Presented to the members of the Buddha Center on Saturday, July 5, 2014.

Part 1

Conception to Enlightenment

The Shakyan Republic

Gotama, as he is consistently called all through the Pali Canon, referring to his family or clan name, was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, in the traditional territory of the Shakyan tribe. “Shakya” means “capable, able.” The Shakyan region was an independent tribal confederacy, with its capital in Kapilavastu, but it was politically subject to Kosala, its powerful neighbour to the west, and some Buddhist texts refer to the Buddha as Kosalan. The Shakyans were notorious for their pride and independent nature. Kosala waged a war of genocide against the Shakyans towards the end of the Buddha’s life. Chinese pilgrims visiting the site centuries later described it as desolate. Kosala itself was subsequently annexed by the Magadha Empire. The language of the Pali Canon is sometimes described as Magadhan.

Gotama’s family were members of the prestigious Ikshsvaku dynasty, a.k.a. as the Suryavamsa or Solar Dynasty.

Manu, the first human being and legislator of humanity, was an ancestor of the Solar Dynasty, much as Moses was an ancestor to the Jews. In the Buddhist view, this dynasty was founded in prehistoric times by Maha Sammata. The texts say that the original government of the world was democratic (since there were no rulers yet), and Gotama’s father was an elected chieftain in a sort of aristocratic proto-democracy, not dissimilar from the Greece of Socrates, who was a contemporary of the Buddha. After regarding Suddhodhana as a monarch or an oligarch, scholars now see him as an elected chieftain. At the time of the Buddha, the fragile values of quasi-democracy coexisted with a world of aggressive hereditary monarchs and military dictators hungry to tax the new wealth of mercantilism, frequent wars of annexation, widespread lawlessness and brigandage, and terrible punishments for crimes, including mutilation, blinding, impaling, strangling, and beheading. Trade was extensive but travel was dangerous. At the time of Gotama, Brahmanism, which came from the west, had still not deeply penetrated north-east India, and the ascetic counterculture was widespread. Shakya itself did not have a caste system, although in countries where the caste system was established the Buddha is always identified as a member of the military caste that also constituted the political class.

The father of Gotama was Suddhodana. Suddhodhana was known for his prowess in warfare and sword play. He was also known to be a just and righteous ruler.

The mother of Suddhodhana was Kaccana. She was a member of the Koliyan clan. The Koliyans ruled the region to the east of the Rohini River, whereas the Shakyas governed the west side.

The mother of Gotama was Maya. Her father, Suppabuddha, was the king of Devadaha. Maya was Suddhodhana’s cousin. Suddhodhana had another wife, Pajapati, Maya’s younger sister, who raised Gotama after Maya’s death. Both Maya and Pajapati were the daughters of Suppabuddha.

The Shakyans and the Koliyans were both vassal states of the Kosala kingdom to the west. The Shakyans and Koliyans had intermarried between themselves since ancient times to maintain the purity of their blood lines and were the two most prominent families in the region.

According to the dominant tradition, Suddhodhana and Maya lived together chastely for 20 years, at which time Maya became pregnant and gave birth to Gotama.

The Conception of the Buddha

Maya was the daughter of Suddhodana’s uncle, and therefore his cousin. Kapilavastu (probably present-day Tilaurakot), Lumbini (present-day Rumindei), where the Buddha was born, and Devadaha, are all located in the Rupandehi district of Nepal.

The third century (BCE) brick-palace complex located at Tiraulakot is believed to be based on an original wood structure and is 550 acres. This accords well with the statement of the Chinese pilgrim Xuangang, who stated that the royal precinct of the city was about 450 acres. An alternative site is Piprahwa, across the border in India, which seems to be less favoured by scholars.

Interestingly, Kapilavastu is traditionally believed to be named after Kapila, the philosopher and founder of Samkhya, who lived around 200 years earlier. Kapila is regarded as the first major philosopher to systematize a philosophical view that emphasizes understanding the nature of existence, while the Buddha also emphasized meditation as a technique for removing suffering. Like Kapila, the Buddha regarded the Vedic gods as limited and subject to conditions and rejected Brahmanic rituals and doctrines in favor of a more direct, experiential path to liberation. 

In accordance with the custom of the time, still practised in Nepal, Maya left her husband’s house late in her pregnancy to deliver at the house of her parents in Devadaha. Although Maya was travelling by carriage, she was accompanied by an entourage, so it seems unlikely that she made better time than average walking speed. The trip would have taken roughly a week, but she never got to Devadaha.

