Gautama Buddha

Category: Buddha

From Buddhist Encyclopedia

• Chinese : 释迦牟尼佛 shìjiāmóunifó
• Indonesian : Buddha Gautama
• Pali :  siddhattha gotama
• Sanskrit :  siddhartha gautama
• Vietnamese :  Thích-ca Mâu-ni

Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BCE) is the historical founder of Buddhism, universally recognised as the Supreme Buddha of our age. After a quest for the ultimate truth beyond life and death, he underwent a transformative spiritual change that led him to claim the title of Buddha. Since Siddhartha belong to the Sakya clan, he also came to be known as Sakyamuni (Sage of the Sakyas).

Conception and birth

Siddhartha was born more than 200 years before the reign of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka. His mother dreamt one night that a white elephant with six tusks and a head the colour of rubies came down from the highest heaven and entered her womb on the right side. Eight Brahmins told her husband the child would be holy and achieve perfect wisdom. Later she entered the garden of Lumbini with her attendants, and walked beneath the Sal tree, which bent down. The queen took hold of the branch and looked up to the heavens. At that moment Siddhārtha was born out of her side. He immediately took seven steps towards each quarter of heaven, and at each step a lotus flower sprung up. He then declared he would have no more births, that this was his last body and he would pluck out by the roots sorrow caused by birth and death.

Siddhartha was born in Lumbini, Nepal, under the full moon of the sixth lunar month, in the spring. His father was King Suddhodana, of the Kshatriya caste, the chief of the Sakya nation, one of several ancient tribes on the margins of the growing state of Kosala. His mother was Mayadevi.

The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Buddhist countries as Vesak. Gautama was born a prince, destined to a comfortable, even luxurious life by the standards of the day. All traditions agree that the Buddha's mother died at his birth or a few days later. During the birth celebrations, the seer Asita announced that this baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. His father, King Suddhodana, wishing for Gautama to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings and knowledge of human suffering.

Tradition characterized Suddhodana as a descendant of the great King Ikshvaku of Solar Dynasty.

Marriage

When the young Prince Siddhartha was still a baby, an ascetic named Kaladevala Asita went into the heaven of the Thirty-three gods and predicted that the young prince would become the Buddha. As the boy reached the age of 16, his father arranged his marriage to Yasodhara, a cousin of the same age. In time, she gave birth to a son, Rahula. Siddhartha spent 29 years of his life as a prince in Kapilavastu, a place now situated on the Indo-Nepal Border. His father, King Suddhodana ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need.

The Great Departure

While venturing outside of his palace, Gautama saw an old crippled man (old age), a diseased man (illness), a decaying corpse (death), and an ascetic. These four scenes are referred to as the four sights, or the four heavenly messengers (Pali: devaduta). Gautama was inspired by these sights - he sought to overcome old age, illness, and death by living the life of an ascetic. Gautama soon left his home, his possessions, and his entire family at age 29, to take up the lonely life of a wandering monk.

Abandoning his inheritance, he dedicated his life to learning how to overcome suffering. He meditated with two Brahmin hermits, and, although he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, he was still not satisfied with his path.

Gautama then chose the robes of a mendicant monk and headed to north-east India. He began his training in the ascetic life and practicing vigorous techniques of physical and mental austerity. Gautama proved quite adept at these practices, and was able to surpass even his teachers.

However, he found no answer to his questions. Leaving behind his caring teachers, he and a small group of close companions set out to take their austerities even further. Gautama attempted to find enlightenment through complete deprivation of worldly goods, including food, and became a complete ascetic. After nearly starving himself to death (some sources claim that he nearly drowned), Gautama 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, and he had fallen into a naturally concentrated and focused state which was blissful and refreshing.

