Buddhism: for Beginners: A Pragmatic Beginners Guide for Learning the Foundations of Buddhism

Who was Buddha and what is Buddhism? Buddha was a legendary prince, who founded a major world religion around the 5th century B.C. The word “Buddha” in Sanskrit means the awakened one. Buddha was born as Siddhartha Gautama, son of Suddhodana, who was the head of the Sakya tribe and a member of the Gautama clan. Prince Siddhartha was born in Nepal, in Lumbine, in a petty state which was subordinate to the Magadha Kingdom in India. When he was 29 years old, Siddharta renounce his family and status as a prince and set out on a spiritual journey of contemplation and abstinence. When it failed, he sat under a ficus tree, in the Indian state of Bihar, the modern Bodhgaya where he meditated.