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buddhavacana

A very short biography of Gotama Buddha

A short description of Gotama Buddha, as described by an assembly of gods and deities in 7D/1.17 Devatārocana #185 (translated by me):

Indeed, bhikkhave (venerable sirs), in this very fortunate eon, the Bhagavā (Blessed One), an Arahant, a Perfectly Enlightened One, has now arisen in the world. The Bhagavā, bhikkhave, is a Khattiya by birth, arisen in a Khattiya family. The Bhagavā, bhikkhave, is Gotama by clan. The Bhagavā’s lifespan, bhikkhave, is short, limited, brief; [in this age] one who lives long lives for a hundred years or a little more. The Bhagavā, bhikkhave, was fully awakened at the foot of an Assattha tree. The Bhagavā, bhikkhave, had a pair of disciples named Sāriputta and Moggallāna, a chief, excellent pair. The Bhagavā, bhikkhave, had one assembly of disciples of twelve hundred and fifty monks. The Bhagavā, bhikkhave, this one assembly of disciples was entirely of those whose taints were destroyed. The Bhagavā, bhikkhave, had a monastic attendant named Ānanda, a chief attendant. The Bhagavā’s father, bhikkhave, was King Suddhodana. Queen Māyā was his mother, his birth mother. The city named Kapilavatthu was the royal capital. The Bhagavā’s, bhikkhave, renunciation was thus, his going forth was thus, his striving was thus, his full enlightenment was thus, his setting in motion the Wheel of Dhamma was thus. We, bhikkhave, having lived the optimal life under the Bhagavā, having become dispassionate towards sensual pleasures, have arisen here.

This is clearly a hagiography, showing gods and deities acknowledging him, becoming divine as a result of following his teachings.

The Buddha was allegedly born in Lumbini sometime in the 5th century BCE from the Gotama clan of the Shakya tribe, in present-day Nepal, and spent his life living and traveling around the Ganges Plain (in what has been termed the “Greater Magadha” cultural region by Bronkhorst1), near the modern Nepal–India border.

The origin of the Shakya tribe is unclear, and they have possibly mixed Aryan and indigenous lineage.2) They were an eastern sub-Himalayan ethnic group living on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of Greater Magadha. The Buddha’s father (Suddhodana) was supposedly a member of the ruling oligarchy but this may have been an invention and he may have had humble beginnings. In any case, the Shakyans, who were organised into a gaṇasaṅgha (an aristocratic oligarchic republic) had become a vassal state in the Kingdom of Kosala by the time of the Buddha, so the Buddha was hardly a prince as portrayed in some accounts. The Shakyans were not well regarded by the brahmins, as narrated in 6D/3 Ambaṭṭhasutta.

According to 9M/4.6 Mahāsaccakasutta, as a young man he started to question the nature of existence, of being born and subject to the negative consequences of life such as growing old, falling sick, dying, sorrow. He started to search for a path out of these consequences. He renounced and became a “wandering recluse” (samaṇa) and followed the practices of various teachers. samaṇa ([S] śramaṇa) was an established feature of Greater Magadha society in the Buddha’s time, and the renunciants can follow various beliefs and practices, including asceticism. The word originally would have a connotation of “weary” (as in someone who is weary of life and looking for salvation).3 He eventually concluded these teachings did not lead to satisfactory answers.

He ultimately discovered the answer himself and attained “awakening” or “Perfect Understanding” (sammāsambodhi). The story of his life post awakening is told in the 3V/1 Mahākhandhaka, and the first 16 sections have been translated by me in Tidipa - Khandhaka.

The last years of his life were spent traveling and teaching his insights to others before passing away, as detailed in 7D/3 Mahāparinibbānasutta, a very lengthy narrative also full of hagiographic details.

Footnotes

Section titled “Footnotes”

  1. Bronkhorst, J. (2007). Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India. Brill. ↩

  2. Levman, B. (2014). Cultural Remnants of the Indigenous Peoples in the Buddhist Scriptures. Buddhist Studies Review, 30(2), 145–180. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.v30i2.145 ↩

  3. Shults, B. (2014). On the Buddha’s Use of Some Brahmanical Motifs in Pali Texts, Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, 6, 106–140. ↩