Life Leading Up to Siddhartha Gautama's Awakening Essay

Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Gautama Buddha or just simply the Buddha was born in what is now known as Nepal sometime between c. 563 BCE and c. 480 BCE into the caste system with his caste being the Kshatriya, the caste of royalty or the military elite. He was born to Śuddhodana, a head chief of the Shakya tribe, and Maya, a princess. Siddhartha’s father held a naming ceremony for a five day old Siddhartha where eight Brahmin priests predicted that Siddhartha would either be a great holy man or a great king. The prophecy was correct as Siddhartha Gautama has had one of the largest impacts on Asian culture by creating the fourth most popular religion in the world that is still active 2,500 years later.

Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, is the story of a young man searching for enlightenment. Through his journey, Siddhartha follows several Buddhist and Hindu paths to achieve his ultimate goal of enlightenment. Siddhartha follows the path of the Brahmin, the Samana, the materialistic gambler, and eventually the Buddhist middle path. Being the son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha leads a privileged life, but this isn’t enough for him. Siddhartha had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and after a time, he leaves his father to find his own path to Nirvana. Although Siddhartha was raised in a strict Hindu society, his path to Nirvana was a combination of Buddhism, and Hinduism.

    In Hesse's novel, Siddhartha the title character, Siddhartha leaves the Brahmins in search of Nirvana - spiritual peace.  The journey he endures focuses on two main goals - to find peace and the right path (http://www.ic.ucsb.edu/~ggotts/hesse/life/jennifer/html).  Joseph Mileck, the author of Hermann Hesse:  Life and Art, asserts that Siddhartha focuses on a sense of unity developed through Siddhartha's mind, body, and soul (Baumer).  Hesse's Siddhartha revolves around three central journeys - a physical, a mental, and a spiritual journey.

Here Siddhartha is demonstrating that he is the only one that matters when it comes to thoughts of who he is, and only his opinion of himself matters. Acceptance and the ability to look into himself will lead to that road of happiness. Also, to be minimalistic as to if there is nothing to be needed then it is not. This is something many people should take into consideration as to stay away from being materialistic.

These words seem to spur something in Siddhartha, and though he’s said that no one can teach or give Nirvana, he does this for Govinda. It shows a drastic change in character.

Enlightenment is defined as the understanding and knowledge with the lack of hope and pain. The idea of enlightenment can be found I different situations that can be connected through the spiritual awakening of one’s self. Siddhartha and the little boy from The Ocean at the End of the Lane are worlds apart in age, creed, culture and historical era, they are similar in that they are both on a journey of spiritual awakening.

In The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh provides a citation from the Buddha, which gives insight into the cure of our distress. “I teach only suffering and the transformation of suffering” (Thich Nhat

One theme is that people can teach religious doctrine, but it may not lead one to find

It is said that history is shaped by the lives of great men.  Great men are leaders.  They bring about change; they improve the lives of others; they introduce new ideas, models, and theories to society.  Most of the world's religions were founded, developed, or discovered by great men.  Two particular religions - Christianity and Buddhism - developed in different parts of the world, under different circumstances, and in different social atmospheres.  But each religion is based upon the teachings of a great man.  When one compares the life of Buddha with the life of Jesus, one finds that the two share many things in common.  This essay aims to compare and contrast the lives of Buddha1 and Jesus in two key areas:  conception and birth.

Siddhartha Gautama was born between 563 and 480 BCE as the prince of Lumbini (in what is now Nepal). His mother died in either in childbirth or shortly thereafter and and his father was left to raise him. During his birth celebrations, it was predicted that Siddhartha would either become a great king or a great spiritual leader. His father wanted him to take over the throne, so he avoided religious teachings and sheltered him from suffering. Siddhartha, unsatisfied with with the life he was leading and yearning to learn about the world, he left his home at twenty-nine to seek the true meaning of life. On his travels he saw an old man, a diseased man,

Siddhartha was the child of the king of the time named Śuddhodana and his wife the queen. When, the queen fell pregnant, the kingdom was overjoyed as the king now had a male heir to his kingdom so that when he died, someone could take over and be the most powerful man in the land. However, just before Siddhartha was born, the queen had a dream. The royal dream experts and soothsayers concluded that her son would either become a great teacher or a powerful king. The king therefore thought the best thing for his son would be to become a king in the lap of luxury and not a religious man who devoted their life to religion.

Legend says the Buddha was originally born Siddhartha Gautama and his father was a prince of the Shakya tribe. The legend is that he was conceived after his mother’s “miraculous” encounter with a white elephant and his mother passed on a week after his birth. His father took great measures to prepare Siddhartha to succeed him. Raised in a life of luxury and affluence, things changed when he visited a nearby town and saw suffering first hand. According to the legend, Siddhartha at the age of 29 after a moment of realization decided to leave home (The Great Going Forth). He left the luxury of home taking nothing with him and set forth into the world to seek

Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama in Lumbini, Nepal during the 4th to 6th century B.C. He was born to the King Sakya Sudhodana, who ruled at Kapilavastu in Ancient India, and Queen Maya. After seven days of giving birth to Siddhartha his mother died however, a holy man was to have said that one of two great things would come of the newborn; he would grow up to become a great king or military leader or he would be a great spiritual leader. After the passing of his mother, Buddha grew up in a rich household and lived an extravagant life. According to their beliefs, he married at the age of sixteen to a girl named Yasodhara, which they had a child together. During this time, his father had ordered that he were to live a life of isolation in

Buddhism arose in northern India in the 6th century BCE. The historical founder of Buddhism, Siddharta Gautama (c.560-480 BCE) was born in a village called Lumbini into a warrior tribe called the Sakyas (from where he derived the title Sakyamuni, meaning 'Sage of the Sakyas'). According to tradition Gautama's father, Suddhodana was the king of a small principality based on the town of Kapilavastu. His mother, Queen Maya, died seven days after Gautama's birth. Following the death of Maya, Suddhodana married Maya's sister, Prajapati, by whom Gautama was brought up in great luxury and sheltered from the harshness of the outside world.

Siddhartha Gautama also known as Buddha (Enlightened One) was born in Nepal in the 6th century B.C. Buddha father was the king who ruled a tribe that was known to be economically poor. Buddha’s mother had died a shortly after giving birth to him, which caused his father to be very protective over him. Buddha father wanted to protect his son from misery and pain of the world, so he was raised in palace built just for him. Buddha was in his late 20s when he first experienced the world outside the palace. In which, caused him to realize that there is a lot of pain and suffering in humanity. Buddha came to this realization that suffering lays at the end of all existence, this occurred when he encountered an old man, an ill man, a corpse and an ascetic. Shortly after Buddha renounced his princely