What is the origin of Buddhism?
Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism can point to an individual founder and look back to a date for its beginning—Siddhartha Gautama, a Hindu born about 560 B.C. at Lumbini near the border of India in what is now Nepal. His father, a raja or minor king of that area, tried to isolate him from the harsh realities of life, raising him in the luxurious surroundings of his palace, preparing him to rule. He was married and had a son but eventually at age 29 left the palace and saw a sick person, an aging man, and a corpse—impressing him deeply with the suffering of this life. At the same time, he saw a monk and became aware of the “wandering life”. He determined to solve the riddle of life and immediately left the palace, his wife and son seeking the truth to the human predicament.
