Buddha was the founder of Buddhism and an Indian philosopher. His real name was Sidhartha Gautama. Sidhartha was born in 563 B.C. in the Sakes kingdom which is on the border of Nepal and India at the foothills of the Himalayas.

Sidhartha was born into a very wealthy family and had a very good life. But one day he had four visions. One vision was of an old man, the second was a sick man, the third was a corpse, and in the fourth vision he saw himself meeting a wandering holy man. After those four visions he discovered that life was suffering until you gain enlightenment. When he turned 29 years of age he decided to leave his family and become a wandering monk and go on a search for enlightenment. He first investigated Hinduism but he thought the Hindu caste system was repellent and Hindu asceticism futile.

Sidhartha then sat under a Bodhi tree (Bo tree) and sat waiting for enlightenment until it came. Once the enlightenment finally came, Buddha realized the four noble truths: (1) Life is suffering from birth to death.. (2) All suffering is caused by ignorance of reality and the craving, attachment, and grasping that result from such ignorance. (3) Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance or attachment. (4) The path to the suppression of suffering is morality, wisdom, and samadh, or concentration. After these truths came to Sidhartha, people began to call him Buddha, which means enlightened one.

So he wandered through the valley of the Ganges River teaching his doctrines and establishing monastic communities. He gained five followers, which he lost, then gained again. He even returned home from his journey and made his father, wife, and other members of his family believe in his beliefs.

After forty-five years of doing missionary work, Buddha became ill from contaminated pork and died at the age of eighty. He died in Kusinagara, Nepal. After he died he was burnt and his bones were given out as sacred relics. Many Buddhists believe that power is still in the relics (bones) and the statues that are around the world.