The Buddha: Siddhartha's life and intellectual context

Overview

Recall questions on Siddhartha's birth and upbringing, the four sights, the renunciation, asceticism and the Middle Way, the enlightenment and teaching career, Brahmanism and the Buddha's criticisms of it, the Sramanas and Jainism, and his life as a model today.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Who was Siddhartha Gautama, and why do Buddhists call him the Buddha?

   Model answer

   Siddhartha Gautama was a man born into a ruling family in the Sakya territory of what is now the Nepal-India border region, traditionally dated to around the fifth or sixth century BCE. Buddhists call him the Buddha, meaning the Awakened One, because they hold that he woke up to the true nature of reality by his own effort. The title describes an achievement, not a divine identity: Buddhists do not regard him as a god or a saviour.

2. 2

   What do Buddhists say about the circumstances of Siddhartha's birth, and why does the story matter to them?

   Model answer

   Traditional accounts describe a birth surrounded by marvels: a dream of a white elephant, a painless delivery in a grove at Lumbini, and a sage who predicted the child would become either a world-ruler or a great religious teacher. Buddhists read these details as marking out a rare and significant life rather than as a claim to divinity. The prediction also explains his father's efforts to keep him at home, which sets up everything that follows.

3. 3

   What kind of upbringing is Siddhartha said to have had, and what was the point of it?

   Model answer

   Buddhists describe a life of deliberately managed luxury: three palaces for the seasons, entertainment, fine food, a marriage to Yasodhara and a son, Rahula. His father is said to have screened out anything that might prompt religious questions. The point of the story is that indulgence was tried thoroughly and failed. Having everything a person could want did not answer the problem of existence, which is why Buddhists say pleasure cannot be the cure for dukkha.

4. 4

   What are the four passing sights, and what did each one show Siddhartha?

   Model answer

   Riding beyond the palace, Siddhartha is said to have encountered an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and finally a wandering holy man. The first three revealed ageing, illness and death as unavoidable for everyone, including himself and those he loved. The fourth showed that some people had given up ordinary life to search for a way through. Together they present the problem and hint at a possible response.

5. 5

   Why do Buddhists treat the four sights as a turning point rather than simply a sad discovery?

   Model answer

   Because the shock was not the existence of suffering but the realisation that no amount of privilege exempts anyone from it. Buddhists say Siddhartha saw that the pleasures he had were temporary and therefore could not secure him. The sights turn a general fact into a personal and urgent one, and the fourth converts despair into a question worth pursuing. This is why Buddhists treat honest attention to ageing, sickness and death as the beginning of practice, not as morbidity.

6. 6

   What is meant by Siddhartha's renunciation?

   Model answer

   Renunciation, sometimes called the Great Departure, refers to Siddhartha leaving his home, family, wealth and inherited position at about the age of twenty-nine to live as a homeless seeker. He is said to have cut off his hair, exchanged his clothing and taken up the wandering life. For Buddhists it models the willingness to let go of what one is attached to, and it is echoed today when a person ordains as a monk or nun.

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