Birth of the Buddha (c. 563–483 BCE)

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The Birth of the Buddha or Wesak is celebrated by Mahayana Buddhists in many places on 8th April each year, based on the Japanese Buddhist calendar, although the date may differ in some parts of the world. It commemorates the birth of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, who lived from about 563BCE until about 483BCE. (Although dates are not known exactly, it is believed that he died at the age of 80 years.)

The word "Buddha" means "enlightened one". Buddhists will always refer to him as "the Buddha" since the term is a description, and not a name.

According to legend, the Buddha was born an Indian prince. The tales say that when he was born, a holy man predicted that he would become either a great ruler or a wandering ascetic. To prevent his son leaving home, his father decreed that the boy must be kept away from all unhappy sights, and he was brought up in pampered and sheltered luxury.

But prophecy must be fulfilled, and all his father's efforts were in vain, because with the assistance of his charioteer, the Buddha visited the town several times, each time seeing one of the Four Sights - a sick man, an old man, a dead man and a wandering ascetic - which awakened his curiosity and an unquenchable need to solve the problem of duhkha - a word which has many translations, the easiest to understand being "suffering".

Accordingly, he left his family at the age of 29 to seek the true meaning of life. After six years of wandering, meditation and self-denial, he attained the enlightenment he sought sitting under a tree at a place now called Buddha Gaya or Bodh Gaya.

Buddhism, the religion based on his teachings spread throughout the whole world.

Many buddhists commemorate the birth of the Buddha on this day with special prayers.

The Origin of Buddhism in Hindu India

The Brahmans claim to direct the religious life and thought of India, and apart from Islam may be said to have achieved their ambition, though at the price of tolerating much that the majority would wish to suppress. But in earlier ages their influence was less extensive and there were other currents of religious activity, some hostile and some simply independent. The most formidable of these found expression in Jainism and Buddhism both of which arose in the sixth century B.C. This century was a time of intellectual ferment in many countries. In China it produced Lao-tzu and Confucius: in Greece, Parmenides, Empedocles, and the sophists were only a little later. In all these regions we have the same phenomenon of restless, wandering teachers, ready to give advice on politics, religion or philosophy, to anyone who would hear them.

In Gautama's youth Bihar was full of wandering philosophers who appear to have been atheistic and disposed to uphold the boldest paradoxes, intellectual and moral. There must however have been constructive elements in their doctrine, for they believed in reincarnation and the periodic appearance of superhuman teachers, and in the advantage of following an ascetic discipline. They probably belonged chiefly to the warrior caste, as did Gautama, the Buddha known to history.

The Pitakas represent him as differing in details from contemporary teachers but as rediscovering the truth taught by his predecessors. They imply that the world is so constituted that there is only one way to emancipation and that from time to time superior minds see this and announce it to others. Still Buddhism does not, in practice, use such formulae as living in harmony with the laws of nature.

Indian literature is notoriously concerned with ideas rather than facts but the vigorous personality of the Buddha has impressed on it a portrait more distinct than that left by any other teacher or king. His work had a double effect. Firstly it influenced all departments of Hindu religion and thought, even those nominally opposed to it. Secondly it spread not only Buddhism in the strict sense but Indian art and literature beyond the confines of India. The expansion of Hindu culture owes much to the doctrine that the Good Law should be preached to all nations.