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BUDDHA

The BUDDHA or Enlightened One - lit. Knower or Awakened One - is the honorific name given to the Indian Sage, Gotama, who discovered and proclaimed to the world the Law of Deliverance, known to the West by the name of Buddhism.

He was born in the 6th century BC, at Kapilavatthu, as the son of the king who ruled the Sakya country, a principality situated in the border area of modern Nepal. His personal name was Siddhattha, and his clan name Gotama (Sanskrit: Gautama). In his 29th year he renounced the splendour of his princely life and his royal career, and became a homeless ascetic in order to find a way out of what he had early recongised as a world of suffering. Aftere a six year's quest, spent under various religious teachers and in a period of fruitless self-mortification, he finally attained to Perfect Enlightenment (samma-sambodhi), under the Bodi tree at Gaya (today Buddh-Gaya). Five and forty years of tireless preaching and teaching followed and at last, in his 80th year, there passed away at Kusinara that 'undeluded being that appeared for the blessing and happiness of the world'.

The Buddha is neither a god nor a prophet or incarnation of a god, but a supreme human being who - through his own effort, attained to Final Deliverance and Perfect Wisdom, and became 'the peerless teacher of gods and men'. He is a 'Saviour' only in the sense that he shows men how to save themselves, by actually following to the end the Path trodden and shown by him. In the consummate harmony of Wisdom and Compassion attained by the Buddha, he embodies the universal and timeless ideal of Man Perfected.

(from 'The Word of the Buddha' by Nyanatiloka)