82 Facts About Gautama Buddha

The Buddha thereafter wandered through the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain, teaching and building a monastic order.

Gautama Buddha taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to Nirvana, that is, freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth, and suffering.

Gautama Buddha's teachings are summarized in the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind that includes ethical training and meditative practices such as sense restraint, kindness toward others, mindfulness, and.

The Gautama Buddha has since been venerated by numerous religions and communities across Asia.

Particularly, Ashoka's Lumbini pillar inscription commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to Lumbini as the Gautama Buddha's birthplace, calling him the Gautama Buddha Shakyamuni.

The sources which present a complete picture of the life of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies from a later date.

The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Gautama Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniskramana Sutra, and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE.

The "long chronology," from Sri Lankese chronicles, states that the Gautama Buddha was born 298 years before the coronation of Asoka, and died 218 years before his coronation.

The Gautama Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential sramana schools of thought like Ajivika, Carvaka, Jainism, and Ajnana.

Sariputra and Moggallana, two of the foremost disciples of the Gautama Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sanjaya Belatthaputta, the sceptic.

The Pali canon frequently depicts Gautama Buddha engaging in debate with the adherents of rival schools of thought.

Traditional biographies of Gautama Buddha often include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events.

British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhartha Gautama Buddha did exist as a historical figure.

Gautama Buddha's son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.

The earliest Buddhist sources state that the Buddha was born to an aristocratic Kshatriya family called Gotama, who were part of the Shakyas, a tribe of rice-farmers living near the modern border of India and Nepal.

Gautama Buddha's father Suddhodana was "an elected chief of the Shakya clan", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime.

The day of the Gautama Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak.

Gautama Buddha's Birthday is called Gautama Buddha Purnima in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India as he is believed to have been born on a full moon day.

Kondanna, the youngest, and later to be the first arhat other than the Gautama Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Gautama Buddha.

Early texts suggest that Gautama Buddha was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition.

Legendary biographies tell the story of how Gautama Buddha left his palace to see the outside world for the first time and how he was shocked by his encounter with human suffering.

Shortly after seeing the four sights, Gautama Buddha woke up at night and saw his female servants lying in unattractive, corpse-like poses, which shocked him.

Gautama Buddha travelled to the river Anomiya, and cut off his hair.

Gautama Buddha rejected the offer but promised to visit his kingdom first, upon attaining enlightenment.

Majjhima Nikaya 4 mentions that Gautama Buddha lived in "remote jungle thickets" during his years of spiritual striving and had to overcome the fear that he felt while living in the forests.

The Nikaya-texts narrate that the ascetic Gautama Buddha practised under two teachers of yogic meditation.

Gautama Buddha felt unsatisfied by the practice because it "does not lead to revulsion, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to knowledge, to awakening, to Nibbana", and moved on to become a student of Udraka Ramaputra.

The Mahasaccaka-sutta and most of its parallels agree that after taking asceticism to its extremes, Gautama Buddha realized that this had not helped him attain nirvana, and that he needed to regain strength to pursue his goal.

At this point, Gautama Buddha remembered a previous experience of dhyana he had as a child sitting under a tree while his father worked.

In later centuries, Gautama became known as the Buddha or "Awakened One".

The title indicates that unlike most people who are "asleep", a Gautama Buddha is understood as having "woken up" to the true nature of reality and sees the world 'as it is'.

However the Gautama Buddha is unfazed and calls on the earth as witness to his superiority by touching the ground before entering meditation.

The Gautama Buddha proclaimed that he had achieved full awakening, but Upaka was not convinced and "took a different path".

MN 26 and MA 204 continue with the Gautama Buddha reaching the Deer Park near Varanasi, where he met the group of five ascetics and was able to convince them that he had indeed reached full awakening.

The Gautama Buddha then continued to teach the other ascetics and they formed the first, the company of Buddhist monks.

Various sources such as the Mahavastu, the Mahakhandhaka of the Theravada Vinaya and the Catusparisat-sutra mention that the Gautama Buddha taught them his second discourse, about the characteristic of "not-self", at this time or five days later.

Gautama Buddha's sangha enjoyed the patronage of the kings of Kosala and Magadha and he thus spent a lot of time in their respective capitals, Savatthi and Rajagaha.

The Gautama Buddha's sangha continued to grow during his initial travels in north India.

Gautama Buddha is said to have gifted Jeta's grove to the sangha at great expense.

The Gautama Buddha is eventually convinced by Ananda to grant ordination to Mahaprajapati on her acceptance of eight conditions called gurudharmas which focus on the relationship between the new order of nuns and the monks.

Strong, after the first 20 years of his teaching career, the Gautama Buddha seems to have slowly settled in Sravasti, the capital of the Kingdom of Kosala, spending most of his later years in this city.

The early texts depict the elderly Gautama Buddha as suffering from back pain.

However, the Gautama Buddha continued teaching well into his old age.

