Buddha, or Gautama Siddhara, was born in what would now be known as Lumbini,Nepal around 563 B.C. He was a wealthy prince with a wife and son. When he was twenty-nine he left his family and the royal way of life to go on a journey of self discovery, which was not very uncommon for his time. He spent much of his time in deep meditation, which involves starving and torturing your self, but after six years of agony, chose the less extreme middle way of meditation. The prince became enlightened under a bo tree near Buddha Gaya in Bihar, India, and took on the name Buddha, or enlightened one. He began teaching at Varanasi, where he founded an order of monks called the Sang ha. He spent the rest of his life traveling and preaching in northern India. Buddha died when he was in his 80's at Kusinagara in Uttar Pradesh in 483 BC. About 250 years later some Buddhist monks wrote out his oral teachings and formed the Tripitaka.

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