The life of the Buddha

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From Buddhist Encyclopedia

Siddhartha Gautama (Pāli: Gotama Buddha) was a spiritual teacher in the ancient Indian subcontinent and the historical founder of Buddhism. He is universally recognised by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are unclear; most modern texts date his lifetime between 563 BCE and 483 BCE, though some recent research may point to a date about a century later than this.<ref>The Dating of the Historical Buddha: A Review Article</ref> (However, see Against the Short Date.) By tradition, he was born with the name '(Pāli: Siddhattha Gotama). After a quest for the truth behind life and death, he underwent a transformative spiritual change that led him to claim the name of Buddha. He is also commonly known as sage of the Shakya gotra|clan") and as the Tathagata ("thus-come-one" or "thus-gone-one").

Gautama is the key figure in Buddhism, and accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules were summarized after his death and memorized by the sangha. Passed down by oral tradition, the Tripitaka, the collection of discourses attributed to Gautama, was committed to writing about 400 years later.

Buddha's life

As few of the details of the Buddha's life can be independently verified, it is difficult to gauge the historical accuracy of the these accounts. The main sources of information on Siddhārtha Gautama's life are the earliest available Buddhist texts. The following is a summary of those narratives.

Conception and birth

According to tradition, Siddhārtha was born more than 200 years before the reign of the Maurya king Aśoka (lived 304–232 BCE). .

Siddhārtha was born in Lumbini, Nepal, under the full moon of the sixth lunar month, in the spring. His father was Śuddhodana (Pāli Suddhodana), of the Kṣatriya varṇa, was the chief (rājā, or king) of the Śākya nation, one of several ancient tribes on the margins of the growing state of Kośala (Pāli Kosala). His mother was Māyādevī, King Sudhodhana's wife.

The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Buddhist countries as Vesak. Gautama was born a prince, destined to a luxurious life, with three palaces. 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 (chakravartin) or a great holy man. His father, King Śuddhodana, wishing for Gautama to be a great king, shielded his son from religious teachings or knowledge of human suffering.

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. Since Siddhārtha belonged to the Śākya clan, he came to be known as Śākyamuni ("sage of the Śākyas"), with "Muni" meaning "sage who is still".

Marriage

When the young Prince Siddhartha Gautama was still a baby]], an ascetic named Kaladevala went into the heaven of the [hirty-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 Yaśodharā (Pāli: Yasodharā), a cousin of the same age. In time, she gave birth to a son, Rahula. Gautama spent 29 years of his life as a prince in Kapilavastu, a place now situated in Nepal. Although his father ensured that Gautama was provided with everything he could want or need, Gautama was troubled and dissatisfied.

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 deeply depressed 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 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 Magadha in what is today Bihar in 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 surpassed 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 tried 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 that was blissful and refreshing.

After leaving

After 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 rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata. Then, sitting under a pipal tree, now known as the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, 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 (Pāli: Sammāsambuddha).

He stated that he had realized complete awakening and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering which was ignorance, 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.

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. 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 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 Sangha, the company of Buddhist monks.

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 Nirvāṇa (Pāli: Nibbāna) themselves to attain the spiritual awakening called bodhi and see truth and reality as it is. The Buddhist system of insight, thought, and meditation practice was not revealed divinely, but by the understanding of the true nature of the mind, which could be discovered by anybody.

For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha traveled in the Gangetic Plain of Northeastern India and Southern Nepal, teaching his doctrine and discipline to an extremely diverse range of people— from nobles to outcaste street sweepers, including many adherents of rival philosophies and religions. The Buddha founded the community of Buddhist monks and nuns (the Sangha) to continue the dispensation after his Parinirvāna (Pāli: Parinibbāna) or "complete Nirvāna", and made thousands of converts. His religion was open to all races and classes and had no caste structure. On the other hand, Buddhist texts record that he was reluctant to ordain women as nuns: he eventually accepted them on the grounds that their capacity for enlightenment was equal to that of men (and the Lotus Sutra, in Chapter 12, contains a description of the dragon king's daughter attaining enlightenment in her present body), but he gave them certain additional rules (Vinaya) to follow.

The Great Passing

According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon enter Parinirvana or the final deathless state abandoning the earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which, according to different translations, was either a mushroom delicacy or soft pork, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit.

Ananda protested Buddha's decision to enter Parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra (Pāli: Kusināra) of the Mallas. Buddha, however, reminds Anand how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous king that resounded with joy:

Buddha then asked all the attendant Bhikshus to clarify any doubts or questions they had. They had none. He then finally entered Parinivana. The Buddha's final words were, "All composite things pass away. Strive for your own salvation with diligence." The Buddha's body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. (For 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.)

According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the Dipavamsa and Mahavansa, the coronation of Aśoka (Pāli: Asoka) is 218 years after the death of Buddha. According to one Mahayana record in Chinese (十八部論 and 部執異論), the coronation of Aśoka is 116 years after the death of Buddha. Therefore, the time of Buddha's passing is either 486 BCE according to Theravāda record or 383 BCE according to Mahayana record. However, the actual date traditionally accepted as the date of the Buddha's death in Theravāda countries is 544 or 543 BCE, because the reign of Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about 60 years earlier than current estimates (based on Aśoka's own inscriptions, and therefore among the soundest dates in early Indian history).