Ajatashatru seems to have been victorious, a turn of events the Gautama Buddha is reported to have regretted.

The Gautama Buddha responds by saying that the Vajjikas can be expected to prosper as long as they do seven things, and he then applies these seven principles to the Buddhist Sangha, showing that he is concerned about its future welfare.

The Mahaparinibbana depicts the Gautama Buddha as experiencing illness during the last months of his life but initially recovering.

Bhikkhu Mettanando and Oskar von Hinuber argue that the Gautama Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning.

The Theravada tradition generally believes that the Gautama Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Gautama Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom.

Gautama Buddha then repeated his final instructions to the sangha, which was that the Dhamma and Vinaya was to be their teacher after his death.

Gautama Buddha then entered his final meditation and died, reaching what is known as parinirvana.

The Gautama Buddha's body was then cremated and the remains, including his bones, were kept as relics and they were distributed among various north Indian kingdoms like Magadha, Shakya and Koliya.

Karma is not the only cause for one's conditions, as the Gautama Buddha listed various physical and environmental causes alongside karma.

The Gautama Buddha's teaching of karma differed to that of the Jains and Brahmins, in that on his view, karma is primarily mental intention.

The philosopher Mark Siderits has outlined the basic idea of the Gautama Buddha's teaching of Dependent Origination of dukkha as follows:.

The Gautama Buddha instead held that all things in the world of our experience are transient and that there is no unchanging part to a person.

The Gautama Buddha saw the belief in a self as arising from our grasping at and identifying with the various changing phenomena, as well as from ignorance about how things really are.

Furthermore, the Gautama Buddha held that we experience suffering because we hold on to erroneous self views.

The Gautama Buddha taught a path of training to undo the samyojana, kleshas and asavas and attain vimutti.

In various texts, the Gautama Buddha is depicted as having studied under two named teachers, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta.

Likewise, samsara, the idea that we are trapped in cycles of rebirth and that we should seek liberation from them through non-harming and spiritual practices, pre-dates the Gautama Buddha and was likely taught in early Jainism.

Gautama Buddha posits that the Fourth Noble Truths, the Eightfold path and Dependent Origination, which are commonly seen as essential to Buddhism, are later formulations which form part of the explanatory framework of this "liberating insight".

The early Buddhist texts depict the Gautama Buddha as promoting the life of a homeless and celibate "sramana", or mendicant, as the ideal way of life for the practice of the path.

Gautama Buddha taught that mendicants or "beggars" were supposed to give up all possessions and to own just a begging bowl and three robes.

For example, in Samyutta Nikaya 111, Majjhima Nikaya 92 and Vinaya i 246 of the Pali Canon, the Gautama Buddha praises the Agnihotra as the foremost sacrifice and the Gayatri mantra as the foremost meter.

The Gautama Buddha did not see the Brahmanical rites and practices as useful for spiritual advancement.

Gautama Buddha especially critiqued animal sacrifice as taught in Vedas.

The Gautama Buddha critiqued the Brahmins' claims of superior birth and the idea that different castes and bloodlines were inherently pure or impure, noble or ignoble.

The Gautama Buddha's teaching then is a single universal moral law, one Dharma valid for everybody, which is opposed to the Brahmanic ethic founded on "one's own duty" which depends on caste.

The early texts depict the Gautama Buddha as giving a deflationary account of the importance of politics to human life.

Gautama Buddha taught them to "hold regular and frequent assemblies", live in harmony and maintain their traditions.

The Gautama Buddha then goes on to promote a similar kind of republican style of government among the Buddhist Sangha, where all monks had equal rights to attend open meetings and there would be no single leader, since The Gautama Buddha chose not to appoint one.

Some scholars have argued that this fact signals that the Gautama Buddha preferred a republican form of government, while others disagree with this position.

Digha Nikaya 2 describes how king Ajatashatru is unable to tell which of the monks is the Gautama Buddha when approaching the sangha and must ask his minister to point him out.

Likewise, in MN 140, a mendicant who sees himself as a follower of the Gautama Buddha meets the Gautama Buddha in person but is unable to recognize him.

The Gautama Buddha is described as being handsome and with a clear complexion, at least in his youth.

Many Hindus claim that Gautama Buddha was Hindu and cite a belief that the Gautama Buddha is the ninth avatar of Vishnu in support.

The Gautama Buddha is regarded as a prophet by the minority Ahmadiyya sect.

Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought the Gautama Buddha to be a reincarnation of Laozi.

In Sikhism, Gautama Buddha is mentioned as the 23rd avatar of Vishnu in the Chaubis Avtar, a composition in Dasam Granth traditionally and historically attributed to Guru Gobind Singh.

The earliest artistic depictions of the Gautama Buddha found at Bharhut and Sanchi are aniconic and symbolic.

Iconic representations of the Gautama Buddha became particularly popular and widespread after the first century CE.

The Infant Gautama Buddha Taking A Bath, Gandhara 2nd century CE.