Gautama Buddha

Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly known as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains, in the region of present-day Nepal and northern India, during roughly the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition he was born into a royal family of the Shakya clan at Lumbini but renounced his household life to become a wandering ascetic, seeking release from suffering through years of extreme self-denial before rejecting that path in favor of a middle way. He is said to have attained enlightenment, or nirvana, through meditation at Bodh Gaya, after which he spent decades teaching across the Ganges plain and building a monastic community, the sangha, before dying at Kushinagar. His teachings on the nature of suffering, impermanence and the path to liberation became the foundation of one of the world major religions.