1.Conception and birth

The Buddhist tradition regards , in present-day to be the birthplace of the Buddha. He grew up in Kapilavastu. The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown. It may have been either , , present-day India, or , present-day . Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles apart from each other.

Gautama was born as a , the son of , "an elected chief of the ", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the . His mother, (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a with six white tusks entered her right side,and ten later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a .

The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as. is called Buddha in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India as he is believed to have been born on a full moon day. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king () or a great . By traditional account,[] this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man. , the youngest, and later to be the first other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a .

While later tradition and legend characterized Śuddhodana as a , the of the (Solar dynasty) of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars think that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.

Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition. The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy, and seems to have been structured either as an , or as a form of republic.The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the śramanic and Buddhist , where monarchies tended toward .

2.Early life and marriage

Siddhartha was brought up by his mother's younger sister, . By tradition, he is said to have been destined by birth to the life of a prince, and had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) built for him. Although more recent scholarship doubts this status, his father, said to be King Śuddhodana, wishing for his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human .

When he reached the age of 16, his father reputedly arranged his marriage to a cousin of the same age named (Pāli: Yasodharā). According to the traditional account,[] she gave birth to a son, named . Siddhartha is said to have spent 29 years as a prince in . Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Buddhist scriptures say that the future Buddha felt that material wealth was not life's ultimate goal.

3.Renunciation and ascetic life

At the age of 29 Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a man, a decaying , and an . These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome aging, sickness, and death by living the life of an ascetic.

Accompanied by Channa and riding his horse , Gautama quit his palace for the life of a . It's said that, "the horse's hooves were muffled by the gods" to prevent guards from knowing of his departure.

Gautama initially went to and began his ascetic life by begging for alms in the street. After King Bimbisara's men recognised Siddhartha and the king learned of his quest, Bimbisara offered Siddhartha the throne. Siddhartha rejected the offer, but promised to visit his kingdom of first, upon attaining enlightenment.

He left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit teachers of meditation. After mastering the teachings of (Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), he was asked by Kalama to succeed him. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practice, and moved on to become a student of with (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra). With him he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, and was again asked to succeed his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied, and again moved on.

Siddhartha and a group of five companions led by are then said to have set out to take their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenment through deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising . After nearly starving himself to death by restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he collapsed in a river while bathing and almost drowned. Siddhartha was rescued by a village girl named Sujata and she gave him some (a pudding made from milk and ) after which Siddhartha got back some energy. Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season's ploughing. He attained a concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing.

4.Awakening

According to the early Buddhist texts, after realizing that meditative was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama discovered what Buddhists call the —a path of moderation away from the extremes of and self-mortification, or the , as was identified and described by the Buddha in his first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and from a village girl named Sujata. Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.

Following this incident, Gautama was famously seated under a tree—now known as the —in , , when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth. and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, left. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained . According to some traditions, this occurred in approximately the fifth lunar month, while, according to others, it was in the twelfth month. From that time, Gautama was known to his followers as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").

According to Buddhism, at the time of his awakening he realized complete insight into the cause of suffering, and the steps necessary to eliminate it. These discoveries became known as the "", which are at the heart of Buddhist teaching. Through mastery of these truths, a state of supreme liberation, or , is believed to be possible for any being. The Buddha described Nirvāna as the perfect peace of a mind that's free from ignorance, greed, hatred and other afflictive states, or "defilements" (kilesas). Nirvana is also regarded as the "end of the world", in that no personal identity or boundaries of the mind remain. In such a state, a being is said to possess the , belonging to every Buddha.

According to a story in the Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1) — a scripture found in the and other — immediately after his awakening, the Buddha debated whether or not he should teach the to others. He was concerned that humans were so overpowered by ignorance, greed and hatred that they could never recognise the path, which is subtle, deep and hard to grasp. However, in the story, convinced him, arguing that at least some will understand it. The Buddha relented, and agreed to teach.

5.Formation of the sangha

After his awakening, the Buddha met — two merchant brothers from the city of in what is currently Afghanistan — who became his first lay disciples. It is said that each was given hairs from his head, which are now claimed to be enshrined as in the Temple in , . The Buddha intended to visit , and his former teachers, and, to explain his findings, but they had already died.

He then travelled to the near (Benares) in northern India, where he set in motion what Buddhists call the by delivering his first sermon to the five companions with whom he had sought enlightenment. Together with him, they formed the first : the company of Buddhist monks.

All five become , and within the first two months, with the conversion of and fifty four of his friends, the number of such arahants is said to have grown to 60. The conversion of three brothers named Kassapa followed, with their reputed 200, 300 and 500 disciples, respectively. This swelled the sangha to more than 1,000.

6.Travels and teaching

For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the , in what is now , and southern , teaching a diverse range of people: from nobles to servants, murderers such as , and cannibals such as Alavaka. Although the Buddha's language remains unknown, it's likely that he taught in one or more of a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which may be a standardization.

The sangha traveled through the subcontinent, expounding the dharma. This continued throughout the year, except during the four months of the rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarely traveled. One reason was that it was more difficult to do so without causing harm to animal life. At this time of year, the sangha would retreat to monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them.

The first vassana was spent at when the sangha was formed. After this, the Buddha kept a promise to travel to , capital of , to visit King . During this visit, and were converted by , one of the first five disciples, after which they were to become the Buddha's two foremost followers. The Buddha spent the next three seasons at Veluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, capital of Magadha.

