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Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who would become known as the Buddha, was born around the year 563 B.C. His birthplace was the town of Kapilavastu in what is now Nepal. Siddhartha was the son of Shuddhodana, the chief (sometimes called a rajah, or king) of the Sakyas. Hence the title Sakyamuni, or "Sage of the Sakyas," by which Siddhartha was later known.
There is no doubt that Siddhartha really existed. About 250 years after his death, an Indian emperor set up inscribed stone pillars at the important sites of Siddhartha's life and teachings. These are regarded as reliable historical records.
Moreover, the details of the Buddha's life, as retold here, come from an oral tradition begun by those who actually knew and saw him. These accounts were not written down down until around 500 years after his death. They contain many miraculous stories and psychic phenomena, which Buddhists accept as historical truth. Psychic Investigators may regard them in the same way as Christ's miracles and resurrection, Mosses' reception of the commandments from God, or the archangel Gabriel's revelations to the prophet Muhammad.
The prediction of the learned men had disturbed Siddhartha's father, King Shuddhodana. From the time of his son's birth, Shuddhodana encouraged his son to follow the path of kingship. Shuddhodana surrounded his son with pleasures and granted his every wish. Never did Siddhartha see or learn about any kind of suffering or hardship. When he left the palace,
the king's guards went ahead of his chariot, clearing the streets of anything unpleasant or disturbing.
A Brahmin priest instructed Siddhartha in the ways of government, preparing him to govern wisely. Siddhartha also learned the arts of war - how to fight with a sword and shoot an arrow from his bow. The young man was strong and healthy, and his physical beauty and lively spirit attracted many friends. All of his companions were children of the officials of the court.
When Siddhartha was about twenty, he married Yasodhara, the daughter of one of the king's ministers. Their wedding feast lasted for many days, and gifts were distributed to the people of the kingdom to mark the occasion. Within a year, Yasodhara bore Siddhartha's son, named Rahula, which means "fetter" or "impediment."
King Shuddodana was pleased, for he had provided everything his son would need for happiness in his life and success as a great king. Some years passed, during which time Siddhartha lived in the palace with his wife and son, enjoying all the pleasures of a king.
Then, when he was twenty-nine years old, Siddhartha asked his charioteer, Channa, to take him for a ride without the consent of the king. As the prince rode through the city, he saw three things that he had never seen before. One was an old man, one was a man suffering from illness, and the third was a corpse surrounded by mourners.
Siddhartha asked Channa to explain the meaning of these strange sights, Channa responded that old age, sickness, and death were natural and unavoidable things that came to all people. They were to be endured.
Shocked, Siddhartha returned to the palace and thought about what he had seen. For the first time, he confronted the reality of life: "Everything is transient, nothing is permanent in this world...Knowing that, I can find delight in nothing...How can a man, who knows that death is quite inevitable, still feel greed in his heart, enjoy the world of senses and not weep in his great danger?"
Once more, Siddhartha asked Channa to take him into the city. This time, saw the last of the "Four Sights" that changed his life. This was a wandering holy man, an ascetic, with no possessions. The man had shaved his head, wore only a ragged yellow robe, and carried a walking-staff. Siddhartha stopped his chariot and questioned the man. The ascetic told the prince, "I am...terrified by
birth and death and therefore have adopted a homeless life to win salvation...I search for the most blessed state in which suffering, old age, and death are unknown."
That very night, Siddhartha resolved to renounce the life of pleasure in the palace. He silently kissed his sleeping wife and young son and ordered Channa to drive him out of the city. Legend claims that celestial beings held up the hooves of the horses so that their clatter would not wake the guards. At the edge of a forest, Siddhartha took off his jeweled sword, cut off his hair and beard,
and discarded his princely garments. He put on the yellow robe of a holy man,
and told Channa to take his possessions back to his father.
Siddhartha wandered through northeastern India, seeking out holy men, who taught him ancient Indian techniques of meditation. But his main quest was to find the answer to the problem of suffering. He wanted to know why people suffered, and how this suffering could end.
Siddhartha studied the teachings of Hinduuism, the ancient religion of India He was most influenced by the concept of Samsara. Samsara is a belief that after death a person's innermost essence, or soul, transmigrates into a new body--it is born again. Another name for this process is reincarnation.
When a soul is reborn, it may enter a body in a higher or lower state of existence than its previous one. The new body may be that of a king, a beggar, or even an animal or insect. The determining factor of a soul's new existence is the quality of life lead by the individual soul in its previous existence.
This is called the law of Karma. Simply put, Karma consists of the individual's thoughts, words, and deeds in his or her previous existence. If the Karma has been good, the soul will be reborn in a higher form. Conversely, if the Karma has been bad, the soul is punished (pays a "Karmic price") by being
reborn in a lower form. Human suffering, therefore, was the result of some bad Karma that a person had accumulated in a previous lifetime.
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According to the Buddhist tradition, Siddhartha's mother, Queen Maya, was a woman 'of perfect form and bee-black tresses, fearless in heart and full of grace and virtue." One day, a feeling of great peace and joy came over her. That night, while she slept, she had a wonderful dream: An elephant with six tusks, carrying a lotus flower in its trunk, touched her right side. At that moment, her son was miraculously conceived.
When the queen told her husband of the dream, he called Brahmins, or learned men, to interpret it. They predicted that the child would be either the greatest king in the world or the greatest ascetic, a holy man, who practices self-denial. His name would be Siddhartha, which means 'he whose aim is accomplished.'
Accompanied by dancing women and guards, Queen Maya went to her father's home to prepare for birth. As she stepped from her chariot in the Lumbini Gardens, she stopped to rest, taking hold of a branch of a sal tree.
Legend tells us that at that moment, Buddha emerged from her right side. Without any help, the infant walked seven steps in each of the four directions of the compass. In his footprints, lotus flowers sprouted from the earth. The miraculous infant announced, "No further births have I to endure, for this is my last body. Now shall I destroy, and pluck out by the roots,
the sorrow that is caused by birth and death."
Seven days after the wondrous birth, Queen Maya died. Hence Mahaprajapati, Maya's sister, looked after Siddhartha.
