Gautama Buddha
With the departure of Lord Krishna (Krishna Avatar), the Kali yuga set in. In this age, the true devotion to Vedas was replaced by empty rituals. To enlighten the world, Lord Vishnu descended the earth as Buddha, the enlightened one.
He was born as the crown prince of the Kapilavastu to King Suddhodana and Maya. He was named Siddhartha, meaning "All thing fulfilled". But his mother died soon after his birth and was broughtup by Prajapati, the sister of Maya. Buddha was saddened by death of living creatures, and vices like poverty. He wasn't happy with any answers that were provided to him and he decided to find out the meaning and the absolute truth and he left his wife and child to a hermit's life in the forest and became the enlightened one.
His preachings spawned off the religion of Buddhism now popular across the whole world.Buddha advocated the Middle Path, in which he offered a balanced, harmonious way of life, steering between two extremes of self-indulgence and total abstinence. Buddhism rests upon four Noble Truths:
- Suffering is universal,
- It is caused by desire and yearning
- Suffering can be prevented and overcome and
- Eradication of desires can lead to removal of suffering.
To prevent suffering one has to conquer craving and desire and this conquest leads to the attainment of nirvana or complete enlightenment.
Gautama Buddha (c. 563/480 – c. 483/400 BCE), also known as Siddhārtha Gautama (सिद्धार्थ गौतम) in Sanskrit or Siddhāttha Gotama (शिद्धत्थ गोतम) in Pali , Shakyamuni (i.e. "Sage of the Shakyas") Buddha, or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was a monk (śramaṇa), mendicant, and sage, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the northeastern part of ancient India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.
Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement common in his region. He later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala.
Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism. He is believed by Buddhists to be an enlightened teacher who attained full Buddhahood and shared his insights to help sentient beings end rebirth and suffering. Accounts of his life, discourses and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarised after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.
In Vaishnava Hinduism, the historic Buddha is considered to be an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. Of the ten major avatars of Vishnu, Vaishnavites believe Gautama Buddha to be the ninth and most recent incarnation.