Maya stopped in Lumbini, and in the heat of the afternoon she went into labour in a park of sal trees. Alternatively, Hajime Nakamura has suggested that Maya travelled back to Lumbini for a ritual cleansing in the baths there, but the texts clearly imply that Maya stopped at Lumbini on the way to Devadaha. An early post-canonical tradition states that the sal trees came into bloom about this time, which suggests the month of March, not mid-May as popularly believed. Exhausted, Maya returned to Kapilavastu with her newborn son, Siddhartha. Thus, Gotama’s conception may be placed in June (associated with high summer– the time of traditional midsummer, a solar holiday that places his conception about the time of the summer solstice).

It is said that when she conceived, Queen Maya experienced a dream in which four spiritual beings transported her to Lake Anotta, a mythical Himalayan lake, where she was ritually bathed and then impregnated through her side by a great white elephant.

This lake is now associated with Lake Manasarovar at the foot of Mount Kailash, located in mid-western Tibet just over the border from Nepal, north-west of Kapilavastu. This dream was held to portend the birth of a great being.

The Birth of the Buddha

When Gotama was born, Asita, a wandering hermit ascetic, predicted that Gotama would become a Buddha. Five days after the birth, at Gotama’s naming ceremony, seven Brahmans predicted that Gotama would become either a world ruler or a world teacher. However, Kondanna, the youngest Brahman there, alone predicted that Gotama would become a Buddha. According to later tradition, Gotama was then given the name Siddhattha, “wish-fulfilled” or “he who accomplishes the goal.” Two days later, Maya died.

A great man is supposed to manifest 32 significant bodily signs. Interestingly, the human genetic code consists of 64 codons, and 32 is the standard unit for data encoding, based on the binary. The divinatory system of the I Ching is based on this principle. Although some authors emphasize the supernatural character of these signs, most of them are not difficult to visualize. The bodily signs include flat feet; long-slender fingers; pliant hands and feet; fine webs on the toes and fingers (which in extreme cases exists as a medical condition known as syndactyly); large heels; arched insteps; athletic thighs; long arms; an unobtrusive penis; dark, curly hair; soft, smooth, golden skin; rounded soles, palms, shoulders, and crown; a large, ample, muscular torso; erect and upright posture; full, round shoulders; white, even, close teeth; a large jaw; ample saliva; a long and broad tongue; a deep and resonant voice; deep blue eyes; long, thick eyelashes; a tuft of white hair between the eyebrows; and a large cranium.

Clairvoyants may also discern wheels on the soles of the feet, a ten-foot aura, and forty teeth – 8 more than what is usual for humans, but the maximum number for mammals. Despite these unusual characteristics, Gotama is described as not exceptional, though good looking. There is a story in which a wandering ascetic met the Buddha in a barn one night. They spent the night talking, but only in the morning did the ascetic realize with whom he was speaking. Although this is widely interpreted to mean that the physical appearance of the Buddha was not exceptional, it was night. Ajatasatru also could not pick him out in a  crowd, also at night. Of course, the redactors of the Pali Canon in their enthusiasm generally exaggerate the wealth and power of the Buddha’s family, the beauty of the Buddha and his male monastics, and the size of the order. The Buddha was probably refined and aristocratic in appearance. Given his military upbringing and later self-mortifications, he was probably physically fit and strong.

The Buddha’s Youth and Marriage

Suddhodhana wanted his son to become a world ruler and not a spiritual man, so from birth Gotama was raised in an atmosphere of privilege, as well as receiving the education proper to a member of the military caste. Gotama’s education appears in his interest in politics and his broad knowledge of social history and international matters.

As a young child, Gotama experienced a taste of realization while he was sitting under a rose-apple tree beside a field where his father was performing a ceremonial plowing. This early experience of meditation was crucial in his realization of enlightenment two decades later, as we shall see.

Gotama was extremely hedonistic and lived for the four months of the rainy season in the female quarters, entertained by female musicians. This behavior was somewhat contrary to Indian norms, which valued chastity and manliness, leading to the accusation of laxity later.

Subsequently he was married at the age of 16 (some sources say 19) to his cousin, Yasodhara, the daughter of Suppabuddha and Pamita, the sister of the Buddha’ s father. Yasodhara was the same age as Gotama. Gotama may have had two other wives too. The Tibetan Vinaya mentions Gopa and Mrigaja.

Although the popular view is that Gotama abandoned his station, family, wife, and child spontaneously shortly after the birth of his son, Rahula (“fetter” or “eclipse”), in disgust for his privilege and pleasure, Rahula’s name itself suggests that Gotama’s decision was the result of a process of reflection. The texts also refer to the bodhisattva’s progressive realization of the principles of interconnectedness, including the five aggregates of the self; impermanence; and suffering before his renunciation. Gotama must have informed his parents about these feelings because a discourse says that they wept and tried to convince him to stay. Therefore, he left home against his parent’s wishes, a violation of Vedic norms, which frowned upon renunciation by the young in any case.

