Gautama Buddha

Gautama Buddha, popularly known as the Buddha (also known as Siddhattha Gotama or Siddhārtha Gautama[note 3] or Shakyamuni), was an ascetic, a religious leader and teacher who lived in ancient India (c. 6th to 5th century BCE or c. 5th to 4th century BCE).[6][7][8][note 4] He is regarded as the founder of the world religion of Buddhism, and revered by Buddhists as an enlightened being,[9] who rediscovered an ancient path to freedom from ignorance, craving and the cycle of rebirth and suffering. He taught for around 45 years and built a large following, both monastic and lay.[10] His teaching is based on his insight into the arising of suffering or dissatisfaction and its ending—the state called Nirvana (lit. vanishing or extinguishing).

Names and titles

Besides "Buddha" and the name Siddhārtha Gautama (Pali: Siddhattha Gotama), he was also known by other names and titles, such as Shakyamuni ("Sage of the Shakyas").[19][note 5] The clan name of Gautama means "descendant of Gotama", and comes from the fact that Kshatriya clans adopted the names of their house priests.[20][21]

In the early texts, the Buddha also often refers to himself as Tathāgata (Sanskrit: [tɐˈtʰaːɡɐtɐ]). The term is often thought to mean either "one who has thus gone" (tathā-gata) or "one who has thus come" (tathā-āgata), possibly referring to the transcendental nature of the Buddha's spiritual attainment.[22]

Earliest sources

Main article: Early Buddhist Texts

The words "Bu-dhe" (𑀩𑀼𑀥𑁂, the Buddha) and "Sa-kya-mu-nī " (𑀲𑀓𑁆𑀬𑀫𑀼𑀦𑀻, "Sage of the Shakyas") in Brahmi script, on Ashoka's Lumbini pillar inscription (c. 250 BCE)

No written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or from the one or two centuries thereafter. But from the middle of the 3rd century BCE, several Edicts of Ashoka (reigned c. 269–232 BCE) mention the Buddha, and particularly Ashoka's Lumbini pillar inscription commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to Lumbini as the Buddha's birthplace, calling him the Buddha Shakyamuni (Brahmi script: 𑀩𑀼𑀥 𑀲𑀓𑁆𑀬𑀫𑀼𑀦𑀻 Bu-dha Sa-kya-mu-nī, "Buddha, Sage of the Shakyas").[82] Another one of his edicts (Minor Rock Edict No. 3) mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts (in Buddhism, "dhamma" is another word for "dharma"),[83] establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon.

Nature of traditional depictions

Māyā miraculously giving birth to Siddhārtha. Sanskrit, palm-leaf manuscript. Nālandā, Bihar, India. Pāla period

In the earliest Buddhist texts, the nikāyas and āgamas, the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience (sabbaññu)[102] 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.[102] In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing [103] 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).[104] 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.

Previous lives

The legendary Jataka collections depict the Buddha-to-be in a previous life prostrating before the past Buddha Dipankara, making a resolve to be a Buddha, and receiving a prediction of future Buddhahood.

Legendary biographies like the Pali Buddhavaṃsa and the Sanskrit Jātakamālā depict the Buddha's (referred to as "bodhisattva" before his awakening) career as spanning hundreds of lifetimes before his last birth as Gautama. Many stories of these previous lives are depicted in the Jatakas.[111] The format of a Jataka typically begins by telling a story in the present which is then explained by a story of someone's previous life.[112]

Besides imbuing the pre-Buddhist past with a deep karmic history, the Jatakas also serve to explain the bodhisattva's (the Buddha-to-be) path to Buddhahood.[113] In biographies like the Buddhavaṃsa, this path is described as long and arduous, taking "four incalculable ages" (asamkheyyas).

Birth and early life

Map showing Lumbini and other major Buddhist sites in India. Lumbini (present-day Nepal), is the birthplace of the Buddha,[52][note 1] and is a holy place also for many non-Buddhists.[119]

The Lumbini pillar contains an inscription stating that this is the Buddha's birthplace

The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal, and Kapilavastu, as the Buddha's birthplace and childhood home, respectively.[120][note 1] The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown.[121] It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, in present-day India,[62] or Tilaurakot, in present-day Nepal.[66] Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 24 kilometres (15 mi) apart.[66]

According to later biographies such as the Mahavastu and the Lalitavistara, 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,[122][123] and ten months later[124] 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.