Siddharta Gautama

According to the Buddhist tradition, the historical Buddha Siddharta Gautama was born to the Shakya clan that belonged to the Hindu warrior caste (Kshatriya), at the beginning of the Magadha period (546–324 BCE), in the plains of Lumbini, Southern Nepal. He is also known as the Shakyamuni (literally "The sage of the Shakya clan").

After an early life of luxury under the protection of his father, the king of Kapilavastu (later to be incorporated into the state of Magadha), Siddharta Gautama entered into contact with the realities of the world and concluded that real life was about unbearable and inescapable suffering and sorrow. Siddharta Gautama renounced his meaningless life of luxury to became an ascetic. He ultimately decided that asceticism was also meaningless, and instead chose a middle way, a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.

Under a fig tree, now known as the Bodhi tree, Siddharta Gautama vowed never to leave the position until he found Truth. At the age of 35, he attained Enlightenment. He was then known as Gautama Buddha, or simply "The Buddha", which means "the awakened one".

For the remaining 45 years of his life, Siddharta Gautama travelled the Gangetic Plain of central India (region of the Ganges/Ganga river and its tributaries), teaching his doctrine and discipline to an extremely diverse range of people.

The Buddha's reluctance to name a successor or to formalise his doctrine led to the emergence of many movements during the next 400 years: first the schools of Nikaya Buddhism, of which only Theravada remains today, and then the formation of Mahayana, a pan-Buddhist movement based on the acceptance of new scriptures.