Kinlore
c. 5th century BCE (traditional dates vary; many scholars favour c. 480–400 BCE)

The life and awakening of the Buddha

A prince of the Shakya clan leaves home to seek an end to suffering, awakens under a tree at Bodh Gaya, and spends the rest of his life teaching the path he found.

Traditional account faithscriptureidentity

The story Buddhists tell begins at Lumbini, in today’s Nepal, where Queen Maya gave birth to a son in a grove of trees while travelling to her parents’ home. He was named Siddhartha, of the Gautama family, and his father Shuddhodana was a leader of the Shakya people, whose capital was Kapilavastu. A seer predicted that the boy would become either a world-ruling king or a Buddha, and his father, wanting a king, surrounded him with pleasure and kept all sorrow out of sight.

The four sights and the going forth

The young prince married Yasodhara and had a son, Rahula. But on trips outside the palace, the tradition says, he saw four things for the first time: an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a calm wandering ascetic. Shaken by the realisation that age, sickness and death come to everyone, he left home at about twenty-nine, cut off his hair and became a wandering seeker. Buddhists call this the Great Going Forth.

  • The Buddha: A Beginner's Guide — John S. Strong, Oneworld (2009)
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)

He studied with meditation teachers and then, for about six years, practised extreme austerities with five companions, fasting until he was skin and bone. Finding that self-torment led nowhere, he accepted a bowl of rice-milk from a young woman named Sujata, and his companions left him in disgust. This turn away from both luxury and self-mortification became the “Middle Way”.

  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)
  • The Buddha: A Beginner's Guide — John S. Strong, Oneworld (2009)

Awakening

Seated under a fig tree at what is now Bodh Gaya, he resolved not to rise until he understood. Through the night, the tradition says, he resisted the assaults and temptations of Mara, the tempter, touched the earth to call it as witness, recalled his past lives, saw how beings are reborn according to their karma, and finally understood suffering, its cause, its end and the path. At about thirty-five he became the Buddha, the “Awakened One”. The tree, the Bodhi tree, and the gesture of touching the earth are among the most familiar images in Buddhist art.

  • The Buddha: A Beginner's Guide — John S. Strong, Oneworld (2009)
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)
  • Buddha (founder of Buddhism) — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Teaching

He went to the Deer Park at Sarnath, near Varanasi, and taught his five former companions the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, “setting the wheel of the Dhamma in motion”. One of them understood, and the Sangha, the community of disciples, was born.

For some forty-five years he walked the kingdoms of Magadha and Kosala, teaching kings, merchants, Brahmins, outcastes and courtesans, and founding orders of monks and, at his aunt and foster-mother Mahapajapati’s request, nuns.
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)
  • An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (2nd ed.) — Peter Harvey, Cambridge University Press (2013)

At about eighty, after a meal that made him ill, he lay down between two trees at Kushinagar. His last words, in the traditional account, were that all conditioned things are subject to decay and his followers should strive on with diligence. He entered final nirvana, and his cremated relics were divided among the peoples of the region and enshrined in mounds, the first stupas.

  • The Buddha: A Beginner's Guide — John S. Strong, Oneworld (2009)
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)

History and tradition

Historians cannot check most of these details. The texts that tell them were passed down orally and written down centuries later, and the full life story took shape gradually. Even his dates are disputed: Theravada tradition places his death in 544 BCE, older Western scholarship around 483 BCE, and many scholars today around 400 BCE.

  • The Dating of the Historical Buddha: A Review Article — L. S. Cousins, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1996)
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)
For Buddhists, though, the life is above all a teaching: that a human being can face old age, sickness and death and find freedom.

How it's seen
Traditional Buddhist account

The Bodhisatta, after countless lives perfecting generosity, patience and wisdom, was born for the last time as Siddhartha. Wonders marked his birth, and his awakening and teaching followed the pattern of earlier Buddhas. Theravada tradition dates his death to 544 BCE, the start of the Buddhist Era still used in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

  • The Buddha: A Beginner's Guide — John S. Strong, Oneworld (2009)
  • Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo — Richard Gombrich, Routledge (1988)

Historians

Almost all scholars accept that the Buddha was a real teacher in the middle Ganges region. The earliest texts were written down centuries after his death, so the details of his life are hard to separate from legend. Older Western dating put his death around 483 BCE; many scholars now prefer a later date, around 400 BCE, though there is no consensus.

  • The Dating of the Historical Buddha: A Review Article — L. S. Cousins, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1996)
  • The Foundations of Buddhism — Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press (1998)
  • Buddha (founder of Buddhism) — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Why it matters today

Buddhism

Every Buddhist practice points back to this story. Pilgrims still travel to Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar, Vesak celebrates his birth, awakening and death, and the image of the seated Buddha, calm and alert, is for Buddhists a reminder that awakening is possible for a human being.