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Gautama Buddha was a mommy fucker and sucked a bunch of dicks while eating his mommies vaj out spiritual teacher of 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, but most modern scholars have him living between approximately 563 BCE and 483 BCE. By tradition, he was born with the name Siddhārtha Gautama and, after a quest for the truth behind life and death, underwent a transformative spiritual change that led him to claim the name of Buddha. He is also commonly known as Śākyamuni ("sage of the Śākya clan") and as the Tathāgata ("thus-come-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 saṅgha. Passed down by oral tradition, the Tripiṭaka, the collection of discourses attributed to Gautama, was committed to writing about four hundred years later.
Buddha's life
Few of the details of the Buddha's life can be independently verified, and it is difficult to determine what is history and what is myth. Therefore this article will describe the life of Siddhārtha Gautama as told in the earliest available Buddhist texts.
Conception and birth
According to tradition, Siddhārtha was born more than two hundred years before the reign of the Maurya king Aśoka. His mother dreamt one night that an 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 Śālā 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.
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, one of Śuddhodana's wives.
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 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").
Marriage
When the young Prince Siddhartha Gautama was still a baby, an ascetic named Kaladevala 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 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 on the Indo-Nepal Border. 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 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 (Pāli: Sammāsambuddha) .
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.
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 saṅgha, 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, teaching his doctrine and discipline to an extremely diverse range of people— from nobles to street outcaste 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 Parinirvāṇa (Pāli: Paribbāna) or "complete Nirvāṇa", 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
At the age of eighty, 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, possibly from mesenteric infarction, the Buddha realized that his end was approaching fast. Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at Cunda's place had nothing to do with his Maha Samadhi. Buddha then asked all the attendant Bhikshu's to clarify any doubts or questions they had. They had none. He then told Ānanda to prepare a bed between two Sal trees at Kuśināra (Pāli: Kusināra) of the Mallas, and then finally died. 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. (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 Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, 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 BC 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 BC, because the reign of Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about sixty years earlier than current estimates (based on Aśoka's own inscriptions, and therefore among the soundest dates in early Indian history).
Personality and character
The Buddha as presented in the Buddhist scriptures 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, and 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. Images of a fat "Jolly Buddha" or Laughing Buddha are actually depictions of either Maitreya the future Buddha (Chinese Mile Fo), or a 10th century Chinese monk, Budai Heshang (Japanese Hotei)
- 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 was 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
Main article: Physical characteristics of the Buddha
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.
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 disciplinary rules for monks, there is generally agreement over these points:
- The Four Noble Truths: that suffering is an inherent part of existence; that suffering is caused by attachment(craving); that craving can be ceased; and that following the Noble Eightfold Path will lead to the cessation of craving (and 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, time present and time 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.
- 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 Purāṇas of later Hinduism regard Buddha as the ninth avatar of Viṣṇu 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 Viṣṇu that are pro- and anti-Buddhist. That is to say, either that Viṣṇu "really meant" what he said while incarnated as Buddha or that he was intentionally tricking those who follow unorthodox doctrines.
In some, the Buddha has been described in a manner that many Buddhists find unacceptable, as the texts say that Viṣṇu had taken the Buddha incarnation to "mislead" the "demons" from the true Vedic path by deliberately propagating a false religion.
He called His path the "Eight-Fold Path," which is the same path Lord Krishna advised warrior Arjuna to follow to calm himself and fight for righteousness; the Astanga Yoga or "Aryamarga".
Then it is odd that a Hindu scripture claims Lord Buddha's mission was to "mislead" the "demons." Many commoners were indeed asuric, in the age of the Buddha, practiced Atheism, sacrificed animals only for the sake of sacrificing and did not follow religious principles. However Lord Gautama Buddha took the Sanyass (renunciation) from a life of a prince and wore the saffron robe of the Hindu preists. Early Buddhism had used the same saffron, triangular flag which is hanged on Hindu temples. The Sanskrit term "Nirvana" was nothing new then, as Hindu scriptures concentrated on this principle. Parinirvana, in Hinduism is known as Mahasamadhi. Although in modern-day terms, Buddhism is different from Hinduism, in which the Nirvana is Brahma-Nirvana. Buddhists today debate whether the Buddha has eternally remained a Buddha, come down as human only to show all humans that this eternal bliss is achievable by anyone. This form of Buddha in Buddhism is known as Dharmakaya Buddha. It was Buddha who is remembered for saying, "You are a Buddha, I am the Buddha."
Apart from all this He referred His practice as the Arya Dharma (a variant of modern-day term Hinduism) and called Himself an Arya (in modern terms, "Hindu") an Acharya ("Arya spiritual master") and organized the Sangha, which He originally called "Arya Sangha-->. He like Lord Krishna too fought against caste hegemony and said anyone who wanted to could become a Brahmana as He has done. He argued that the Arya Dharma should not have the Vedas centered as the source of law and Hinduism should not advocate animal sacrifice.
Buddha in some Hindu scriptures is called a "Nastik", meaning that He does not follow the Vedic path. Buddha is often mistaken with Mahavira, a Jina of Jainism, by those who argue that Buddha was an atheist detractor of the Vedic path. However, Mahavira's atheism is disputed within the Jain community itself, further complicating these arguments. Others point to Buddha's belief in the Advaita Vedanta philosophy as contrary to the claim of atheism.-->
Bahá'í Faith
Bahá'ís believe that Buddha was a "manifestation of God," or one in a line of prophets who have revealed the Word of God progressively for a gradually maturing humanity. In this way, Buddha shares an exalted station with Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh. However, the central figures of the Bahá'í Faith caution believers that, as is the case with many manifestations, it is difficult to say which Buddhist teachings that have come down through history are authentic and which have been corrupted. `Abdu'l-Bahá, one of the central figures, said, "The founder of Buddhism was a wonderful soul. He established the Oneness of God, but later the original principles of His doctrines gradually disappeared, and ignorant customs and ceremonials arose and increased until they finally ended in the worship of statues and images." (Some Answered Questions, p. 165)
Islam
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 . 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.
Christianity and Judaism
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.
See also
External links
- Life of the Buddha
- A sketch of the Buddha's Life
- 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
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