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1. SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
De Castro, Jose Angelo VC.
Mendoza, Ferdinand Leo M.

2. INTRODUCTION
 The Historical Life of Siddhartha Gautama
 Between Myth and Reality: Retelling the Story of
the Life of Siddhartha
 Maya’s Dream
 Thirty-two Signs of a Buddha
 In the Garden of Pleasure

3. INTRODUCTION
 Excursion Outside the Palace
 The Great Renunciation
 The Older Extreme
 The Middle Way
 Turning the Wheel of the Dharma

4. The Historical Life of
Siddhartha Gautama

5. THE HISTORICAL LIFE OF
SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
 Siddhartha was born to the Sakhya clan in
Kapilavastu in the North-Eastern part of India in the
middle of the 5th Century BC.
 His father is King Suddhadona and his mother is
Queen Maha-Maya.
 He was called Sakhyamuni ( theSakhya sage) but
he was also called Gautama.
 He was a Prince of a small kingdom.

6. THE HISTORICAL LIFE OF
SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
 He married at young age and had a son.
 From placid life to ascetic life.
 He chose to take the middle path between two
extremes (Asceticism and Princely luxury).
 He became Enlightened – a Buddha.
 Buddhahood to Nirvana.
 He did not enter to Parinirvana (Final Nirvana).

7. THE HISTORICAL LIFE OF
SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
 Buddha’s first sermon was held in Benares.
 His sermon is known as the “Turning Wheel of the
Dharma.”
 He also taught the Four Noble Truths
 Life is suffering
 There is a cause to suffering
 There is a way out of suffering
 The way to end suffering is through the Eight-Fold Path.

8. THE HISTORICAL LIFE OF
SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
 The Eight-Fold Path is divided into three stages of
development;
 Morality
 Meditation
 Final Wisdom

9. THE HISTORICAL LIFE OF
SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
 He organized the first monastic order – The Sangha.
 Monks and Nuns work for their personal liberation.
 Preserve the Buddha Dharma for others to follow the
path that leads to liberation.
 Gautama was no god but rather a person who
attained Enlightenment by seeing the Truth and the
Dharma.

10. THE HISTORICAL LIFE OF
SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
 He taught man that liberation from the drudgery of
life, birth, death and rebirth can be worked out by
each man by discovering the Truth.
 The Buddha preached until he died at the age of 80.

11. Between Myth and Reality:
Retelling the Story of the Life
of Siddhartha

12. BETWEEN MYTH AND REALITY: RETELLING THE
STORY OF THE LIFE OF SIDDHARTHA
 All existing accounts of the Buddha’s life are written
years after his Parinirvana by idolizing followers
rather than by objective historians.
 This case usually happens to the stories of lives of
many great founders of religions.
 Due to the incomprehensibility of the sources, it has
become thorny to separate facts of lives of great holy
men from the myths and legends.

13.  Myths and Beliefs, obscuring the figure of the
historical Siddhartha, have become almost
significant to Buddhism as the words and deeds of
the historical Gautama.
 Siddhartha is one such man of great stature and his
teaching is one such great world influence.

14. Maya’s Dream

15. MAYA’S DREAM
 Queen Maha-Maya, (Mary in English), had a dream that
a white elephant appeared to her from heaven then
entered her womb.
 The King and Queen consulted an astrologer to interpret
the meaning of the dream.
 The meaning of Maya’s dream is that the Queen will give
birth to a great prince.
 It was like an Immaculate Conception and a case of a
virgin birth.
 In Ancient India, there are celestial signs for the coming
of a Buddha.

16.  The signs are as follow:
 It must be at the right time (556 BC)
 The right country (India)
 The right center of the country (Jambudwpa)
 The right caste (Ksatriya)
 The right mother (Maha-Maya)
 The King and Queen gave the baby the forename
Siddhartha (which means Aim Attained), but also known
as Gautama or Sankhyamuni (the sage of Sakhya tribe).
 His follower would refer to him as ‘Lord’ or ‘Bhayavat’
(Blessed One).
 But Siddhartha would refer to him as the ‘Tathahata’
which means “he who has gone to the Truth in the same
way as his predecessor.”

