HISTORY OF BUDDHISM
The story of Buddhism begins with a man who became enlightened, that is, with one who had direct and insight into the nature of reality. Actually, the tern “Buddha” means Enlightened or Awakened One. His life can be traced back to the year 623 B.C. The Buddha was born a prince among the Sakyas , a tribe of the warrior caste whose capital , Kapilvastu , was located in what is now Napal. His father was King Suddhodana. His mother, Queen Siri Maha Maya, died soon after he was born. The prince was named Siddhattha Gotama.
Although Prince Siddhatha was provided the best of everything, the luxurious way of life could not divert him from a serious meditation turn of mind. One day, the young prince rode through the village streets and saw an old and decrepit man; then he saw a man. He had never seen anything like this before in his palace and thus became preoccupied with the ultimate questions of suffering, contingency, and death.
At the age of 29, Prince Siddhattha chose to leave his palace, his property, his title of crown prince, and even his beautiful wife and son, to search for a means of salvations. He first sought out the great spiritual teachers and mastered their meditative exercises. Then he undertook the rigorous disciplines of self-mortification. Finally, after years of radical physical asceticism and abstract philosophy, he achieved Enlightenment by sitting quietly in concentrated meditation beneath a Bodhi tree on a full-moon night. Here he came to the realization that the cause of suffering is craving which is in turn, due to ignorance. The way to eliminate suffering was through the right view, right conduct and right concentration, he discovered. Feeling compassion for all suffering mortals, the Buddha decided to share what he had discovered through the process of Enlightenment by preaching his message of salvation or Dhamma openly to all people of all castes without any discrimination. He organized a community of monk- - the Sangha- -including disciples from all castes.