Siddhartha Gautama was born into a royal family in Lumbini, at the foot of the Himalayas. His father tried to shield him from suffering, but at twenty-nine he saw an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic. He left everything. After six years of extreme austerity that nearly killed him, he sat beneath a fig tree at Bodh Gaya and resolved not to rise until he understood the nature of suffering. At dawn he saw it clearly. He spent the rest of his life walking the Gangetic plain, teaching the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to anyone who would listen.
Born into the Shakya clan in Lumbini, in the foothills of the Himalayas. His father was a chieftain or king of a small republic. Legend says that at his birth, a sage predicted he would become either a great ruler or a great teacher.