The Renunciation

The mainstream tradition has it that Gotama left his home at the age of 29, after 13 years of marriage, but there is some support in the discourses for the view that he was still a youth, “a boy in the first phase of life,” which would make him about 19 years of age. This tradition is preserved by the Nichiren tradition. According to this view, he attained enlightenment at the age of 30. However, the Pali Canon states that he attained enlightenment at the age of 35. Asians, however, count life as beginning at conception, not birth, and give their age accordingly, so allowance must also be made for this minor difference.

The immediate cause of Gotama’s renunciation was his realization of the universality of sickness and death. The Buddha says that this realization destroyed the vanity of his youth. Inquiring into the causes of this condition, the Buddha realized that we are all born into a dangerous and violent world. We compete to survive, and in the process we cause suffering and we suffer ourselves. This suffering is inherent in life itself and cannot be escaped. “Life eats life” is the original Vedic insight. Even if we succeed in realizing a life of relative happiness, we all grow old, suffer, and die. Nothing is permanent. Consequently, Gotama formulated the desire to attain “the unborn, unaging, unfailing, deathless, sorrowless, undefined cessation of bondage,” and became increasingly dissatisfied with the household life so that he named his only son, Rahula, “fetter.”

When Gotama left home, he abandoned his station, family, wife, and young child for a life of homeless wandering. He gave up his patrimony and possessions, shaved his hair, and exchanged his royal clothes for the ochre rags of an ascetic.

At first, he lived in a cave on the eastern slope of the hill of Pandava, near Rajagaha in Magadha, and begged for his food on the streets of the city. This was the life of a homeless ascetic. By this time – roughly 445 BCE – the ascetic counterculture was already a century old. In a time of social fragmentation and spiritual and philosophical inquiry, the ascetics were an established institution of northeast India. While not universally embraced, they were tolerated and often sought out for their insight, even in matters of secular policy such as war, much as they are today in India and Nepal.

Gotama’s Search

Gotama’s quest, traditionally stated to have taken six years, passed through three distinct stages before resulting in the enlightenment that he sought. He studied meditation with two meditation masters, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta. He meditated alone in the forest, overcoming the emotion of fear. 

Finally, he spent an extended period with the Group of Five, practising austerities. When that almost killed him, he was abandoned by his companions and settled down in the forest to meditate, once more alone.

Āḷāra Kālāma
Āḷāra Kālāma was a Brahman hermit-saint who lived near Rājagaha and taught an advanced form of yogic meditation, often described as proto-Sāṃkhya in outlook. Under his guidance, Gotama mastered the practice that leads to the Sphere of Nothingness (ākiñcaññāyatana) — the second-highest plane of existence within saṃsāra. This was the highest attainment that Āḷāra himself had reached. Impressed, he offered to share leadership of his community with Gotama. Yet Gotama, perceiving that even this exalted state did not bring final liberation from suffering, politely declined and moved on.

Uddaka Rāmaputta
Gotama then studied with Uddaka Rāmaputta, a hermit ascetic said to be either the son or disciple of the sage Rāma. There he mastered the meditation that leads to the Sphere of Neither-Perception-nor-Non-Perception (nevasaññānāsaññāyatana), the highest of all the formless realms and the very summit of conditioned existence. In fact, Gotama attained this state beyond even his teacher’s own experience. Uddaka offered him leadership of the order, but Gotama again recognized that this attainment, though supremely refined, was still within the bounds of saṃsāra. Therefore, he left Uddaka as well, continuing his quest for a path to true liberation.

The Group of Five

When Gotama left his home at Kapilavastu, Kondanna, the youngest Brahman who alone had predicted that Gotama would become a Buddha, also renounced the household life, accompanied by four others – Bhaddiya, Vappa, Mahanama, and Assaji.

After he left Udaka, Gotama travelled to Uruvela (now known as Bodh Gaya) where he joined the group of five in the practices of extreme asceticism, including living and sleeping in charnel grounds, exposing the body to the elements, intense meditation, controlling and holding the breath, and near-starvation. A stock description of the practices of ascetics found frequently throughout the Pali Canon includes nakedness or rough clothing; rejecting conventions; licking one’s hands; not coming or stopping when asked; not accepting gifts or invitations; avoiding “pollution,” especially anything associated with the householder life, especially women and sex; eating next to no food; no meat; no alcohol; eating grass and dung; living only on windfalls; pulling out the hairs of one’s head and beard; standing or squatting continuously; sleeping on spikes; and frequent bathing [sic].

