गौतम; Pali:सिद्धाथ गोतम Siddhattha Gotama)
was a spiritual teacher who founded Buddhism. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha (P. sammāsambuddha, S. samyaksaṃbuddha ) of our age, "Buddha" meaning "awakened one" or "the enlightened one."uncertain: most early 20th-century historians dated his lifetime as c.
563 BCE to 483 BCE; more recently, however, at a specialist symposium on
this question, the majority of those scholars who presented definite
opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the
Buddha's death, with others supporting earlier or later dates.
Gautama,
also known as Śākyamuni or Shakyamuni ("sage of the Shakyas"), is the
key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and
monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after
his death and memorized by his followers.
attributed to Gautama were passed down by oral tradition, and first
committed to writing about 400 years later.
He is also a minor
figure in other religions: in some Hindu texts, he is described as an
avatar of Vishnu who attempted to delude beings away from the Vedic
religion and he is regarded as a prophet in the Bahá'í faith.
Life
The primary sources of information regarding Siddhārtha Gautama's life are
the Buddhist texts. According to these, the Buddha and his monks spent
four months each year discussing and rehearsing his teachings, and after
his death his monks set about preserving them. A council was held
shortly after his death, and another was held a century later. At these
councils the monks attempted to establish and authenticate the extant
accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha following systematic
rules. They divided the teachings into distinct but overlapping bodies
of material, and assigned specific monks to preserve each one. In some
cases, essential aspects of teachings attributed to the Buddha were
incorporated into stories and chants in an effort to preserve them
accurately.
From then on, the teachings were transmitted orally.
From internal evidence it seems clear that the oldest texts crystallized
into their current form by the time of the second council or shortly
after it. The scriptures were not written down until three or four
hundred years after the Buddha's death. By this point, the monks had
added or altered some material themselves, in particular magnifying the
figure of the Buddha.
The ancient Indians were generally not
concerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. The
Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of
what Shakyamuni may have taught than of the dates of the events in his
life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of
ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and
make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which
significant accounts exist. According to Michael Carrithers, there are
good reasons to doubt the traditional account, though, according to
Carrithers, the outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search,
awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.
Conception and birth
in the small kingdom or principality of Kapilvastu, both of which are
in modern day Nepal. At the time of the Buddha's birth, the area was at
or beyond the boundary of Vedic civilization, the dominant culture of
northern India at the time; it is even possible that his mother tongue
was not an Indo-Aryan language. The early texts suggest that Gautama was
not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he
left on his religious search, which was motivated by an existential
concern with the human condition. At the time, a multitude of small
city-states existed in Ancient India, called Janapadas. Republics and
chiefdoms with diffused political power and limited social
stratification, were not uncommon amongst them, and were referred to as
gana-sanghas. The Buddha's community does not seem to have had a caste
system. It was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either
as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic. The more egalitarian
gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the
strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of
the Shramana type Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended
toward Vedic Brahmanism.
According to the traditional biography,
the Buddha's father was King Suddhodana, the leader of Shakya clan,
whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing
Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime; Gautama was the family
name. His mother, Queen Maha Maya (Māyādevī) and Suddhodana's wife, was a
Koliyan princess. On the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya
dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right
side, and ten months later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya
tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left
Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, she gave
birth on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The
day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries
as Vesak. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his
birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name
Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhatta), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During
the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his
mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great
king (chakravartin) or a great holy man. This occurred after Siddhartha
placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks.
Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight
brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the
baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. Kaundinya
(Pali: Kondanna), the youngest, and later to be the first arahant other
than the Buddha, was the only one who unequivocally predicted that
Siddhartha would become a Buddha.
While later tradition and
legend characterized Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant
of the Solar Dynasty of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars believe
that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.
Early
life and marriage
Siddhartha, said to have been destined to a
luxurious life as a prince, had three palaces (for seasonal occupation)
especially built for him. His father, King Śuddhodana, wishing for
Siddhartha to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings
or knowledge of human suffering. Siddhartha was brought up by his
mother's younger sister, Maha Pajapati.
As the boy reached the
age of 16, his father arranged his marriage to Yaśodharā (Pāli:
Yasodharā), a cousin of the same age. According to the traditional
account, in time, she gave birth to a son, Rahula. Siddhartha spent 29
years as a Prince in Kapilavastu. Although his father ensured that
Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need,
Siddhartha felt that material wealth was not the ultimate goal of life.