After leaving

After discarding asceticism and concentrating on meditation, Gautama 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 buttermilk from a passing goatherder, Sumedha. Then, sitting under a pipal tree, now known as the Bodhi tree, he vowed never to arise until he had found the Truth. At the age of 35, he attained Enlightenment; according to some traditions, this occurred approximately in May, and according to others in December. Gautama, from then on, was known as "The Perfectly Self-Awakened One", the Samyaksambuddha. He stated that he had realized complete Awakening and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering, along with steps necessary to eliminate it. These truths were then categorized into the Four Noble Truths; the state of supreme liberation—possible for any being—was called Nirvana.

Immediately after his Enlightenment, the Gautama Buddha was wondering whether or not he should teach the Dharma. 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, a divine spirit, 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, the Buddha agreed to become a teacher.

At the Deer Park near Varanasi 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 Sangha (the community of Buddhist).

The Buddha emphasized that he was not a god, he was simply enlightened. He stated that there is no intermediary between mankind and the divine; distant gods are subjected to karma themselves in decaying heavens; and the Buddha is solely a guide and teacher for the sentient beings who must tread the path of nirvana themselves to attain the spiritual awakening called bodhi and see the ultimate truth and reality as it is.

For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha traveled in the Gangetic Plain of Northeastern India, teaching the Dharma to an extremely diverse range of people, from nobles to street sweepers. The Buddha made thousands of converts. His religion was open to all races and classes and had no caste structure.

The Great Passing

At the age of eighty (544 BC), Gautama Buddha realized that his end was approaching fast. He told Ananda to prepare a bed between two Sal trees at Kushinagar and then finally died. The Buddha's body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments, which have survived until the present. (Example- "The Temple of the Tooth" or "Dalada Maligawa" in Sri Lanka is the place where the right tooth relic of Buddha is kept at present)

Personality and character

Gautama Buddha is notable for such characteristics as :

• A comprehensive education and training in those fields appropriate to a warrior aristocrat, such as martial arts, agricultural management, literature, and also a deep understanding of the religious and philosophical ideas of his culture.
• Athletic and fit throughout his life, competent in martial arts such as chariot combat, wrestling, and archery, and later easily hiking miles each day and camping in the wilderness.
• A superb teacher, with a fine grasp of the appropriate metaphors, and tailoring his teachings to the audience at hand.
• Fearless and unworried at all times, whether dealing with religious debators, royalty, or murderous outlaws. He never past exasperation when monks of his order misrepresented his teachings.
• Temperate in all bodily appetites. He lived a completely celibate life from age twenty nine until his death. He was indifferent to hunger and environmental conditions.

Physical characteristics

The Buddha is perhaps one of the few sages for whom we have mention of his rather impressive physical characteristics. He was at least six feet tall and had a strong enough body to be noticed by one of the Kings and was asked to join his army as a general. Although the Buddha was not represented in human form until around the 1st century AD (see Buddhist art), his physical characteristics are described in one of the central texts of the traditional Pali Canon, the Digha Nikaya. They help define the global aspect of the historical Buddha, his physical appearance is described by Buddha's wife to his son Rahula upon Buddha's return in the scripture of the "Lion of Men":

"Like the full moon is His face; He is dear to Gods and men; He is like an elephant amongst men; His gait is graceful as that of an elephant of noble breed. That, indeed, is your father, lion of men.

"He is of Aryan (aristocratic nobility) lineage, sprung from the warrior caste; His feet have been honoured by Gods and men; His mind is well established in morality and concentration. That, indeed, is your father, lion of men.

"Long and prominent is His well-formed nose, His eye-lashes are like those of a heifer; His eyes are extremely blue ; like a rainbow are His deep blue eyebrows. (The word used is "adhi nila", meaning "very blue", nila is used for the word blue sapphire.) That, indeed, is your father, lion of men.

"Round and smooth is His well-formed neck; His jaw is like that of a lion; His body is like that of king of beast; His beautiful skin is of bright golden colour. That, indeed is your father, lion of men."

Interpretations may vary, and the reliability of the Sutras may be questioned. The description above is indicative of a typically Indo-Aryan body type. This can also be related to the tradition describing the historic Buddha as a member of the Indian Kshatriya warrior caste.

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