10 Facts About the Buddha

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Shakyamuni is not the famous fat Budai.

The human who became the Buddha, that is, the "Awakened One," was born Prince Siddhartha Gautama in a part of the world now known as Central Asia, between East and West. Dr. Ranajit Pal specifies Prince Siddhartha's hometown as modern Bamiyan, Afghanistan (not Nepal). Of course, Siddhartha was raised in three hometowns, three seasonal capitals. It is our conjecture that the other two were Kabul (Kapilavatthu or Kapilapura, the original site of the real Kapilavastu) and Mes Aynak (Little Copper Well).

Accurate depiction of Buddha (Gandhara)

1. Lived to the age of 80 but could have lived an entire lifetime, an age, a kalpa (120 years at that time) had he willed it.
2. Had blues eyes, curly black hair, golden skin, and was tall and had other striking features.
3. Mother passed away a week after his birth and her sister, married to the same Shakyan King Suddhodana, raised him and later became history's first Buddhist nun.
4. Had a wife, his royal cousin Bimba Devi (called Princess Yasodhara and later the enlightened nun Ven. Bhaddakaccana), whom he married at 16 and a son, the future king (called Rahula and later the enlightened monk Ven. Rahula), who was born when Siddhartha was 29.
5. Left home, renouncing the throne, at 29 in order to save his extended family, the Shakya Clan, and people; returned seven years later to do just that -- spreading the Buddha-Dharma in Afghanistan at the same time it was being spread in proto-India (unconsolidated Magadha, Savatthi, Benares, etc.)

   

   The Future-Buddha, Maitreya, dressed as a Central Asian king (IT)

6. Had two yoga teachers (Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta) before setting off on his own to engage in more self-destructive austerities then to practice the meditative absorptions (jhanas, dhyanas) that led to direct realization and enlightenment at age 35.

7. 

   The Buddha taught everyone.

   Set out to establish a non-Vedic shraman Dharma and a monastic community of nuns and monks and female and male lay followers, as buddhas had in the past, understanding that gender is no impediment to attaining the stages of enlightenment in this very life and in his life was called not a
   Buddhist but a Karma-vadin, a "Teacher of the Importance of Intentional Action."
8. Started history's first universal "world religion" along with the only two other more recent world religions, Catholicism (a popular form of imperial Christianity) and Islam.
9. Reluctantly performed miracles, not wanting the display of magical powers (siddhis) to overshadow the paramount importance of the liberating teachings he rediscovered, which are called the Dharma and those who attain what he attained by following the Dharma, the Noble Sangha.
10. He was reborn for his final birth on earth and realized Buddhahood here but did not limit his teachings to humans, instead making known the Dharma to devas, "shining ones" (fairies and space beings) from all over the galaxy, universe, or dimensions of samsara as the case may be.