Buddha (c. 563–483 BC)

The Phra Singh Buddha at Chiang Mai, northwest Thailand. The image and temple where it is housed were built in the late 15th century and typical of classic northern-Thai style.

Ruins of a stupa, a shrine to the Buddha and his disciples, at the important archaeological site of Taxila. Stupas were domed temples that originated in India, and were often built to house a religious relic. Taxila is strategically situated on a branch of the Silk Road, which linked China to the West. The remains of three cities have been found here, built in successive ages.

Religious leader, founder of Buddhism, born at Lumbini in Nepal, and raised in his father's palace at Kapilavastu. At the age of 29 he left his wife and son and a life of luxury, to resolve the problems of existence. After six years of austerity he realized that asceticism, like overindulgence, was futile, and chose the Middle Way of meditation. He became enlightened under a bo, or bodhi, tree near Bodhgaya in Bihar, India. He began teaching at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, and founded the Sangha, or order of monks. He spent the rest of his life travelling around northern India, and died at Kusinagara. He is not a god.

The Buddha's teaching is summarized as the Four Noble Truths: the fact of frustration or suffering; that suffering has a cause; that it can be ended; and that it can be ended by following the Noble Eightfold Path – right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration – eventually arriving at nirvana, the extinction of all craving for things of the senses and release from the cycle of rebirth.

Birth There are many versions of the Buddha's life, the later stories emphasizing mythological themes. For centuries, pilgrims searched the Himalayan foothills for the Buddha's birthplace. The dispute concerning its location ended in 1996 when archaeologists discovered a stone that marked the Buddha's birthplace under an ancient temple in Lumbini, 320 km/200 mi southwest of Kathmandu, Nepal's capital. It is widely accepted that his actual birth date was 563 BC.

The Buddha's father was the ruler of the Shakya clan in northeast India; the family name was Gautama. The capital of his domain was at Kapilavastu. As the son of the chief of the Shakya clan, the Buddha is sometimes known as Shakyamuni (‘wise one of the Shakya tribe’). It is said that when his mother was pregnant, she dreamed that a white elephant entered her right side – an elephant is a symbol of good fortune. Legend tells that his mother stopped to walk through the gardens of nearby Lumbini on her way to visit her parents, and the baby was born from her side. Several days later, his mother died, and he was brought up by relatives at his father's palace at Kapilavastu. A visiting sage, Asita, saw the infant and predicted that he would become either a religious man or a great ruler.

Palace life The child, Siddartha, lived in great luxury. As a prince, he was trained in the arts of fighting. His father wanted Siddartha to succeed him as ruler of the kingdom, so the prince was sheltered from seeing all suffering. The king believed that seeing the truth about life might encourage Siddartha to turn to religious thought. Some versions of his life say that Siddartha was married with a young son of his own when, at the age of about 29, he left the palace one day with his charioteer and saw an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a holy man. He asked his charioteer about them, and learned the reality of suffering in the world. Siddartha was deeply disturbed, and decided to leave the palace and search for an answer to the unhappiness he had witnessed.

Enlightenment Siddartha began his quest by joining five holy men who practised asceticism – they ignored their hunger and thirst and sat in meditation. Siddartha practised this path of denial until he was emaciated, but he did not find an answer to the end of suffering. When he began to eat again, the five holy men thought he had given up his search, and left him. He then studied under two different meditation teachers, but found no answer. Finally, he sat under a tree at dusk and determined to stay there, meditating in the way he had done as a boy, until he found the answer. At dawn he reached enlightenment, and became the Buddha, the ‘enlightened one’. The Buddha is also sometimes called Tathagata, meaning ‘thus gone’. In some versions of the story, he touched the earth at the moment of his enlightenment so that it might bear witness to him. The tree became known as the bodhi tree, meaning ‘wisdom’ or ‘enlightenment’.

The Sangha The Buddha went to Varanasi to spread the dharma, which includes an explanation of universal law (the Four Noble Truths) and the Eightfold Path, a way to step beyond ignorance, desire, and suffering. The Buddha called this path the Middle Way because it lay between asceticism and sensual pleasure. He was rejoined by the five holy men who had left him, and together they formed the Sangha. The Buddha continued to travel, teach, and inspire people to join the Sangha for the next 40 years.

Death At the age of 80 the Buddha foretold his own death, telling his attendant, Ananda, that he would die in three months. Three months later, on the way to Kusinagara (Kusinara), he chose to eat different food from his companions and died of food poisoning. Theravāda Buddhists believe that he was born, reached enlightenment, and died on the same day in different years, and celebrate these events in the festival of Wesak (April/May).

Following the Buddha's cremation, his remains were divided into eight and given to different clans, who preserved them and built stupas (domed memorials) over them. The sites became centres of pilgrimage, where people would visit to show reverence.