The Buddha
A prince leaves his palace, and the answer he finds becomes a world religion.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 80 years
- Known to
- ± 30 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Siddhartha Gautama teaches that existence is characterised by suffering, that suffering arises from craving, that it can cease, and that a practical eightfold path leads there. He rejects both the Vedic sacrificial system and extreme asceticism, and denies a permanent self. His dates are genuinely uncertain — traditional accounts give 563 to 483 BCE, but most modern scholarship places his death nearer 400 BCE. He taught for decades and wrote nothing.