Buddha Gautama – Prince Siddhartha

Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, apparently lived in India from 563 BC to 483 BC.

In fact, the Buddhist tradition that celebrated her birthday on April 8 initially placed her birth in the 11th century BC, but it was only in the modern era that researchers determined that she was born in the sixth century BC, probably in May, not April.

Gautama Buddha was born Prince Siddharta,son of the king of the Sakya people

according to Triptaka, recognized by the researchers as the first existing record of Buddha’s life and speeches.
The Kingdom of Sakya was located on the present-day border between Nepal and India. Siddharta’s family was the Gautama clan. His mother, Queen Mahamaya, gave birth to him in Lumbini Park, now in southern Nepal. The pillar erected there by an Indian emperor in the 3rd century BC to commemorate the event still exists today.

At his birth, it was predicted that the prince would become either a great monarch of the world or a Buddha, the enlightened supreme teacher

The Brahmans told his father, King Suddhodana, that Siddhartha would become a great ruler if he were kept isolated from the world.

The king made great efforts to protect his son from unhappiness and anything else that could lead him to a religious life

Siddartha was raised in luxury, married and had a son.

At the age of 29, he decided to see the world and began to take carriage trips outside the palace. In his travels, he saw an old man, a sick man and a corpse. Because he had been protected from the realities of life, such as aging, illness and death, the driver of the carriage had to explain these concepts to him.

Finally, Siddharta saw a saddhu, meaning a give-up or ascet, and impressed by his way of being, decided to go out into the world to discover why a man can be so at peace with himself in the midst of such suffering.

Siddhartha left the palace in secret and became an ascet

He travelled south, where the center of knowledge was located, and studied meditation, with Aara Kalama and Udraka Ramaputra as teachers.

Soon he became a master in their systems, reaching high stages of mystic achievement, but was not satisfied and went again in search of nirvana, the highest level of enlightenment.

For nearly six years, he fasted and experienced other austerities, but these techniques proved ineffective and abandoned them.

After regaining his powers, he sat under a tree currently in Bodh Gaya in western India and promised not to die before obtaining the ultimate enlightenment.

After fighting Mara, a demonic spirit that tempted him with worldly voluptuousness and desires, Siddharta reached enlightenment, becoming Buddha at the age of 35.

Gautama Buddha then travelled to the deer park near Benares, India, where he held his first ceremony and outlined the basic ideas of Buddhism.

According to Buddhism, there are four noble truths:

1. existence means (generates) suffering;
2. this suffering is caused by human desires (attachment to what is fleeting or limited);
3. there is a cessation of these sufferings, represented by nirvana – enlightenment (the transition from finite to infinite);
4. Nirvana can be achieved, in this life or in the future, by the path of the eight aspects

• Visions
• Decisions
• Speech
• Actions
• way of life,
• tests,
• ideas and
• Concentration
  TRUE.

For the rest of his life, Buddha taught and gathered disciples in his sangha, that is, in his saddhu-and-si community or spiritual seekers

He died at the age of 80, telling his students to continue working on their spiritual liberation– following their teachings.
Buddhism later spread from India to Central and East Asia, China, Korea, Japan, and in the 20th century to the west.

Today, it is estimated that 350 million people in 100 countries have adhered to Buddhist beliefs and practices.