Shakyamuni Buddha

Shakyamuni Buddha’s secular name was Siddhartha Gautama, crown prince of King Suddhodana of Kapilavastu in ancient India, born in the sixth century BCE. Witnessing the universal sufferings of birth, aging, illness, and death, he renounced worldly life at age twenty-nine, undertook six years of rigorous ascetic practice, and finally attained perfect enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-sambodhi) beneath the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya after gazing upon the morning star. For the next forty-five years, he taught the Dharma throughout the Ganges River basin; he entered parinirvana at Kushinagar at the age of eighty. Buddhism was introduced to China during the Han dynasty, and over two millennia it has deeply integrated with Chinese culture. To this day, the Bathing the Buddha Festival on the 8th day of the 4th lunar month and the Buddha’s Enlightenment Day on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month remain widely observed; Shakyamuni Buddha is enshrined as the Original Master and Honoured One in the Mahavira Hall of every major Buddhist temple, exerting profound and enduring influence.