Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince of the Śākya (Shakya) clan in Lumbinī, in what is now Nepal, the son of King Śuddhodana, ruler of the small kingdom of Kapilavastu. Raised amid comfort and protection, he lived a sheltered life in the palace, surrounded by luxury and removed from the harsher realities of existence. This early environment was intended to groom him for worldly power, yet it also delayed his direct encounter with the fundamental conditions of human life. The turning point came when he ventured beyond the palace walls and encountered the “Four Sights”: an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic. These encounters revealed to him the universality of aging, illness, and death, as well as the possibility of a spiritual path that might address such suffering. Deeply shaken, he recognized that no amount of privilege could shield one from these realities. This recognition planted the seed of a radical inner renunciation that would soon manifest outwardly.

At about twenty-nine years of age, Siddhartha left behind his royal life, including his wife Yaśodharā and their infant son Rāhula, and became a wandering ascetic. For roughly six years he devoted himself to severe austerities—extreme fasting and other rigorous practices—under various teachers, seeking liberation through self-denial. Over time, however, it became clear to him that such extremes did not bring the freedom from suffering he sought; they only weakened the body and clouded the mind. Recognizing the futility of both indulgence and self-torment, he turned toward what would later be called the Middle Way, a path that avoids both sensual excess and harsh asceticism. This shift marked a profound inner reorientation: the quest was no longer about conquering the body, but about understanding the mind and the nature of reality itself. His journey thus moved from outward struggle to inward clarity, from heroic effort to poised, steady insight.

Having adopted this Middle Way, Siddhartha seated himself beneath a Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya and resolved to remain in meditation until the truth was fully realized. After a sustained period of deep contemplation—tradition speaks of forty-nine days—he attained enlightenment (bodhi). In that awakening, he directly understood the nature of suffering, its causes, its cessation, and the path leading to that cessation, later articulated as the Four Noble Truths. He also discerned the impermanent and interdependent character of all phenomena, seeing through the illusions that bind beings to repeated dissatisfaction. With this complete eradication of ignorance and craving, he became the Buddha, “the Awakened One,” no longer driven by the forces that had previously governed his existence. From then on, for about forty-five years, he wandered throughout northern India, teaching the Dharma and establishing a community of practitioners, offering a path by which others might likewise awaken from the sleep of unexamined life.