Resin Statues :: Family Buddha

All things have a story...

The life of the Buddha as we know it comes mostly from the sources of the Tipitaka scriptures. The word "pitaka" means "basket," and the Pali Canon, the standard collection of Buddhist scriptures, is made up of three pitakas or baskets. The first of the three tipitakas (three baskets) is called Vinaya Pitaka and involves rules for nuns and monks. The second tipitaka is named Sutta Pitaka and mainly consists of discourses of the Buddha. The third tipitaka is known as Abhidhamma Pitaka and deals with Buddhist psychology, metaphysics and philosophy. From these texts or canons, we learn of the Buddha’s life.

We know the Buddha’s birth name was Siddhartha Gautama and he was born circa 484 BC in the city of Lumbini. A Buddhist legend states that minutes after his birth, Siddhartha stepped forward and proclaimed himself "most noble" and said, "This is my last birth. Never again shall I be born." During Siddhartha’s infancy, a sadhu (great holy man) visited his father, who was King Suddhodana. The sadhu told the great king that Siddhartha was destined to go down one of two paths in his life. The first path was that of a great king. But this could only happen if Siddhartha remained inside the confines of the palace grounds and did not see death, despair, anguish and suffering outside the palace walls. The second path was that of a great wise and holy man, or sadhu. As a sadhu, Siddhartha would renounce his father’s kingdom, all its money and riches, and even his family to search for truth and enlightenment. Knowing this, his father shielded young Siddhartha from the harsh realities outside the palace. Kept inside the palace grounds, Siddhartha lived the life of a typical prince, groomed to become a king with abundant wealth and a wife and child. But by age 29, Siddhartha ventured outside the palace grounds and witnessed despair, death, diseases, poverty and misery for the first time. These sights prompted Siddhartha to rethink his comfortable life inside the palace. Eventually he decided to abandon his royal life, leaving his family, the kingdom and all his money behind. He went on a spiritual quest, living the life of an ascetic, dressed in monk’s robes, with no possessions, while undertaking spiritual practices.

Eventually, after six long, arduous years, Siddhartha gained realization, or what is known as enlightenment in Buddhism, and went on to teach others what he learned. He continued to do so until the age of 80, when he died from eating a poisonous food. From the time of his enlightenment at the age of 35, Siddhartha was known as the Buddha, which means the "awakened one." While some of the stories associated with Buddha may be difficult to substantiate, such as his grand proclamation minutes after his birth, others are more provable with hundreds and even thousands of witnesses to testify of his actions.