Physical characteristics

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 CE (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":

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/Nepali Kshatriya warrior caste.

Teachings

The teachings of the Buddha are covered in the articles on Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy. While there is disagreement amongst various Buddhist sects over more esoteric aspects of Buddha's teachings and over Vinaya|disciplinary rules for monks, there is generally agreement over these points:

• The Four Noble Truths: that suffering is an inherent part of existence; that the origin of suffering is ignorance and the main symptoms of that ignorance are attachment and craving; that attachment and craving can be ceased; and that following the Noble Eightfold Path will lead to the cessation of attachment and craving and therefore suffering.
• The Noble Eightfold Path: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
• The concept of dependent origination: that any phenomenon 'exists' only because of the ‘existence’ of other phenomena in a complex web of cause and effect covering time past, present and future. Because all things are thus conditioned and transient (anicca), they have no real independent identity (anatta).
• Rejection of the infallibility of accepted scripture: Teachings should not be accepted unless they are borne out by our experience and are praised by the wise. See the Kalama Sutta for details.
• Anicca (Sanskrit: anitya): That all things are impermanent.
• Anatta (Sanskrit: anātman): That the perception of a constant "self" is an illusion.
• Dukkha (Sanskrit: duḥkha): That all beings suffer from all situations due to unclear mind.

Buddha as viewed by other religions

Hinduism

Contrary to most Buddhists, some Hindu denominations on the basis of the Puranas of later Hinduism regard Buddha as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, and the general decline of Buddhism in India has been attributed to the development of Vedānta philosophy, which began challenging Buddhism's philosophically strong image. There are accounts of the Buddha as an incarnation of that are pro- and anti-Buddhist (see Buddha as an Avatar of Vishnu). That is to say, either that "really meant" what he said while incarnated as Buddha or that he was intentionally tricking those who follow unorthodox doctrines. In some of these accounts, the Buddha has been described in a manner that many Buddhists find unacceptable, as the texts say that had taken the Buddha incarnation to "mislead" the "demons" from the true Vedic path by deliberately propagating a false religion.

The term nirvana was popularized by the Buddha and his followers, as Hindu scriptures generally concentrate instead on the principle of Brahman and Moksha. Hindus claim Parinirvana, in Hinduism is known as Mahasamadhi — this is incorrect as Vedic Dharma never went past Brahma Viharas of the Buddhists. Buddhism is different from Hinduism, in which the Nirvana is Brahma-Nirvana.

The Buddha in some Hindu scriptures is referred to as a "Nastik"(Atheist), since he did not give preeminence to the Vedas. However, it was the most well-known Buddhist scholar Rahula Vipola, who wrote that the Buddha was trying to shed the true meaning of the Vedas. Buddha is said to be a knower of the Veda (vedajña) or of the Vedanta (vedântajña) (Sa.myutta, i. 168); Sutta Nipâta, 463)

Although many Hindus claim that Buddhism all but disappeared as it was taught by Buddha from India, Buddha's message continued and continues to influence Indians to this day. Some of the most prominent Indian thinkers, religious and political reformers and revolutionaries of modern India, from all backgrounds, continued to be influenced by his message:

Taoism and Confucianism

The arrival of Buddhism forced Taoism to renew and restructure itself and address existential questions raised by Buddhism. Buddhism was seen as a kind of foreign Taoism and its scriptures were translated into Chinese with Taoist vocabulary. Chan (Seon, Thien, or Zen) Buddhism in particular holds many beliefs in common with philosophical Taoism. Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought Buddha to be a reincarnation of Lao Tzu born in the land of barbarians. <ref> The Cambridge History of China, Vol.1, (The Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.-A.D. 220) ISBN 0-521-24327-0 hardback</ref>

Buddhism shares many commonalities with Neo-Confucianism , which is Confucianism with more religious elements. In fact, the ritual of ancestor worship normally practiced by Confucianists, has been adapted to Chinese Buddhist beliefs.

Shintoism

In the Japanese religion of Shinto, the long coexistence of Buddhism and Shintoism resulted in the merging of Shintoism and Buddhism. Gods in Shintoism were given a position similar to the Hindu gods in Buddhism. Moreover, because one of Mahayana Buddha's (Dainichi Nyorai) symbols was the sun, many equated Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, as the previous reincarnation (boddisatva) of Dainich Nyorai. However, the Tokugawa Shogunate era saw a revival movement within Shinto. Some Shinto scholars started to argue that Buddhas were previous incarnations of Shinto gods, thus turning the position of Shintoism and Buddhism upside down. Shinto and Buddhism were officially separated after the Meiji Restoration.

Christianity and Judaism

Although the philosophical systems of Buddhism and Christianity have evolved in rather different ways, the moral precepts advocated by Buddhism from the time of Ashoka through his edicts do have some similarities with the Christian moral precepts developed more than two centuries later: respect for life, respect for the weak, rejection of violence, pardon to sinners, tolerance. The administrative structures formed by Buddhists are also very similar: monasticism, early Christian Councils and missions all were predated by Buddhist missions in the Middle East, in the same regions in which Christianity began.

