Siddhartha Gautama

It was a kind of oligarchic republic that was situated on the border of modern day India and Nepal. According to Buddhist tradition, she dreamt that an auspicious white elephant entered her womb.

The Buddha emerged from his mother’s side, as she stood leaning against a tree, in a painless and pure birth.

He took seven steps and lotus flowers sprang up in his footsteps. A wise man predicted that this child would be either a great secular ruler or a great religious leader. He was named Siddhārtha (or Sarvārthasiddha), meaning ‘a man who achieves his goals’. His mother died shortly after his birth and he was brought up by his maternal aunt Mahāprajāpati.

She conceived in due course and gave birth to a boy, who was called Rāhula. Siddhārtha is understood to have been a well educated young man, trained in martial arts and to have enjoyed his privileged life in ancient Kapilavastu, the capital city.

So he conspired to protect his son from any religious aspirations by giving him a life of pleasure and privilege, and by preventing him from seeing the harsher sides of reality. His plan eventually failed. Siddhartha managed to explore his society and was profoundly disturbed by finding out about old age, sickness and death. He was also fascinated by the sight of religious people seeking answers to life’s big questions.

Siddhartha left home on his own, as tradition has it slipping away in the dead of night, leaving his family in despair. In a dramatic moment, deep in the wilderness, he abandoned his horse and cropped his hair. He became a religious wanderer, and sought out the company of others doing the same. He travelled south into the neighbouring kingdom of Magadha (modern Bihar) where he was spotted by the young king Bimbisāra as he begged on the streets in the capital city Rājagriha.

These people taught him meditation methods by which his mind could be calmed and enter more and more refined states of 'one-pointed' serenity, in which awareness of the outside world recedes. Although these experiences are powerful and satisfying in themselves, they do not last. Once his meditation was finished, he returned to being as before. Siddhārtha wanted a permanent solution and, despite being recognised as fully competent by his teachers, left them behind.

Another approach adopted in his day was asceticism – the testing of one’s physical body by arduous tasks. These included: exposure to the heat of the sun without protection; avoiding a single physical posture, such as lying or sitting down; holding one’s breath; or fasting by reducing food intake progressively until surviving on tiny amounts of food. The idea was that one could wear down the physical influence of one’s being and release the soul, an insubstantial essence in each individual.

He became highly proficient, but after some years of trying a variety of practices, Siddhārtha collapsed. He decided that all he was doing was risking death without any solution to the problems of suffering and death. He accepted a small meal of milk rice from a young woman called Sujātā, offered in thanks for having just given birth to a much desired son.

He sought a way to understand the human situation that would be liberating. He combined restraint with the withdrawal from the senses he had learnt in meditation. Remembering a moment of quiet illumination from his childhood, he entered a state of mind in which he could recall his past lives and understand what kept him and others tied to the cycle of rebirth. He attained ‘awakening’ or bodhi. This was the core experience by which he came to be called buddha, which means ‘awakened’.

He was not originally optimistic about this, but was persuaded that someone might understand. For want of anyone better to speak to, he walked to Sārnāth, not far from Varanasi, to find his former ascetic companions. He took some care to explain his insights to them. The teaching he gave is summarised in a text called the Dharma-cakra-pravartana Sutra – the discourse describing the first turning of the wheel of the teaching. The five ascetics became his first five disciples.

In his 80th year his life ended near a small town called Kuśinagara, in Malla (Uttar Pradesh). Falling ill, possibly from food poisoning, he checked with his monastic followers whether they had any questions to ask before he died. They had none. He encouraged them with his final words: “Things that arise from causes will also decay. Press on with due care.” Amidst an unseasonal fall of forest flowers, he lay on his right side, entered a profound meditative state and passed away.

The Buddha had left instructions for his disposal. His body was to be wrapped in linen and cotton, encased in an iron vessel and burnt on a pyre. The surviving pieces of burnt bone were divided between representatives from eight states. The bowl itself was given to Droṇa, who had divided the relics, and a group of latecomers were given the ashes from the pyre. Each group built a funerary monument over their relic, and these became the 10 places where the Buddha could be worshipped.