Siddhartha Gautama was born around 563 BCE to a royal family of the Shakya clan in what is now southern Nepal. According to tradition his father, the king, kept him cloistered inside the palace to shield him from suffering — but on a series of secret excursions he encountered an aged man, a sick man, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic. The four sights destroyed his peace. At twenty-nine he renounced his palace, his wife, and his newborn son, and set out as a homeless seeker. After six years of austerities so severe he nearly starved, he abandoned the extreme path. He sat under a fig tree at Bodh Gaya and vowed not to rise until he had understood. He rose at dawn — awakened, the Buddha. For the next forty-five years he taught the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path across the Ganges plain. He died around 483 BCE in Kushinagar, possibly from food poisoning. His teachings now have over 500 million adherents worldwide.
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Religious teacher · Founder of Buddhism
Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)
c. 563 BCE – 483 BCE
The prince who saw sickness, age, and death for the first time outside his palace — and walked away from a kingdom to find an answer.
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