Who is the Buddha?

Before the Buddha reached Enlightenment and established Buddhism, he was a prince named Siddhartha of Kapilavastu City in India.

During the celebration of his birth, Brahmin Kondanna predicted that Siddhartha would be an ascetic and become a Buddha. The prophecy troubled his father, King Suddhodana who wished for the prince to be a great King.

When Prince Siddhartha was 16 years old, he got married to Princess Yasodhara. It was when he reached 29 years old that he finally managed to go outside the palace. There, he saw an old man with gloomy face, a diseased man, a dead person surrounded by his grieving family, and then an ascetic.

With strong determination, he left the palace to lead an ascetic life in search of the path to liberation.

On the full moon night of the sixth lunar month, Siddhartha was sitting under the Bodhi tree and began the Anapanasati meditation, then lifted his sharp meditative focus to absolute mindfulness in Vipassana meditation. The Prince finally reached Enlightenment and attained Buddhahood as Gautama Buddha before dawn.

Later the Buddha began traveling to places to teach people about the Noble Path. This lasted for 45 years until his final day at the age of 80.