How did Buddhism begin?

Answer

The following is an exerpt from the book "Mankind's Saerch For God," published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society:

"A Manual of Buddhism, published in Colombo, Sri Lanka, gives the following simplified account.

“On the full-moon day of May in the year 623 B.C. there was born in the district of Nepal an Indian Sakyan Prince, by name Siddhattha Gotama. King Suddhodana was his father, and Queen Maha Maya was his mother. She died a few days after the birth of the child and Maha Pajapati Gotami became his foster-mother.

“At the age of sixteen he married his cousin, the beautiful Princess Yasodhara.

“For nearly thirteen years after his happy marriage he led a luxurious life, blissfully ignorant of the vicissitudes of life outside the palace gates.

“With the march of time, truth gradually dawned upon him. In his 29th year, which witnessed the turning point of his career, his son Rahula was born. He regarded his offspring as an impediment, for he realized that all without exception were subject to birth, disease, and death. Comprehending thus the universality of sorrow, he decided to find out a panacea for this universal sickness of humanity.

“So renouncing his royal pleasures, he left home one night . . . cutting his hair, donned the simple garb of an ascetic, and wandered forth as a Seeker of Truth.”

"The Enlightenment—How It Happened

"What was the aforementioned “turning point of his career”? It was when, for the first time in his life, he saw a sick man, an old man, and a dead man. This experience caused him to agonize over the meaning of life—Why were men born, only to suffer, grow old, and die? Then, it was said that he saw a holy man, one who had renounced the world in pursuit of truth. This impelled Gautama to give up his family, his possessions, and his princely name and spend the next six years seeking the answer from Hindu teachers and gurus, but without success. The accounts tell us that he pursued a course of meditation, fasting, Yoga, and extreme self-denial, yet he found no spiritual peace or enlightenment.

"Eventually he came to realize that his extreme course of self-denial was as useless as the life of self-indulgence that he had led before. He now adopted what he called the Middle Way, avoiding the extremes of the life-styles that he had been following. Deciding that the answer was to be found in his own consciousness, he sat in meditation under a pipal, or Indian fig tree. Resisting attacks and temptations by the devil Mara, he continued steadfast in his meditation for four weeks (some say seven weeks) until he supposedly transcended all knowledge and understanding and reached enlightenment.

"By this process, in Buddhist terminology, Gautama became the Buddha—the Awakened, or Enlightened, One. He had attained the ultimate goal, Nirvana, the state of perfect peace and enlightenment, freed from desire and suffering. He has also become known as Sakyamuni (sage of the Sakya tribe), and he often addressed himself as Tathagata (one who thus came [to teach]). Different Buddhist sects, however, hold different views on this subject. Some view him strictly as a human who found the path to enlightenment for himself and taught it to his followers. Others view him as the final one of a series of Buddhas to have come into the world to preach or revive the dharma (Pali, Dhamma), the teaching or way of the Buddha. Still others view him as a bodhisattva, one who had attained enlightenment but postponed entering Nirvana in order to help others in their pursuit of enlightenment. Whatever it is, this event, the Enlightenment, is of central importance to all schools of Buddhism."

This book details much about many of the world's religions and is available without charge at www.watchtower.org