Buddha

   Gautama Buddha, to whom in the western world the name Buddha is usually applied, was according to the traditions of the faith the twenty-fifth in order of a series of great religious leaders who preached the gospel to mankind. On each occasion, however, men forgot the truth and fell away into ignorance and sin, and a new Buddha arose. Guatama was born about 560 BC to a princely family of the Sakyas, rulers of portions of Oudh and Nepal. Before his birth his mother Maya dreamt she beheld the future Buddha descending from heaven and entering her womb in the form of a white elephant, for which reason the elephant is a sacred animal to Buddhists.

   At the time of his birth earthquakes and miracles of healing took place, flowers bloomed out of season, and heavenly music was heard. It was prophesied that at the age of thirty-five he would become a Buddha, after seeing the four signs: a decrepit man, a sick man, a dead man, and a monk.

   In spite of precautions the four signs were manifested and Gautama, at the age of twenty-nine, abandoned his princely life, his wife, and his son, and proceeded to a life of six years of austeries, after which he sat alone under the sacred Bo Tree, and after a successful battle with Mara, the tempter, he became a Buddha, the Enlightened One.

   After forty-five years spent in teaching the Buddha died at the age of eighty. The religious system which he initiated spread to Tibet, China, and Japan, where it still survives, although in India itself it has largely been displaced by Brahmanism and Islam.

   The doctrine of the Noble Eightfold Path, sometimes called the Middle Path because it avoids both bodily indulgence and asceticism, has been made known to the western world largely through the activities of the Theosophical Society and kindred bodies.

   The adoption in Vedic religion of Buddha as the ninth avatar of Vishnu was due to the necessity for some compromise between the two faiths.