One theory is that these similarities may indicate the propagation of Buddhist ideals into the Western World, with the Greeks acting as intermediaries and religious syncretists.

For example, the "miracle" of walking on water, which is frequently attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, is first found in Buddhist literature in the oldest Pali Canon “Digha Nikaya 11,” in the Kevatta Sutta. This is not found in any other literature in the world except 500 years later in the Christian New Testament.

The story of the birth of the Buddha was well known in the West, and possibly influenced the story of the birth of Jesus: Saint Jerome (4th century CE) mentions the birth of the Buddha, who he says "was born from the side of a virgin". Also a fragment of Archelaos of Carrha (278 CE) mentions the Buddha's virgin-birth.

Early 3rd-4th century Christian writers such as Hippolytus and Epiphanius write about a Scythianus, who visited India around 50 CE from where he brought "the doctrine of the Two Principles". According to these writers, Scythianus' pupil Terebinthus presented himself as a “Buddha” ("he called himself Buddas" Cyril of Jerusalem). Terebinthus went to Palestine and Judaea where he met the Apostles ("becoming known and condemned" Isaia), and ultimately settled in Babylon, where he transmitted his teachings to Mani, thereby creating the foundation of what could be called Persian syncretic Buddhism, Manicheism. One of the greatest thinkers and saints of western Christianity, Augustine of Hippo was originally a Manichean.

In the 2nd century CE, the Christian dogmatist Clement of Alexandria recognized Bactrian Buddhists (Sramanas) and Indian Gymnosophists for their influence on Greek thought:

The main Greek cities of the Middle-East happen to have played a key role in the development of Christianity, such as Antioch and especially Alexandria, and “it was later in this very place that some of the most active centers of Christianity were established” (Robert Linssen, “Zen living”).

The Greek legend of "Barlaam and Ioasaph", sometimes mistakenly attributed to the 7th century John of Damascus but actually written by the Georgian monk Euthymios in the 11th century, was ultimately derived, through a variety of intermediate versions (Arabic and Georgian) from the life story of the Buddha. The king-turned-monk Ioasaph (Georgian Iodasaph, Arabic Yūdhasaf or Būdhasaf) ultimately derives his name from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva, the name used in Buddhist accounts for Gautama before he became a Buddha. Barlaam and Ioasaph were placed in the Greek calendar of saints on 26 August, and in the West they were canonized (as "Barlaam and [Josaphat") in the Roman Martyrology on the date of 27 November.

The story was translated into Hebrew in the Middle Ages as "Ben-Hamelekh Vehanazir" ("The Prince and the Nazirite"), and is widely read by Jews to this day.

The Sanskrit word bodhisattva is translated as nazir and in Hebrew means: ("One who abstains")

Islam

The Buddhist monastic class flowed into what came to be called Islamic monasticism — Sufism — which has given many poets and scientists to both Islam and the world. The Qalandariyah Sufi Order, a Muslim mystical movement, attracted many Buddhist monks. This order arose in 9th century as a result of the Malamatiyya, and became established in Khorasan (Eastern Persia) as early in the 11th century.<ref>Gabriel Mandel Khan, "Buddha", Great Biographies. Reader's Digest Association, 1989, ISBN 0895772981.</ref>

Ascetic practices within the Sufi philosophy are associated with Buddhism. The notion of purification (cleaning one' s soul from all evil things and trying to reach Nirvana and to become immortal in Nirvana) plays an important role in Buddhism. The same idea shows itself in the belief of vuslat (communion with God) in Sufi philosophy.<ref>Kamuran Godelek, The Neoplatonist Roots of Sufi Philosophy</ref>

The Indian scholar Maulana Abul Kalam Azad proposed in a commentary on the Qur'an that Siddhartha Gautama is the prophet of Islam Dhū'l-Kifl referred to in Sura 21 and Sura 38 of the Qur'an together with the Biblical characters Ishmael, Idris (Enoch), and Elisha. Azad suggested that the Kifl in Dhū'l-Kifl (Ar: "possessor of a double portion") is an Arabic pronunciation of Kapilavastu, where the Buddha spent his early life.<ref>Introduction to Buddhism from an Islamic Viewpoint</ref> There is no direct evidence to support this speculation. According to other ancient Muslim scholars Dhū'l-Kifl was either a righteous man and not a prophet, or he was the prophet called Ezekiel in the Bible.

See also

• Iconography of the Buddha
• Buddha as an Avatar of Vishnu

External links

• Against the Short Date
• Life of the Buddha
• A sketch of the Buddha's Life
• Lord Buddha by Swami Sivananda
• Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery - Sri Lanka
• Critical Resources: Buddha & Buddhism
• The Emaciated Gandharan Buddha Images: Asceticism, Health, and the Body
• The Lalitavistara
• What was the Buddha really like?
• Relatives and Disciples of the Buddha by Radhika Abeysekera
• Buddha and his Dhamma