Siddhattha
The Buddha, whose personal name was Siddhattha (Siddhartha in Sanskrit), and
family name Gotama (Skt. Gautama), lived in North India in the 6 Th century BC
His father, Suddhodana, was the ruler of the kingdom of the Sakyas (in modern
Nepal). His mother was queen Maya. According to the custom of the time, he was
married quite young, at the age of sixteen, to a beautiful and devoted young
princess named Yasodhara. The young prince lived in his palace with every
luxury at his command. But all of a sudden, confronted with the reality of life
and the suffering of mankind, he decided to find the solution - the way out of
this universal suffering. At the age of 29, soon after the birth of his only
child, Rahula, he left his kingdom and became an ascetic in search of this
solution.
For six years the ascetic Gotama wandered about the valley of the
Ganges, meeting famous religious teachers, studying and following their systems
and methods, and submitting himself to rigorous ascetic practices. They did not
satisfy him. So he abandoned all traditional religions and their methods and
went his own way. It was thus that one evening, seated under a tree (since then
known as the Bodhi- or Bo-tree, ' The Tree of Wisdom'), on the bank of the river
Neranjara at Buddha-Gaya (near Gaya in modern Bihar), at the age of 35, Gotama
attained Enlightenment, after which he was known as the Buddha, ' The
Enlightened One '.
After his Enlightenment, Gotama the Buddha delivered his first sermon to
a group of five ascetics, his old colleagues, in the Deer Park at Isipatana (modern
Sarnath) near Benares. From that day, for 45 years, he taught all classes of men
and women - kings and peasants, Brahmins and outcasts, bankers and beggars,
holy men and robbers - without making the slightest distinction between them. He
recognized no difference of caste or social groupings, and the Way he preached
was open to all men and women who were ready to understand and to follow it. At
the age of 80, the Buddha passed away at Kusinara (in modern Uttar Pradesh in
India).
Today Buddhism is found in Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos,
Vietnam, Tibet, China, Japan, Mongolia, Korea, Formosa, in some parts of India,
Pakistan and Nepal, and also in the Soviet Union. The Buddhist population of the
world is over 500 million
02. December 2004