After several years of these practices, Gotama was on the verge of dying.

My body reached a state of extreme emaciation. Because of eating so little my limbs became like the jointed stems of creepers or bamboo; my backside became like a buffalo’s hoof; my backbone, bent or straight, was like corded beads; my jutting and broken rafters of an old house; the gleam of my eyes sunk deep in their sockets was like the gleam of water seen deep down at the bottom of a deep well.

One day, while sitting beneath a pipal (some sources say banyan) tree by the river Neranjara, near Uruvela, a girl, named Sujata, from Senani, the village across the river, came to offer some rice milk to the tree spirit as thanks for answering her prayers for a husband and a son. Gotama accepted her offering, followed by a bath in the river. When his companions saw him thus eating, drinking, and consorting with a girl, they abandoned him, declaring that he had returned to the effeminate life of his youth.

Part 2

Enlightenment to Parinirvana

Enlightenment

Having now rejected the meditations on nothingness and neither perception nor non-perception and the painful and self-destructive austerities of the Group of Five, Gotama cast his mind about for what to do. He recalled an experience that he had had as a child sitting under a rose-apple tree watching his father engage in a ceremonial ploughing. He recalled the sensation of bliss that he experienced then, and asked himself whether this pleasure might be the key to enlightenment? It appears from the texts that Gotama had previously rejected this experience because it was pleasurable, but now, he reasoned, the pleasure of meditation is wholesome. Then he realized that the pursuit of bliss is incompatible with bodily torment and emaciation and resolved to regain his health.

Ironically, Gotama has come full circle – from a life of hedonism through a life of pain he now reconsiders his attitude to pleasure in a new light. So, he took some boiled rice and bread. The texts present this process as virtually instantaneous, but after years of deprivation and abstinence this must have taken some time. So, he lived alone for some period beside the river Neranjara, meditating and begging for alms in Senani.

The night before he attained enlightenment, Gotama had five dreams: in which the earth was his couch and the Himalayas his pillow; a creeper grew out of his navel and stood touching the clouds; white grubs with black heads crawled up his legs from his feet to his knees and covered them; four birds of different colours flew to him from the four quarters and, landing at his feet, became white; finally, arising, he walked upon a huge mountain of dirt without being defiled. According to the texts, these dreams implied that he would become a World Teacher, teaching the Noble Eightfold Path, with many lay disciples [sic], that all the castes would become as one, and that he would live in the world but would not be defiled by it.

The next day, Gotama meditated as usual and attained the fourth meditative state, characterized by perfect equanimity with neither pleasure nor pain. Then, during the first watch of the night, Gotama realized the truth of past lives. During the second watch of the night, he experienced the “divine eye” and realized the truth of karmic cause and effect. Finally, during the third watch of the night – for this night he did not sleep – Gotama realized perfect freedom from the three taints – sensual desire, being, and ignorance. At dawn, traditionally about 5 a.m., Gotama realized his enlightenment and became a Buddha. According to tradition, this occurred during the night of the Full Moon in late April or May (Indian month of Vaisakha). Most modern scholars now think this occurred about 445 BCE.

According to the texts, the Buddha, as we will now call him, remained in a state of transcendent ecstasy for a full week, insentient to the world, seated cross-legged and motionless under the Bodhi tree. During the final night of the seven, the Buddha meditated on the doctrine of interconnectedness and thus emerged from his trance. He remained in the vicinity of the Bodhi tree for another six weeks, for a total of seven weeks or 49 days.

First Sermons

After attaining enlightenment, the Buddha hesitated to teach, fearing that he would not be understood. But Sahampati, a Great Brahma, appeared to the Buddha and entreated him to teach for the salvation of the world and so that Sahampati himself could earn merit. The Buddha reflected that the dust of worldliness obscured the sight of some people less than others, and that he would teach for their benefit, knowing that the teaching would be lost on most people and once articulated, fall into degeneration like all things.

The Buddha’s first thought was to teach Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, his first teachers, but when he learned of their death, he resolved to travel to the Deer Park in Isipatana, outside Benares. En route he met a wandering ascetic in the road, named Upaka. Upaka was an ajivika, a heterodox philosophy characterized by a strict fatalism in which past karma could not be destroyed. Future karma was also fixed but could be accelerated by ascetic practices like those practised by the Jains and thus could be used to achieve a state of emancipation. Like the Jains, some Ajivikas went about naked. They were also anti-caste and “a-theistic,” but some worshipped Shiva and Vishnu. Voluntary suicide was also practised. The ajivikas reached the height of their popularity during the second century CE, but went into decline and by the 13th century had almost completely disappeared. Upaka, impressed by the Buddha’s physical appearance, asked the Buddha which teacher or teaching he followed. When the Buddha told him that he was self-enlightened, Upaka replied, “Would that it were so,” and passed on. So the Buddha’s first attempt at conversion had failed.