Upon hearing of his son's awakening, Suddhodana sent, over a period, ten delegations to ask him to return to Kapilavastu. On the first nine occasions, the delegates failed to deliver the message, and instead joined the sangha to become arahants. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhood friend of Gautama's (who also became an arahant), however, delivered the message.

Now two years after his awakening, the Buddha agreed to return, and made a two-month journey by foot to Kapilavastu, teaching the dharma as he went. At his return, the royal palace prepared a midday meal, but the sangha was making an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana approached his son, the Buddha, saying:

"Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warrior has gone seeking alms."

The Buddha is said to have replied:

"That is not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone by seeking alms."

Buddhist texts say that Suddhodana invited the sangha into the palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk. After this he is said to have become a . During the visit, many members of the royal family joined the . The Buddha's cousins and became two of his five chief disciples. At the age of seven, his son also joined, and became one of his ten chief disciples. His half-brother also joined and became an arahant.

Of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputta, , , Ananda and Anuruddha are believed to have been the five closest to him. His ten foremost disciples were reputedly completed by the quintet of , , Rahula, and .

In the fifth vassana, the Buddha was staying at Mahavana near when he heard news of the impending death of his father. He is said to have gone to Suddhodana and taught the dharma, after which his father became an arahant.

  The king's death and cremation was to inspire the creation of an order of nuns. Buddhist texts record that the Buddha was reluctant to ordain women. His foster mother , for example, approached him, asking to join the sangha, but he refused. Maha Pajapati, however, was so intent on the path of awakening that she led a group of royal Sakyan and Koliyan ladies, which followed the sangha on a long journey to Rajagaha. In time, after Ananda championed their cause, the Buddha is said to have reconsidered and, five years after the formation of the sangha, agreed to the ordination of women as nuns. He reasoned that males and females had an equal capacity for awakening. But he gave women additional rules to follow. 

6. Mahaparinirvana

  According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon reach Parinirvana, or the final deathless state, and abandon his earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named . Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha. Mettanando and argue that the Buddha died of , a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning. 

 The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms; the tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom. These may reflect the different traditional views on and the precepts for monks and nuns.

suggests that Theravadin's would take suukaramaddava (the contents of the Buddha's last meal), which can translate literally as pig-soft, to mean "soft flesh of a pig". However, he also states that pig-soft could mean "pig's soft-food", that is, after , a soft food favoured by pigs, assumed to be a . He argues (also after Neumann) that as "(p)lant names tend to be local and dialectical", as there are several plants known to have suukara- (pig) as part of their names, and as Pali Buddhism developed in an area remote from the Buddha's death, suukaramaddava could easily have been a type of plant whose local name was unknown to those in Pali regions. Specifically, local writers writing soon after the Buddha's death knew more about their flora than Theravadin commentator who lived hundreds of years and hundreds of kilometres remote in time and space from the events described. Unaware that it may have been a local plant name and with no Theravadin prohibition against eating animal flesh, Theravadins would not have questioned the Buddha eating meat and interpreted the term accordingly.

Ananda protested the Buddha's decision to enter Parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of (present-day Kushinagar, ) of the kingdom. The Buddha, however, is said to have reminded Ananda how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous wheel-turning king that resounded with joy:

44. Kusavati, Ananda, resounded unceasingly day and night with ten sounds—the trumpeting of elephants, the neighing of horses, the rattling of chariots, the beating of drums and tabours, music and song, cheers, the clapping of hands, and cries of "Eat, drink, and be merry!"

The Buddha then asked all the attendant to clarify any doubts or questions they had and cleared them all in a way which others could not do. They had none. According to Buddhist scriptures, he then finally entered Parinirvana. The Buddha's final words are reported to have been: "All composite things () are perishable. Strive for your own liberation with diligence" (Pali: 'vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā'). His body was cremated and the were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. For example, The or "Dalada Maligawa" in is the place where what some believe to be the is kept at present.

According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the and, the coronation of (Pāli: Asoka) is 218 years after the death of the Buddha. According to two textual records in Chinese (十八部論 and 部執異論), the coronation of Emperor Aśoka is 116 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore, the time of Buddha's passing is either 486 BCE according to Theravāda record or 383 BCE according to Mahayana record. However, the actual date traditionally accepted as the date of the Buddha's death in Theravāda countries is 544 or 545 BCE, because the reign of Emperor Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about 60 years earlier than current estimates. In Burmese Buddhist tradition, the date of the Buddha's death is 13 May 544 BCE. whereas in Thai tradition it is 11 March 545 BCE.

At his death, the Buddha is famously believed to have told his disciples to follow no leader. was chosen by the sangha to be the chairman of the , with the two chief disciples and having died before the Buddha.

While in the Buddha's days he was addressed by the very respected titles Buddha, Shākyamuni, Shākyasimha, Bhante and Bho, he was known after his parinirvana as Arihant, Bhagavā/Bhagavat/Bhagwān, Mahāvira, Jina/Jinendra, Sāstr, Sugata, and most popularly in scriptures as Tathāgata.

7.Relics

  After his death, Buddha's cremation relics were divided amongst 8 royal families and his disciples; centuries later they would be enshrined by King Ashoka into 84,000 stupas. Many supernatural legends surround the history of alleged relics as they accompanied the spread of Buddhism and gave legitimacy to rulers.