Buddha: meaning, role, and traditions

The word "Buddha" means "the awakened one" and is the root form of the past participle of the verbal root budh ("awaken") in Sanskrit and in the Middle Indian languages derived from it. The nominative case of the word "Buddha" is buddhas in Sanskrit and buddho in the Middle Indian Pali language, and some scholars therefore use these forms. However, since in occidental scholarship Indian words are used in the root form rather than the nominative, following the example of native lexicographers and grammarians, the form buddha has become generally accepted.

Because Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, the verbal root budh or Indo-European *bheudh with the meaning "to awaken, to pay attention to, to make attentive" is also found in a modified form in many European languages. For example, the German word "Gebot" and the word "Buddha" are linguistically related.

From birth to starting a family

Siddhartha Gautama lived around 500 BC in northern India; his birthplace is considered to be Lumbini. His father Suddhodana was head of one of the ruling families in the small noble republic of the Shakya in northern India in what is now the Indo-Nepal border region. References to the royal status of Buddha's father and to the pomp and ceremonies of his court, which are encountered especially in later texts, are most likely exaggerations; it is probable, however, that the family belonged at least to the nobility. His mother's name was Maya, and she died seven days after the child's birth. The parents named their son Siddhattha (in Pali) or Siddhartha (in Sanskrit), which means "he who has attained his goal." The epithet Shakyamuni refers to his origin and means "the sage from the lineage of Shakya". After Siddhartha's birth, it was predicted that he would either become a world ruler or, realizing the suffering of the world, someone who would bring wisdom to the world. He lived in a palace where everything that belonged to well living was at his disposal and where, according to tradition, he was shielded from all worldly suffering. His father saw in him the ideal successor and wanted to prevent Siddhartha from turning away from his kingdom. Therefore, he was rarely allowed to leave the royal palace, and when he did, the streets were cleared of the old, the sick, and the dying beforehand.

From the exits to the awakening

Siddhartha was told by the Indian deity Brahma that in his last life he promised to use his next life to free humanity from suffering.

One day, however, he was confronted with the reality of life and the suffering of humanity and realized the futility of his life: The legend tells of encounters with an old man, a fever-stricken man, a decaying corpse, and finally a monk, whereupon he decided to search for a way out of general suffering. (However, in the "biography" of the Buddha, it is very difficult to separate legend from fact). At the age of 29, soon after the birth of his only son Rahula ("fetter"), he left his child, his wife Yasodhara, and his home and became an ascetic in search of salvation. For six years the ascetic Gautama wandered the Ganges plain, met famous religious teachers, studied and followed their systems and methods, and subjected himself to rigorous ascetic exercises. Since none of this brought him closer to his goals, he abandoned the traditional religions and their methods and sought his own path, practicing meditation above all. He called this the "Middle Way" because it avoided the extremes of other religious teachings.

Siddhartha Gautama "attained" perfect awakening (Bodhi) in his 35th year. This happened on the banks of the Neranjara River at Bodhgaya (near Gaya in today's Bihar) under a poplar fig, which today is revered as the Bodhi tree, "tree of wisdom". According to legend, an offshoot of that very fig tree was planted in Sri Lanka while the Indian tree withered. From there, an offshoot was later taken and planted in the original place in India (near the temple district of Sarnath, excavated in 1931).

His life as a teacher

After the Bodhi experience, Gautama, the Buddha, gave his first teaching discourse to a group of five ascetics, his former companions, in the wildlife park at Isipatana (now Sarnath) near Benares. These five thus became the first monks of the Buddhist monastic community (Sangha). From that day on, he taught and spoke for 45 years before men and women of all walks of life, kings and peasants, brahmins and outcasts, moneylenders and beggars, saints and robbers. He accepted as a given the caste distinctions that still exist in India today, but emphasized their irrelevance to the path he was teaching.

Buddha is said to have died at the age of 80 and entered Parinirvana.

The aftermath of his life

At the first Buddhist Council ("of the Five Hundred"), which met in a cave near Rajagriha (Rājagṛha, Pali: Rājagaha) immediately after the extinguishment of the Enlightened One, Ānanda, who was known for his excellent memory, is said to have recited the doctrinal discourses. Mahakashyapa recited the Abidharma and Upali the monastic precepts.

Tradition reports that a canon of doctrine (dharma) and one of religious discipline (vinayapitaka) were compiled at this council. A text purporting to report on this, Kāśyapasaṃgīti-sūtra is preserved in the Chinese canon (Taishō no. 2027).

From the perspective of religious phenomenology, Gautama as a religious authority embodies the type of the "founder", the "mystic" and the "teacher". The American universal historian Jerry H. Bentley, like many other scholars before him, pointed out striking parallels in the lives of Jesus and Buddha.