When the Buddha arrived at Benares, the Group of Five looked at him askance, but there was something about him that caused them to think twice, and they allowed him to sit with them. At first, they were suspicious, but as he spoke the dawn of realization arose in their minds and they were converted. Kondanna was the first to attain arhantship, after meditating for five days.

The first sermons of the Buddha included “Setting Rolling the Wheel of the Teaching” and “The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic.” In “Setting Rolling the Wheel of Teaching,” the Buddha declares the doctrine of the Middle Way, which he identifies with the Noble Eightfold Path. He then declares the Four Noble Truths and the three phases of penetration – knowing, abandoning, and realizing, including maintaining the realization of them.

In “The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic,” the Buddha declares the doctrines of non-self-identity (anatta), impermanence (anicca), and dispassion or detachment, which arises spontaneously because of the realization of the first two principles. As a result of the last discourse, all the members of the Group of Five became liberated arhants.

The Creation of the Sangha

The first person outside the Group of Five to accept the new teaching was an ordinary merchant’s son named Yasa. Yasa experienced a spiritual awakening in the middle of the night and overcome by disgust for the householder life, left his home near Isipatana. He came upon the Buddha in Deer Park, who, having awoken early (insomniacal?), appears to have been practising walking meditation in the open. Yasa was distraught. The Buddha taught him the teaching. Although he had a wife, Yasa must have been young, as his father the merchant came looking for him. Yasa became the first person outside the Group of Five to join the order. In addition, he became the personal attendant of the Buddha, and his father became the first householder to accept the teaching. Subsequently, both the merchant’s and Yasa’s wife also converted, becoming the first female adherents of the Buddha. This story appears in the Vinaya, and contradicts the story in the suttas, now regarded as invented by many scholars, in which Ananda persuades the Buddha to ordain his mother’s sister and his stepmother, Prajapati, against his better judgment. I discussed this issue in my talk on “The Status of Women in Ancient India and the Pali Tradition.” The teaching spread, starting with four prominent merchant families in Benares, friends of Yasa. At that time there was no ordination formula. The Buddha simply said to the candidate, “Come, the dharma is well proclaimed. Lead the holy life for the complete ending of suffering.” Also through Yasa, fifty more joined the order, until the number of monastics totalled 61. Interestingly, the Vinaya seems to regard everyone who joined the order at that time as an arhant. Having taught them the teaching, the Buddha sent them out to wander and bring the good news of the teaching to all those able to receive it. The Buddha himself went to a place called Senanigama in Uruvela.

Soon so many were seeking ordination that it became burdensome for the Buddha to receive the candidates himself, and he authorized the monastics to admit applicants to the order by the simple formula of Taking Refuge in the Teaching (later elaborated into the Triple Jewel, consisting of Buddha, Teaching, and Order, or, in the Tibetan tradition, Buddha, Teaching, Order, and Lama). Thus, the Buddha established the order as a decentralized order of monastics, quite unlike the hierarchical system that we find in many Buddhist organizations today.

The Fire Sermon

Some time after his enlightenment, the Buddha travelled to Gayasisa (near Gaya), where he addressed the monastics in the famous “Fire Sermon.” The Buddha famously declares that “all is burning” with the cravings of desirous attachment. This is a disease for which he prescribes “delivery from the taints by not clinging” as the cure. Thence he travelled to Rajagaha, the capital city of Magadha, where the First Buddhist Council would be held 40-odd years later.

Here King Bimbisara honoured the Buddha and presented the order with the gift of the Bamboo Grove, a place described as close to the city and accessible, but lonely, quiet, and hard to find, for the Buddha and his monks to spend the rainy season together. But the Buddha was not popular everywhere. Some people complained that the Buddha was promoting childlessness and widowhood and obliterating the clans. Most of the time the monastics lived in woods, at the foot of trees, under overhanging rocks, in ravines, hillside caves, charnel grounds, jungle thickets, in the open, or on heaps of straw.

Seven years after Gotama’s renunciation, so about a year after the enlightenment, the Buddha’s father, Suddodhana, heard of his son’s success and sent messengers inviting him to return to Kapilavastu. Many of these messengers joined the order. According to tradition, he converted his father to the teaching, who died an arhant some four years later. Therefore, it appears that his father was about 60 when he died. The Buddha also converted his half-brother, Nanda, on the same day he was to be married. The texts say that the Buddha lured him away and that Nanda joined the order more out of regard for the Buddha than personal inclination and continued to cling to luxury even as a monastic.

