Other sources claim that he had three spouses and followed a traditional career path as a future monarch. Related: Three Forgotten Stories About the Buddha’s MotherĪt the age of 16, Prince Siddhartha married Yashodhara and they later had a child, Rahula (the name means “obstacle” and speaks volumes about the paternal feelings attributed to the prince). Following predictions that he would become either a universal monarch or a universal spiritual guide, his father decided to lock him away in the palace to protect him against harsh realities, thereby preventing him from taking up any kind of spiritual pursuit. The child was then raised by his aunt Mahaprajapati. The auspicious birth of the Buddha was followed, seven days later, by the death of his mother.

The child, having come painlessly from her right side, immediately took seven steps toward the north, a lotus flower blossoming with each step he took then he turned toward the four directions, and sang a “song of victory,” declaring “I alone am the honored one above earth and under heaven.” It is said that his mother, Queen Maya, dreamed that a white elephant pierced the right side of her body the next morning she found herself to be pregnant, and nine months later, in a grove in Lumbini, she gave birth to a child. Siddhartha Gautama, the future Buddha, is said to have been born during the 5th century BCE as the son of a king of northern India. The fact that similar events are also said to have occurred during the life of the founder of Jainism, Mahavira (another allegedly historical figure), indicates that a degree of caution must be exercised in accepting their factual basis. The rest remains lost in the mists of myth and legend: his miraculous conception and birth, the extraordinary events and circumstances of his life, and the like. So what do we actually know about the Buddha? It is fair to say that he was born, he lived, and he died. Supporters of this historicist interpretation rightly stress that it is easier to mythologize a biography than to demythologize a legend. Pali texts in particular seem to be based on certain historical facts, and the Vinaya monastic codes contain clear attempts to present the Buddha as an eminently pragmatic individual.

It is certainly easy to accept the notion that the legend of the Buddha is simply derived from an embellished image of a historical person. Yet today, the historicity of the Buddha is rarely questioned, though we continue to question the historical basis of various events that happened during his long lifetime. Indeed, whatever the facts might be, the life of the Buddha as it comes down to us is largely fabrication. This may seem like stating the obvious, but is it really? If the Buddha hadn’t existed, perhaps he would have been invented anyway. Without the “historical” Buddha, Buddhism wouldn’t exist.

Buddha stories demi