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 iddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, was born a Hindu prince in the sixth century B.C.E. in Lumbini, India (now within Nepal's border). His father, King Shuddhodana, was monarch of the Sakya clan. At the time of Siddhartha's birth, Shuddhodana was told by a seer that Siddhartha was destined to become either a great political ruler or a renowned spiritual leader.
Siddhartha followed a life of seclusion in the palace. His father made sure Siddhartha never encountered anyone who was not young, beautiful and healthy. As was the custom, Siddhartha married the lovely Princess Yashodhara in an arranged marriage when he was sixteen years of age. Yashodhara bore Siddhartha a son, Rahula. The family lead a life steeped in material pleasures, but ignorant of the world beyond the pristine confines of the palace. It wasn't long, however, before Siddhartha realized the shallowness of his privileged existence. He caught glimpses of humans ravaged by disease, hobbled by old age, and in the grips of death. This awakened in him a compassion for his fellow beings and a disdain for the privileged life he had been leading. At the age of 29, Siddhartha left the comforts of the palace and his family to lead an ascethic life, intending to find answers that would relieve the world of the endless cycle of existence (i.e., birth, old age, sickness and death). Renouncing his former life, Siddhartha rode to the edge of the Sakya empire and cut off his hair and beard and exchanged his fine garments for the meager saffron robes of a wandering mendicant. For six years, Siddhhartha lead a life of extreme asceticism, as was common practice of mendicants of this time, living on little more than a few grains of rice each day. He sought spiritual guidance from the day's great religious scholars and learned various methods of meditation. In a short time, he surpassed his teachers' spiritual attainments, although he came precariously close to death on more than one occasion due to his austere lifestyle. Siddhartha's fame as a great ascetic grew and he attracted a following. But he was never fully satisfied. He didn't feel extreme self-denial had brought him closer to answering the fundamental questions of existence. Siddhartha realized rather than producing truths, torturing the body through starvation and dehydration was actually an obstacle to spiritual advancement, just as a life of intense luxury would be. Discouraged by his former course, Siddhartha began to eat in moderation. He encouraged others to follow this path of balance, which he called the Middle Way. Many of his students and companions abandoned him, feeling he had forsaken the quest. However, as his strength and mental clarity increased, Siddhartha pursued ultimate truth with even greater intensity. Finally, one night in May, Siddhartha sat under a Bodhi tree and vowed: "Flesh may wither away, blood may dry up, but I shall not rise from this seat until I attain Enlightenment." There he meditated until dawn. Though challenged by Yama, the Lord of Death, Siddhartha was able to purify his mind and lift the veils of ignorance through intense, vajra-like concentration. As the new day dawned and the last veils were lifted, the 35 year old Siddhartha became the Buddha (the "Enlightened One"). For the remainder of his eighty years, the Buddha preached the Dharma in an effort to help other sentient beings reach enlightenment.
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Desiring that his son choose the political path, Shuddhodana surrounded Siddhartha with every imaginable luxury that wealth and power could provide, trying to tie him psychologically to life in the palace. Shuddhodana also attempted to shield Siddhartha from the
frailties of earthly existence (i.e., sickness, old age, and death), assuming they might propel the young Siddhartha to seek intellectual and spiritual answers and, thus, to pursue the spiritual path that the seer had foretold.