This was also the famous occasion on which Pajapati sent Rahula to the Buddha to ask him for his patrimony. This is often misinterpreted to refer to the crown of kingship, but this interpretation is not feasible since the Shakyans elected their chief (and the chief elected after Suddhodhana does not appear to have been related to the Gotamas). The Buddha, however, directed Sariputta to ordain Rahula as a novice monk. 

The Buddha returned to Kapilavastu four years later, upon his father’s death. It was also at this time that the Buddha formally established the order of nuns, although it is clear from other texts, already cited, that female monastics were admitted to the order since the beginning. This has led most scholars to doubt the story that the Buddha did not want to establish a female monastic order and had to be persuaded to do so by Ananda, responding to the entreaty of Pajapati, who made the Buddha admit that women were equally capable of attaining emancipation as men. Scholars also doubt the misogynistic diatribes that mar the texts of the Pali Canon as the inventors of anonymous male redactors, as I have discussed in my talk, “The Status of Women in Ancient India and the Pali Tradition.”

The Life of the Sangha

The order expanded, including monastics who never knew the Buddha, as monastics ordained new monastics in an ever-expanding circle. Of course, such expansion also meant that not all monastics were worthy. There were many reasons that one might want to join the order. But through the practices of dharma talk, lunar observance, and the rains retreat, the order retained its integrity for at least a hundred years after the Buddha’s passing on. The Majjhima Nikaya preserves a nice description of the daily life of the order:

Lord, as to that, whichever of us returns first from the village with alms food gets the seats ready, sets out the water for drinking and for washing and puts the refuse bucket in its place. Whichever of us returns last eats any food left over if he wishes; otherwise he throws it away where there is no grass or drops it into water where there is no life. He puts away the seats and the water for drinking and for washing. He puts away the refuse bucket after washing it, and he sweeps out the refectory. Whoever notices that the pots of drinking water or washing water or water for the privy are low or empty sees to them. If any are too heavy for him, he beckons someone else by a sign of the hand and they move it by joining hands. We do not speak for that purpose. But every five days we sit out the night together in talk on the Dhamma. It is in this way that we dwell diligent, ardent and self-controlled.

In a society being wrecked by war, it is easy to understand how such simple austerity may have been attractive to many, not so dissimilar from our own time.

Nevertheless, the order was not universally popular; many people accused the Buddha of being against the Vedic norms of procreation, marriage, and family. The rule of chastity was especially hard to bear for many, as witnessed by numerous offences and subsequent rules for various sexual infractions recorded in the Vinaya. The Buddha’s popularity with the political warlords of the time varied constantly, requiring the Buddha to move from place to place. At least two schisms broke out, the more serious one led by Devadatta, the brother of Buddha’s wife, Yasodhara, and a cousin of the Buddha. The “schisming” and scheming became so intolerable that the Buddha withdrew into seclusion on more than one occasion, preferring to live alone in the jungle with a tusker elephant.

Devadatta

Devadatta, a member of the Koliyan clan, was related to the Buddha in multiple ways—as cousin, brother-in-law, and brother to Ananda. At one point in his monastic life, Devadatta broke away from the Buddha’s community, taking with him around five hundred monks—many of them fellow Shakyans with close ties to both him and Siddhattha.

Over time, Devadatta developed an inflated sense of his own spiritual significance. Convinced he was better suited to lead the Order, he approached the Buddha with a proposal: that the Buddha step aside and let him take over its leadership. The Buddha’s response was sharp and unequivocal—he stated that even his most trusted disciples, Sāriputta and Moggallāna, would not be granted such authority, let alone someone like Devadatta, whom he described as worthy of being “spat out.”

Realizing he had alienated the Buddha, Devadatta’s behavior took a darker turn. He attempted to undermine the Buddha’s standing by stirring conflict. He aligned himself with Prince Ajātasattu and urged him to assassinate his father, the virtuous King Bimbisāra, while he himself plotted to murder the Buddha. One such attempt involved hurling a boulder down a hillside as the Buddha passed below. The effort failed. Not long after, Devadatta tried again—this time sending the elephant Nāḷāgiri, drunk and enraged, to attack the Buddha during his alms round. But the Buddha’s powerful presence and radiant compassion calmed the beast, which bowed before him instead.

Failing in violence, Devadatta tried to divide the monastic community through doctrine. He proposed a rigid code of conduct: monks should live only in forests, rely entirely on alms, wear robes made solely from discarded cloth, sleep under trees, and abstain completely from eating any kind of meat. The Buddha, while permitting these practices voluntarily, refused to impose them universally. Devadatta seized on this refusal as proof of hypocrisy, accusing the Buddha of indulgence and comfort—similar to criticisms once voiced by the Group of Five before the Buddha’s awakening.

