Siddharta Gautama, known as Shakyamuni, lived in northern India about 2,500 years ago. He was the heir of the Shakyas, whose kingdom was located in the foothills of the Himalayas. He renounced his princely life in order to seek a solution to the suffering of human beings.
As a young man, he was deeply disturbed by his discovery of the four inescapable sufferings of human life: birth into a troubled world, sickness, old age and death.
He then embarked on an ardent spiritual quest to find the root cause of human suffering and its remedy. For many years he practiced the teachings of the various religious schools of his time, as well as extremely rigorous austerities. But he finally rejected them, judging them unfit to bring him the answer he was looking for.
Finally, sitting under a pipal tree near the town of Gaya, Shakyamuni entered into deep meditation. There he awakened to the true nature of life. He then set out to teach others the truth to which he had awakened, using a variety of appropriate means.
According to tradition, Shakyamuni traveled throughout India for nearly fifty years, sharing his awakening and teaching those he met how to unleash the tremendous potential within them. He was soon called the Buddha, which means Awakened. His teachings were recorded in the form of sutras and spread throughout Asia, giving rise to the various schools of Buddhism, generally characterized by an emphasis on peace and compassion.