The Buddha was born in what is now North India and was the son of a king called Suddhudana who ruled the Shakya tribe. Before his birth, his mother, Maha Maya dreamt that a white elephant descended from the sky and entered her right side. It was the custom at the time for a couple to return to their mother's kingdom to give birth. During the trip the Buddha was born in Lumbini, which is modern day nepal. Many accounts say that his mother died during childbirth and that he was brought up by an aunt Maha Pajapate.
Back at the palace, his father consulted eight seers/fortune tellers. They all gave the same prophesy. That either the Buddha would be a 'universal monarch' (great ruler) or would be overcome with compassion for the suffering in the world and thus become a great holy person. Of the eight, only one gave the prediction that he would definitely become a great holy person. He would be referred to as "The Buddha" which means awake one, after his enlightenment, but at this point in his childhood, he was called Sidartha Gotoma.
His father didn't want his son to be a holy man, and so protected his son from seeing suffering by keeping him inside the palace and surrounding him with luxury. It worked long enough for Sidartha to grow up and marry a woman called Yodudhara and have a son which he named Rahula, which means 'bond'.
Eventually, the prince felt too stifled by living in the palace and insisted on going outside. His father was worried, but consented, allowing him to go in a covered coach. But the Buddha, who had never seen suffering, peeked out and saw what are refered to as 'The Four Heavenly Messengers'. That was, a sick person, an old person, a dead person and a holy man. The driver of the chariot answered the prince each time he asked what he was seeing.
That evening, the prince was upset by having seen suffering, and so the king put on a dancing show to distract his sons mind. But the prince woke up and saw the dancers asleep, covered in sweat and snoring with their make-up running over their face. He realised that suffering was a part of life and that he wanted to be a holy man. He got the chariot driver, Channa, to take him out to the forest where he swapped his fine clothes with a beggar, and walked looking for the answer to human suffering.
He ended up studying Hinduism and Yoga with two teachers, Alara Kolama and Udaka Ramaputta, and became so accomplished at Yoga that there was no more he could learn, but he still wasn't enlightened, so he became a homeless wanderer with five companions.
After a long period of austerities and burning and starving himself, he wandered off alone into the forest. He only ate one grain of rice a day and soon collapsed into a ditch from malnourishment. A milk-maid called Sujata mistook him for a forest spirit who had granted her a wish and so she nursed him back to health. While he was recovering, he heard a man go by on a boat, the man was teaching his son to play a stringed musical instrument, explaining that to get a good sound, the string mustn't be too tight or too loose, and the aesthetik realised that living to extremes wasn't a spiritual path.
So, when well enough, he sat under a tree and vowed not to move until he had found the last answer that ended human suffering. Mara, the God of illusion, heard of this and sent his three daughters to tempt him, but it didn't work. The aesthetic continued to concentrate on finding the answer to human suffering. After forty-nine days aged thirty five he finally broke through and became enlightened... sitting under a tree in Bodhgaya, central India.
He stayed and enjoyed the bliss of Nirvana for a while, then decided there was too much suffering and ignorance in the world for people to be able to understand what he had found, so was about to wonder off into the forest forever, but the Gods appeared and told him there were people who would understand and begged him to return to the world and teach, which he did.
He wondered back and found his five former companions. Initially they mocked him because he was well-fed, but soon saw that he had found the answer. In Sarnarth, near where he had found freedom, he gave his first sermon to the five aesthetics, which is known as the 'Setting the Wheel in Motion' sermon.
This sermon gives the four noble truths, that all life is unsatisfactory, suffering is caused by craving, craving has an end/is impermanent like anything else, because it has an end at all it can be ended forever and there's a definite path that does so.
Then the path is described as an eight-fold path, a series of guides of how to conduct one's mind, body and life in a way that will end craving and so end suffering.
Listening to the discourse, Kodanna found Nirvana such was the Buddha's wisdom. Soon all the aesthetics were enlightened. In two months, they had been joined by sixty more people who found Nirvana and were known as Arahants.
The Buddha spent four months in Varinessi during the rainy season, then went to see a king he had earlier promised to see.
There were three seasons at Bamboo Grove. His father sent a delegation to bring his son back, but they all converted upon hearing the Buddha and were soon enlightened. This happened another eight times with another eight delegations, all of whom forgot the message they were carrying. The ninth was led my a man called Katudayi, who also found Nirvana but remembered to pass on the message from the king that the Buddha was to return home.
Two years after finding enlightenment, he went home. Most of the royal court converted to Buddhism and the woman who brought him up became the first female nun.
There was briefly a schism when a rebel monk tried to kill the Buddha three times but failed.
The Buddha taught his message of freedom and simplicity over the plains of India for 45 years.
He died, reportedly after eating bad pork and or mushrooms. As he was carried to his funeral pyre, the chief disciple asked him to sum up the teachings of Buddhism. The Buddha said; 'There's nothing worth holding'.
