Siddhartha
renounced his kingdom in search of 'truth'. But 'truth'
was not easy to be found. He took to the life of an
ascetic, like the one he saw as the last of the Four
Passing Sights. The ascetic, with a peaceful face, inspired
him most.During his search, he traveled to distant lands.
And for six years he lived as a solitary forest-dweller,
at first as the disciple of two renowned Hindu masters.
Then, after deciding he had learned all that they could
teach him - which he felt was not enough - he joined
a band of ascetics and with them he practiced such extreme
austerities and ate so little that he was about to die.
Study with the Hindus had not brought him the enlightenment
he was seeking, nor had his experiment with asceticism.
Rejecting self-indulgence as well as self-mortification,
he determined to follow what he called the Middle Path
and to devote himself to a course of mental cultivation
and mystical concentration. In the town of Bodhgaya
in Northeast India, Siddhartha sat down beneath a tree
to embark on an extended period of meditation. And he
determined not to rise until he had found the truth.
For 49 days he meditated, formulating a body of wisdom
whichwas to bring mankind a new religion. When he arose
he was enlightened, he was the Buddha, ready to go forth
and teach others how to become enlightened. The tree
under which he meditated came to be known as the 'Bodhi
Tree', the tree of wisdom. And the place where this
happened is still known as Bodh Gaya, now in north eastern
part of India. It is believed that he attained nirvana
on the day of the full moon in the month of Vaishakha,
or Vesakha. It became a great Holy Day for the Buddhists.
It was also on this day Buddha gave his first sermon
at Sarnath, also in the North Eastern India.
This is why the Buddhists rotate the prayer wheels in
the belief the prayers written on the wheels get dispersed
on this day. The day when Prince Siddhartha became Gautam
Buddha and again the day when he gave his first sermon
at Sarnath. Soon after his enlightenment the Buddha
preached to a small group of the curious and those who
heard his words became his disciples. From then on the
Buddha devoted the rest of his life to teaching those
who sought his advice, his compassion, his wisdom. The
growth in the number of his disciples led to his establishment
of the Sangha, the Buddhist monastic order. It was his
disciples who passed along his teachings, by word of
mouth, from generation to generation. Not until some
considerable time after his death, were the words of
the Buddha recorded in written form.Finally Buddha liberated
himself from the cycle of rebirth and achieved mahaparinirvana,
also on the auspices of Vesak.
