Siddhartha Gautama: The Life of the Buddha in Ancient India

Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, or “awakened one”, was a religious teacher who lived in northern India and southern Nepal in the 6th or 5th century BC and founded Buddhism. Born at Lumbini into the Shakya clan, he left a comfortable home to seek an end to suffering, reached enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, and spent some 45 years teaching in the kingdoms of the Ganges plain. His life is known through texts written down centuries later, so historians try to separate the probable facts from the rich legends that grew around him.

Sources and dates

No inscription or document survives from the Buddha’s own lifetime. His teachings were memorised and recited by his followers and handed on orally. The Pali Canon, preserved by the Theravada tradition, was traditionally written down in Sri Lanka in the 1st century BC, and parallel collections survive in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan. Later biographies, such as the Buddhacarita composed by the poet Ashvaghosha around the 1st or 2nd century AD, add many miraculous details.

The earliest physical evidence comes from the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. His pillar at Lumbini records that he visited the place where “the Buddha Shakyamuni was born” and reduced the village’s taxes. A reliquary vase found at Piprahwa in 1898, with an inscription in early Brahmi script, refers to relics of the Buddha belonging to the Shakyas, although its exact reading is debated.

Dating is a long-standing problem. Theravada countries traditionally place the Buddha’s death in 544 or 543 BC. Western scholars long used dates of about 563–483 BC, based on chronicles that put his death 218 years before Ashoka’s consecration. Others count about a century between the two, giving a death around 400 BC or slightly later. Since a major conference at Göttingen in 1988, many scholars have favoured a death between about 420 and 370 BC, but there is no consensus. All sources agree that he lived about 80 years.

Birth and family

Siddhartha, whose family name was Gautama (Gotama in Pali), belonged to the Shakyas, a people living at the foot of the Himalayas. Their chief town was Kapilavastu, which is identified either with Tilaurakot in Nepal or with Piprahwa just across the border in India; both sites have their supporters. The Shakyas were a gana, a small state ruled by a council of leading families, and they were dependent on the larger kingdom of Kosala.

His father, Suddhodana, is described in later texts as a king, but he was probably a leading member of the Shakya council. His mother, Maya, is said to have given birth in a grove at Lumbini while travelling to her parents’ home, and to have died seven days later. Siddhartha was raised by her sister, Mahapajapati Gotami. He married his cousin Yashodhara, and they had a son, Rahula.

The great renunciation

Tradition says that a sage predicted at his birth that Siddhartha would become either a world ruler or a great religious teacher, and that his father tried to shelter him from unpleasant sights. In the famous legend of the Four Sights, the young man saw an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a wandering ascetic, and realised that ageing, sickness and death were unavoidable. Historians treat the story as symbolic, but the earliest texts agree that he was troubled by the problem of suffering.

At about the age of 29 he left his family and home, an act Buddhists call the Great Renunciation. He studied meditation with two teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, and mastered their methods, but felt they did not lead to final freedom. He then practised extreme asceticism with five companions, fasting until, according to the texts, he was almost a skeleton. After some six years he concluded that self-torture was as useless as the life of pleasure he had left behind, and he began to eat again. His five companions left him in disgust.

Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya

Siddhartha sat down to meditate beneath a pipal tree near the village of Uruvela, on the Niranjana river in Magadha, the place now called Bodh Gaya. Tradition says he was tempted and attacked by Mara, a figure representing desire and death, and that he touched the earth to call it as witness to his merits.

During the night he is said to have recalled his former lives, seen how beings are reborn according to their actions, and understood the causes of suffering and the way to end it. He was about 35 years old. From then on he was the Buddha, and the tree became known as the Bodhi tree, the tree of awakening. A descendant of it still grows at the Mahabodhi Temple.

The teaching and the Sangha

After some weeks of hesitation, the Buddha went to the Deer Park at Sarnath near Varanasi and taught his former five companions. This first sermon at Sarnath set out the Middle Way between indulgence and self-mortification, the Four Noble Truths about suffering, its cause, its end and the path to its end, and the Noble Eightfold Path of right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

The five became his first monks, and the Sangha, the monastic community, began. For about 45 years the Buddha walked from town to town in Magadha, Kosala and the neighbouring states, resting in one place during the rainy season. He taught in everyday language rather than Sanskrit, and he accepted people from every social class into the order.

Powerful patrons supported him. King Bimbisara of Magadha gave the community the Bamboo Grove (Veluvana) at Rajagriha. The merchant Anathapindika bought the Jeta Grove near Shravasti, capital of Kosala, where the Buddha spent many rainy seasons. Leading disciples included Sariputta and Moggallana, known for wisdom and meditative power, and his cousin Ananda, who became his attendant. At the request of Mahapajapati Gotami, supported by Ananda, the Buddha allowed women to be ordained as nuns.

Not everything went smoothly. Texts describe a schism led by his cousin Devadatta, who demanded stricter rules and is said to have plotted with the Magadhan prince Ajatashatru. In his last years the Shakya state was attacked by Kosala, and the Buddha’s two leading disciples died before him.

Last journey and death

At about the age of 80 the Buddha set out on a last journey northward from Rajagriha. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta describes how he passed through Pataligama, the future Pataliputra, and Vaishali. At Pava he ate a meal offered by a smith named Cunda and became seriously ill. The exact nature of the dish, called sukara-maddava, has been debated since ancient times; it may have been pork or a kind of mushroom.

He died lying between two sal trees at Kushinagar, in the territory of the Mallas. His last words, as recorded in the Pali text, urged his monks to strive on with diligence, since all conditioned things are subject to decay. His body was cremated and, according to the texts, the relics were divided among eight groups of claimants, who built stupas over them. Soon afterwards, tradition says, 500 senior monks met at Rajagriha in the First Council to recite his teachings and rules.

Myths and facts

The Buddha is often confused with the cheerful, round-bellied figure seen in Chinese and Western shops. That figure is Budai, a Chinese monk of the 10th century associated with the future Buddha Maitreya, not Siddhartha Gautama, who is described as a lean wandering teacher.

Another misconception is that the Buddha presented himself as a god. The early texts portray him as a human being who discovered a path that others could follow, although later traditions gave him supernatural qualities. It is also often said that he was a great prince with a vast palace; the evidence suggests a wealthy family in a small clan republic rather than a powerful kingdom.

Key places

These four places were named in the texts as sites of pilgrimage and remain the main Buddhist pilgrimage centres today.

Timeline

• c. 563 BC (or c. 480 BC): Birth of Siddhartha Gautama at Lumbini (dates disputed).
• c. 534 BC (or c. 451 BC): At about 29, he leaves home to become a wandering ascetic.
• c. 528 BC (or c. 445 BC): At about 35, he attains enlightenment at Bodh Gaya and gives his first sermon at Sarnath.
• c. 483 BC (or c. 400 BC): He dies at Kushinagar, aged about 80.
• Shortly after his death: The First Buddhist Council is held at Rajagriha (traditional).
• c. 249 BC: Ashoka visits Lumbini and erects a pillar marking the birthplace.
• 1st century BC: The Pali Canon is written down in Sri Lanka (traditional date).
• 1896: The Lumbini pillar inscription is rediscovered, confirming the site.

Why it matters

The Buddha’s teaching on suffering, impermanence and the path to inner freedom became the basis of Buddhism, which spread across Asia and now has hundreds of millions of followers worldwide. His life also opens a window onto the cities, kingdoms and religious debates of ancient India. Through Ashoka, whose edicts promoted Buddhist ethics, his influence passed from a small band of wandering monks to one of history’s great empires.