Departure and Ascetic Life Gautama Buddha
At the age of 29, Siddhartha left his
palace in order to meet his subjects. Despite his father's effort to
remove the sick, aged and suffering from the public view, Siddhartha was
said to have seen an old man. Disturbed by this, when told that all
people would eventually grow old by his charioteer Channa, the prince
went on further trips where he encountered, variously, a diseased man, a
decaying corpse, and an ascetic. Deeply depressed by these sights, he
sought to overcome old age, illness, and death by living the life of an
ascetic.
Siddhartha escaped his palace, accompanied by Channa
aboard his horse Kanthaka, leaving behind this royal life to become a
mendicant. It is said that, "the horse's hooves were muffled by the
gods" to prevent guards from knowing of the Bodhisatta's departure. This
event is traditionally called "The Great Departure". Siddhartha
initially went to Rajagaha and began his ascetic life by begging for
alms in the street. Having been recognised by the men of King Bimbisara,
Bimbisara offered him the throne after hearing of Siddhartha's quest.
Siddhartha rejected the offer, but promised to visit his kingdom of
Magadha first, upon attaining enlightenment.
Siddhartha left Rajagaha and practised
under two hermit teachers. After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama
(Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), Siddhartha was asked by Kalama to succeed him, but
moved on after being unsatisfied with his practices. He then became a
student of Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra), but although he
achieved high levels of meditative consciousness and was asked to
succeed Ramaputta, he was still not satisfied with his path, and moved
on.
Gandhara Buddha. 1st–2nd century CE, Tokyo National Museum.
Siddhartha
and a group of five companions led by Kaundinya then set out to take
their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenment through
near total deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising
self-mortification. After nearly starving himself to death by
restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he
collapsed in a river while bathing and almost drowned. Siddhartha began
to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in
which he had been watching his father start the season's plowing. He
attained a concentrated and focused state that was blissful and
refreshing, the jhāna.
Enlightenment
asceticism and concentrating on meditation and Anapana-sati (awareness
of breathing in and out), Siddhartha is said to have discovered what
Buddhists call the Middle Way—a path of moderation away from the
extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification. He accepted a little
milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata, who wrongly
believed him to be the spirit that had granted her a wish, such was his
emaciated appearance. Then, sitting under a pipal tree, now known as the
Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India, he vowed never to arise until he had
found the Truth. Kaundinya and the other four companions, believing that
he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, left. After 49
days meditating, at the age of 35, he attained Enlightenment; according
to some traditions, this occurred approximately in the fifth lunar
month, and according to others in the twelfth. Gautama, from then on,
was known as the Buddha or "Awakened One." Buddha is also sometimes
translated as "The Enlightened One." Often, he is referred to in
Buddhism as Shakyamuni Buddha or "The Awakened One of the Shakya Clan."
At
this point, he is believed to have realized complete awakening and
insight into the nature and cause of human suffering which was
ignorance, along with steps necessary to eliminate it. This was then
categorized into 'Four Noble Truths'; the state of supreme
liberation—possible for any being—was called Nirvana. He then allegedly
came to possess the Ten Characteristics, which are said to belong to
every Buddha.
According to one of the stories in the Āyācana
Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1), a scripture found in the Pāli and other
canons, immediately after his Enlightenment, the Buddha was wondering
whether or not he should teach the Dharma to human beings. He was
concerned that, as human beings were overpowered by greed, hatred and
delusion, they would not be able to see the true dharma, which was
subtle, deep and hard to understand. However, Brahmā Sahampati
interceded and asked that he teach the dharma to the world, as "there
will be those who will understand the Dharma". With his great compassion
to all beings in the universe, the Buddha agreed to become a teacher.
Formation of the sangha
whom the Buddha met, named Tapussa and Bhallika became the first lay
disciples. They are given some hairs from the Buddha's head, which are
believed to now be enshrined in the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon, Burma.
The Buddha intended to visit Asita, and his former teachers, Alara
Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta to explain his findings, but they had
already died.
The Buddha thus journeyed to Deer Park near
Vārāṇasī (Benares) in northern India, he set in motion the Wheel of
Dharma by delivering his first sermon to the group of five companions
with whom he had previously sought enlightenment. They, together with
the Buddha, formed the first saṅgha, the company of Buddhist monks, and
hence, the first formation of Triple Gem (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha) was
completed, with Kaundinya becoming the first stream-enterer. All five
soon become arahants, and with the conversion of Yasa and fifty four of
his friends, the number of arahants swelled to 60 within the first two
months. The conversion of the three Kassapa brothers and their 200, 300
and 500 disciples swelled the sangha over 1000, and they were dispatched
to explain the dharma to the populace.
It is unknown what the
Buddha's mother tongue was, and no conclusive documentation has been
made at this point. It is likely that he preached and his teachings were
originally preserved in a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan
dialects, of which Pali may be a standardization.