History of Buddhism - Siddhartha Gautama

Siddhartha Gautama

Siddhārtha Gautama was the historical founder of Buddhism. He was born a Kshatriya warrior prince in what is now Lumbini, Nepal, in 623 BCE. His particular family of Sakya Kshatriyas were of Brahmin lineage (Sanskrit: gotra), as indicated by the family name "Gautama". 19th-century scholars, such as Dr. Eitel, connected it to the Brahmin Rishi Gautama. In many Buddhist texts, Buddha is said to be a descendant of the Brahmin Sage Angirasa. For example, "In the Pāli Mahavagga "Angirasa" (in Pāli Angirasa) occurs as a name of Buddha Gautama who evidently belonged to the Angirasa tribe...". Scholar Edward J. Thomas too connected Buddha with sages Gautama and Angirasa.

After asceticism and meditation, Siddhartha Gautama discovered the Buddhist Middle Way—a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.

Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment sitting under a peepal tree, now known as the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India. Gautama, from then on, was known as "The Enlightened One ," the Samyaksambuddha.

Buddha found patronage in the ruler of Magadha, emperor Bimbisāra. The emperor accepted Buddhism as his personal faith and allowed the establishment of many Buddhist vihāras. This eventually led to the renaming of the entire region as Bihār.

At the Deer Park near Vārāṇasī in northern India, Buddha set in motion Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to a group of five companions with whom he had previously sought enlightenment. Together with the Buddha they formed the first Saṅgha, the company of Buddhist monks, and hence, the first formation of the Triple Gem (Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha) was completed.

For the remaining years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain of Northeastern India and other regions.

Buddha attained parinirvāṇa in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra.

Just before Buddha died, he reportedly told his followers that thereafter the Dharma (doctrine, teaching) would be their leader. The early arhants considered Gautama's words the primary source of Dharma and Vinaya (rules of discipline and community living), and took great pains to formulate and transmit his teachings accurately. Nonetheless, no ungarnished collection of his sayings has survived. The versions of the canon (accepted scripture) preserved in Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan are sectarian variants of a corpus that grew and crystallized during three centuries of oral transmission.