Eventually, Devadatta declared a formal schism and began reciting the Vinaya rules separately, leading his group of five hundred newly ordained monks in opposition to the Buddha. To mend the divide, the Buddha dispatched Sāriputta and Moggallāna to recover the misguided monks. Mistaking their arrival as a show of support, Devadatta invited Sāriputta to give a sermon. But while he slept, the two chief disciples skillfully persuaded the young monks to return to the Buddha’s fold.

The Last Years and Parinirvana

As the Buddha approached the age of 80, his health began to decline. He describes his complexion as no longer clear and bright, and his body as flaccid, wrinkled, and bent forward, with changed senses. He complains of back aches. The Buddha’s former personal attendant, Sunakkhatta, was going about attacking the Buddha’s teaching as mere rationalism and deriding his spiritual attainments. To make matters worse, his old friend, King Pasenadi of Kosala, had died after visiting the Buddha. Pasenadi’s son, Vidudabha, used this visit as a pretext for staging a coup. Also, his own people, the Shakyans, were slaughtered by King Vidudabha of Kosala after Vidudabha learned that his mother was a Shakyan slave. This wiped out most of the Buddha’s own people.

In his 80th year, the Buddha felt that his passing was imminent. He set out the rules whereby the order should be governed after his passing – to hold large and frequent meetings; to assemble and disperse in concord; to do their duty as members of the order in concord; to keep the rules of the order without adding or subtracting anything, subject to the proviso that the minor and lesser rules may be abolished; to honour seniority; to avoid craving; to live in the forest; and to maintain mindfulness, each one for himself or herself.

The Buddha proclaimed a sermon, entitled “The Mirror of the Dhamma,” in which he declares that perfect confidence in the Buddha, the Teaching, and the Order, combined with perfect virtue, guarantees timelessness.

It was during the rainy season at a place called Beluvagamaka that a severe sickness came upon the Buddha with violent and deadly pains. After recovering, he begins to prepare Ananda for his inevitable passing. During this time, the Buddha’s two foremost disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, the arhants foremost in wisdom and spiritual powers respectively, also died. Finally the Buddha came to the Capala Shrine in Vesali, where he informed Ananda of his intention to die in three months. For the next three months the Buddha continued to wander, visiting the order in various places and giving final teachings. Finally he came to Pava, to the park of Cunna the goldsmith’s son, who invited him to the Buddha’s infamous last meal. This was a meal of sukara-maddava. Some say that this was a dish of fatty pork, translated by such phrases as “pig’s delight” or “hog’s mincemeat” (literally it may be translated as “soft” or “mild pig”). Others say it was a rice dish prepared with a special kind of mushroom, truffle, or bamboo shoots, loved by pigs. Others believe it was a medical preparation, designed to cure the Buddha of his illness. Still others suggest that it was poison, perhaps an assassination attempt. No one has suggested the possibility that it was suicide, so far as I know, but in view of the Buddha’s prediction that he would die in three months, that he was already suffering, and that he told Ananda that he could live longer if he chose, this also seems to be possible. Whatever it was, it disagreed violently with the Buddha, who directed that it be buried.

Departing from the meal, the Buddha collapsed and overcome by thirst, drank dirty water from a stream nearby. Refreshed, the Buddha was able to make it to the River Kakuttha, in which he bathed and from which he drank, and went to a mango grove. Here he lay down on a robe spread on the ground, on his right side. After some time he got up and continued to the Mallians’ sal tree grove on the turn into Kusinara, on the further bank of the Hirannavati River. Here he lay down on his right side between two sal trees. The Buddha gave Ananda advice about the disposition of his remains and places of pilgrimage. The texts portray the Buddha engaging in dharma talk right up to the end. Finally, he instructs the monastics to take the teaching and the training as their teacher in the Buddha’s absence. The Buddha declared that after his passing, the order should be based on seniority. He states that the order may abolish the lesser and minor rules of the Vinaya. His last words were: “Indeed, bhikkhus, I declare this to you. It is in the nature of all formations to dissolve. Attain perfection through diligence.” Then the Buddha fell into a coma and died. The texts say that the sal tree flowered prematurely. This suggests late winter, i.e., February, contrary to the unlikely tradition that puts the birth, enlightenment, and passing of the Buddha all in May.

Dr. Mettanando Bhikkhu, a medical doctor, has argued at some length in his paper, “Did Buddha die of mesenteric infarction,” that the account of the Pali texts is consistent with this diagnosis, a common disease of the elderly in which blood supply to the bowel is restricted.