17.  A week after giving birth to Siddhartha, Queen Maha-
Maya died. The King married the Queen’s sister and
eventually, Siddhartha grew up under her new mother’s
care.
 The King consulted again the astrologer to read the
fortune of his son, but an old ascetic Asita came to pay
reverence.
 Upon seeing the baby, Asita saw thirty-two signs of
Buddhahood in Siddhartha.
 Asita also said that if the prince leave the palace, he will
become the Buddha, the Enlightened One.
 Asita also said that the savior has finally come but he will
no longer live to see him become the Buddha.

18. Thirty-two Signs of a Buddha

19. THIRTY-TWO SIGNS OF A BUDDHA
 Asita saw thirty-two signs of a Buddha in Siddhartha.
 These signs are as follow:
 A well-formed head and forehead
 The hair is blue-black and shining, and each curl grows from
left to right
 The forehead is broad and straight
 Has a lock of hair between the two eyebrows which turned to
the right and it is as white as snow
 The eyelashes are like those of a newborn calf
 Has shining blue-black eyes
 Have forty teeth, all even
 The teeth are close together

20.  The teeth are pure white
 His voice is like that of a Maha-Brahma (a great/holy
Brahmin)
 He has exquisite taste
 His jaws are like those of a lion
 His tongue is soft and long
 Shoulder and arms are beautifully molded
 The seven parts of the body are round and full
 The space between the shoulders is well filled out
 His skin has a golden color
 His arms are long, so that when he stands without
bending, the hands can touch the knees
 The upper part of the body is like that of a lion
 His body is straight like that of a Maha-Brahma.

21.  From each hair-sack a single hair grows
 These locks of hair bend to the right at the top
 The organs of sex are hidden by nature
 The curves of his legs are full and round
 His legs are like those of a deer
 His fingers and toes are slender and of equal length
 The instep of his feet is high
 His heels are long
 Feet and hands are delicate and long
 Fingers and toes are covered with an epidermis
 His feet are flat and stand firmly
 Under the soles of his feet, two shining wheels appear
with a thousand of spokes.

22. In the Garden of Pleasure

23. IN THE GARDEN OF PLEASURE
 King Suddhadona was disturbed by the prophecy of
Asita.
 The King decided to keep the prince distracted by the
beauty that can be provided by the material world.
 Siddhartha was never allowed to see anything ugly,
painful, and unpleasant that may arouse him to harbor
question in his mind.

24.  The prince grew up to be a pleasant boy.
 The King thought that he wanted his son to be a great
king and he must be strong and powerful.
 At age sixteen, Siddhartha was persuaded by his father
to find himself a wife. The King invited all the beautiful
princesses from different kingdom to become his son’s
wife.
 Siddhartha chose his cousin named Yasudhara but her
father challenged Siddhartha.
 He accepted the challenge and eventually, they married
and lived in the palace far away from the cruelty of the
outside world.

25. Excursion Outside the Palace

26. EXCURSION OUTSIDE THE PALACE
 Siddhartha got tired living inside the palace where he
was being surrounded by luxurious things.
 He told his father that he wanted to see the outside of the
palace.
 The King made an ordinance and instructed the people to
beautify and clean the city.
 The prince visited the place outside the palace and he
saw a lot.
 But when he got tired, he ordered to his charioteer to go
back to the palace.

27.  There was an old man who did not hear the instruction of
the King.
 The prince was disturbed because of what he saw
during his excursion because it was not familiar for him
to see such thing.
 After sometime, Siddhartha asked again for another
excursion.
 The first time he went out of the palace, he just saw an
old man along the way.
 The second excursion, he saw a sick man who was
deeply in pain.
 The third time, he saw a funeral procession and
cremation of a dead man.
 Channa, his charioteer, explained everything to him but
he couldn’t understand everything.

28. The Great Renunciation

29.  Because of his curiosity to know more about the palace,
he decided to leave his wife and his newly born son
Rahula and his father, the King, and his kingdom.
 He left everything inside the palace to search for the
answer to the question bothering in his mind.
 It was a moment to be forever remembered by the
Buddhists as the day of Great Renunciation.

30. The Other Extreme

31.  Because of his Great Renunciation, Siddhartha shave
his head, removed his princely garment and exchanged
it for the rug-cloth of a monk and a begging bowl.
 He became a humble pilgrim in the wilderness.
 He wanted to search for the truth about human
existence, he wanted to know how he could deliver man
from fear.

32. The Middle Way

33. Turning Wheel of the Dharma

34. Reflection