Born in Lumbini, Nepal [disputed by Ranajit Pal], Siddhartha was destined to a luxurious life as a prince. He had three palaces specially built for him by his father. But at 29 he escaped these royal trappings on his horse Kanthaka, accompanied by his servant Channa, leaving behind his luxurious life to become a wandering mendicant in search of Truth.
That got him nowhere, he was later to say. Buddhism or the Middle Way thus avoids the extremes of princely sensual indulgence and ascetic self-mortification. Eventually, sitting under a banyan tree, now known as the Bodhi tree in Buddha Gaya (Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India), he vowed never to rise until he realized the Truth. He entered the jhanas, emerged, analyzed the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, reflecting on the Three Marks of Existence, and attained liberating-insight. He recalled his former lives, the working out of karma, and other supernormal things.
That night, now 35, he attained enlightenment (bodhi) and glimpsed/touched nirvana. From then on, he came to be known as the "Buddha" or the "Awakened One." Buddha is also sometimes translated as the "Enlightened One." He is referred to by many epithets, such as Shakyamuni ("Sage [muni] of the Shakya Clan"), Tathagata ("Thus Gone One"), Bhante ("Venerable Sir"), Bhagwan, and even Mahavira ("Great Hero," an epithet now exclusively applied to one of his contemporaries, Vardhamana, the founder of Jainism). His name, of course, was originally Prince Siddhartha Gautama of the Shakya Clan.
Hindus are fond of saying that he is a Hindu avatar, namely, a reincarnation of the God Vishnu (according to the Puranas). This effectively keeps Hindus from studying Buddhism since they regard it as simply a part of Hinduism. In the Bhagavata Purana, the Buddha is said to be 24th of 25 avatars, prefiguring a forthcoming final incarnation. A number of Hindu traditions portray Buddha as the most recent of ten principal avatars, known as the dasavatara ("ten incarnations of God").
