautama grew up surrounded by youth, beauty, and health. He received a normal education for a prince of that era. He studied the arts and warfare and received some training in the philosophy. When he was nineteen, he married his cousin and they shared a happy home. They had one child, Rahula.

As Gautama neared his thirtieth birthday, he gradually became aware of the ugliness of the real world. According to some of the legends, the gods, wishing to awaken the future Buddha from the wasteful life he was leading, conspired to break through the walls of youth and beauty that had been erected around him. One by one, he began to see the things his father had forbidden. He saw a wrinkled and bent elderly person, a man with a loathsome disease, a rotting corpse, and finally a peaceful monk, who had renounced the world in search of release from his suffering. Gautama, reaching his mature years, became aware that life always involves suffering and pain. It is said that he once entered his harem room where there were some of the most beautiful young women in the kingdom. There he received a vision that these women would soon become wrinkled, gray, and stooped. These revelations made it impossible for the sensitive young prince to continue to live in his palace surrounded by ease and plenty; one night, he decided to leave his home. He crept into his wife's bedroom and said farewll to her and their infant son. Then he took his best horse and rode off into the night. After riding a certain distance, he clipped off his hair and beard and sent his horse back. He changed his clothes with a beggar and began a period of searching for answers to life's miseries.

At first, Gautama thought the answers to the questions that troubled him were to be found in the various schools of philosophy. Therefore, he attached himself to a guru and studied with him for some time; but he received no satisfaction in his studies. A second avenue Gautama tried was asceticism. As a solution to the problems of life, asceticism was an acceptable pursuit in the sixth centry B.C.E., as can be seen from the life of Mahavira and his followers. Gautama joined five other monks and with them began a life of severe asceticism that lasted six years. The ascetic measures Gautama took were as severe as any recorded in the history of religion. According to legend, he became something of a champion ascetic. Gautama sought out anything that was unpleasant, painful, or disagreeable as a means by which he might find release. He is supposed to have practiced fasting until he reached the point of living on a single grain of rice per day.

Many Westerners tend to think of Buddha as a fat, jolly person because they have been influenced by Chinese statuary that depicts plump figures as "Buddhas." These images, however, are not attempts to depict the historical Buddha. At this time in his life, Gautama reportedly became so thin that when he grasped his stomach he touched his backbone. He wore irritating garments and sat in awkward and painful positions for hours. He sat on thorns and for a time slept in a graveyard among rotting corpses. In the tradition of many ascetics, Gautama allowed filth and vermin to accumulate on his body. But despite these heroic efforts at asceticism, he did not find the enlightenment he was seeking. (Think about this the next time you walk into a Chinese place, or even see a figure of Buddha all fat and jolly, it's not the real Buddha.)

Apparently, the turning poin in Gautama's quest came one day when he was walking near a stream. Because he had been terribly weakened by his ordeals, he fainted and fell into the stream. The cold water revived him; when he was able to contemplate his situation, he realized that although he had done everything that could be expected of an ascetic, he still had not found satisfaction. He therefore arose, walked to a nearby food stand, and ate a meal. Another tradition states that he received his first meal from a village woman named Sujata. His five friends happened to pass by; when they saw him eating and drinking and enjoying himself, they spurned him as a traitor. When Gautama had finished his meal, he went to the banks of a river and sat down under the shade of a fig tree and began to meditate. He decided to meditate until he received enlightenment. At last, after a period of meditation, Gautama was enlightened; from then on, he was known as the Buddha (Enlightened One). In his meditation, the Buddha had a vision of the endless cycle of birth and death that is the lot of humankind. It was revealed to him that people were bound to this cycle becase of tanha (desire, thirst, craving). It is desire that causes karma and thus fetters people. The Buddha had desired enlightenment and had sought it through asceticism and knowledge, but it had eluded him. When he had ceased to desire it, he found enlightenment.



    






Information on Buddha's life, was taken from the text book "Religions of the World Tenth Edition" by Lewis M Hopfe and Mark R. Woodward