The First Council

The First Buddhist Council was called together shortly after the Buddha’s passing by Mahakassapa, who was regarded as foremost in asceticism, even though the Buddha said that the order should have no leader other than the teaching. Presumably, Mahakassapa also brought an ascetic orientation to the council and, as with all organizations, had both supporters and detractors. Indeed, it is clear from the Cullavagga that the council was sponsored by Mahakassapa’s group, and that others were excluded (see I.B. Horner, trans., The Book of Discipline (Vinaya-Pitaka) (London: Luzac, 1952; rpt. 1963), Vol. 5, p. 395, n.1). The First Buddhist Council was held during the rainy season three months after the Buddha’s passing.

Since the rainy season retreat begins in June-July, it seems likely that the Buddha died in February or March, which is consistent with the statement that the sal trees between which the Buddha died bloomed prematurely. I have already talked about how the arhants at this council castigated Ananda for convincing the Buddha to ordain women and for failing to clarify which were the major and which were the minor rules of the Vinaya. Indeed, so deep was the misogyny of the arhants of this council that Ananda was castigated for allowing women to view the Buddha’s body after his passing, which (they claimed) was defiled by their tears (op. cit., pp. 400f.). Presumably, Ananda too had his supporters and detractors, so we see here how the politics of the First Buddhist Council may have played out. It is an open question whether all the monastics present at the First Council were men. Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, in her article, “The History of the Bhikkuni Sangha,” argues that female monastics were also present.

If you are interested in learning more about the First Buddhist Council in the primary sources, you can read the 11th chapter of the Cullavagga in the Vinaya section of the Pali Canon here: https://archive.org/stream/p3sacredbooksofb20londuoft#page/392/mode/2up.

Note

1. The Buddhacarita (see n. 2) mentions “wives” (5:41).

2. The Buddhacarita (Acts of the Buddha), the first full biography of the Buddha, a post-canonical Sanskrit poem written in the early 2nd century, about 150 years after the Pali Canon was committed to writing (its author, the Mahasanghiika ascetic Asvaghosa, lived from 80 to 150 CE), but clearly incorporating earlier traditions, states explicitly that Gotama did not renounce the home life for some time after the birth of Rahula (2:54) and asked his father for permission to leave the home life, which he refused (5:28).

3. If the Buddha stated that he would not allow his foremost disciples to lead the order, it seems unlikely that he would have allowed Mahakassapa, the third most trusted disciple, to do so either. This refutes the claim that the Buddha implicitly appointed Mahakassapa to be the future leader of the order exchanging robes with him, especially since the Buddha said the order should have no leader other than the teaching itself.

Bibliography

Armstrong, Karen. Buddha. New York: Lipper/Penguin, 2001.
Berzin, Alexander. “The Life of the Buddha as Pieced Together from the Pali Canon” (August 2010).  http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/approaching_buddhism/teachers/lineage_masters/life_buddha_pali_canon.html.
Cowell, E.B., trans. “The Buddha-karita of Asvaghosha.” In Buddhist Mahayana Texts (New York; Dover, 1969), pp. vi-206. (Originally published 1894)
Horner, I.B.., trans. “Cullavagga.” The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya-Pitaka). London: Luzac, 1963. Vol. 5. (Originally published 1952)
Kabilsingh, Chatsumarn (accessed 2014, Oct. 28). “The History of the Bhikkhuni Sangha.” http://archive.thubtenchodron.org/BuddhistNunsMonasticLife/LifeAsAWesternBuddhistNun/the_history_of_the_bhikkhuni_sangha.html.
Mettanando. “Did Buddha Die of Mesenteric Infarction?” (May 17, 2000) http://www.lankalibrary.com/Bud/buddha_death.htm.
Nakamura, Hajime. Gotama Buddha: A Biography Based on the Most Reliable Texts. Tokyo: Kosei, 2000. Vol. 1.
———-. Gotama Buddha: A Biography Based on the Most Reliable Texts. Tokyo: Kosei, 2005. Vol. 2.
Nanamoli, trans. The Life of the Buddha According to the Pali Canon. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1992
Schumann, H.W. The Historical Buddha: The Times, Life and Teachings of the Founder of Buddhism. Trans. M. O’C. Walshe. London, England: Arkana Penguin, 1989
Warren, Henry Clarke, trans. Buddhist Writings. Chap. 1: The Buddha. Vol. 45, Pt. 3. Harvard Classics, ed. Charles W. Fort. New York: Collier, 1909-14.  http://www.bartleby.com/45/3/102.html.