Gautama Buddha

Siddhartha Gautama — the Buddha, “the Awakened One” — was born, by tradition, at Lumbini in the foothills of the Himalaya, in what is now Nepal, into the Shakya clan. Scholars place his life somewhere in the centuries between roughly 563 and 400 BCE; the exact dates are uncertain, but his historical existence is not seriously doubted.

Raised a prince, he left his palace on encountering old age, sickness, and death, and spent years as a wandering ascetic seeking release from suffering. At Bodh Gaya, in meditation beneath a tree, he is said to have attained enlightenment, and thereafter taught for some forty-five years across the plains of the Ganges.

His teaching — the Middle Way between indulgence and self-denial, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path — offered a road out of suffering through ethics, discipline, and insight, open to all castes alike. He gathered a monastic community, the Sangha, to carry it on.

He died at Kushinagar, and the faith he founded spread across Asia and the world, one of the great religions of humankind. Honored among the Great Ones of every civilization; kept here so the memory is never lost.