Shakyamuni, the Historical Buddha
Prince Siddharta, who was destined to become Shakyamuni Buddha, was born to Queen Mahamaya and King Shudhodana of Kapilavastu in approximately 563 BCE at Lumbini, which was near the modern border between India and Nepal.
Growing up in the palace, he enjoyed a life of privilege and luxury. Then, when he was 29 years old, Siddharta travelled outside of the palace for the first time in his life and was deeply shocked by what he saw – a sick man, an old man, a dead man and a monk. He became convinced that all of life was pervaded by suffering and from that moment he renounced his royal life, left his wife and child in the palace, and set out to find enlightenment.
After years of engaging in very austere practices which nearly led to his starvation, he realised that this was not the true path to liberation from suffering. He drank a bowl of nourishing milk, sat down beneath the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, and vowed not to rise again until he had found enlightenment. By morning he had achieved his goal.
Buddha Shakyamuni’s first teaching was about The Four Noble Truths: all life is pervaded by suffering; suffering has a cause; suffering can end; and the path that leads to the end of suffering. One of the Buddha’s great skills was his ability to teach according to the capacity of those listening to him. This resulted in a wide variety and number of teachings called sutras.
At the age of 80, in Kushinagar, the Buddha said, “All conditioned phenomena are impermanent. This is the last teaching of the Tathagata.” He then passed into parinirvana (final liberation at the time of death).
Lumbini, Bodhgaya, and Kushinagar are still among the places of holy pilgrimage for millions of Buddhists today.
Relic and Source
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- The four identical relics were offered by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
- The blood relics came from Meiktila Relic Museum in Burma and were offered by the abbot who manages the museum.
- The head relics were offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche by his student, Wu Wen Yuen in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2001.
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- The small granular relics were offered by a Thai monk who carried them to Malaysia.
- The white, flake-like relics came from Meiktila Relic Museum in Burma.
- The one large and three smaller relics were offered by a senior monk in Borobudur, Indonesia.
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