Chapter 6 Religions of South Asia 211He began to eat normally again and wandered on, coming to a small river
in south Bihar. He stopped on its banks for several days to meditate under a fig
tree. During one of these long nights of meditation he came to a profound new
insight into the truth of the human condition. This was his True Awakening,
his enlightenment. The place where this occurred became known as Bodh
Gaya, which later became a place of pilgrimage, and the tree became known as
the Bodhi Tree, or Tree of Enlightenment. Gautama himself became known as
Buddha, the Enlightened One, at the age of 35.
The Buddha lived for 45 more years until his Parinirvana, final extinction,
a long lifetime in which he established a large following. He first reached out to
the five companions he had broken with over the futility of self-torture. In the
Deer Park not far from Varanasi (Banaras) he preached his first sermon on the
Four Noble Truths. Soon he had a core of 45 young followers who moved
among the towns along the middle Ganges, teaching to an ever-growing num-
ber of laymen and renunciants. The Buddha spent the last two decades of his
life settled in Shravasti, the capital of Koshala, living a communal life that
would become the monastic tradition of Buddhism. At the age of 80, he fell sick
and died with his grieving followers around him. His body was cremated, and
the ashes distributed to local rulers who enshrined their portion in 10 stupas.^2
It should be clear that the Buddha was not a deity but an exemplar. He was
the first to discover these great truths and teach them to others. At least from
the point of view of early Indian Buddhism, Buddha’s role was that of spiritual
master par excellence.
“I Take Refuge in the Dharma.” What was the insight that came to the
Buddha under the fig tree? In an early text, the Majjhima-nikaya, the Buddha
explains his thoughts during the night of his Enlightenment. In the early part of
the night, when his body was tranquil and passive, he became free of desires
and unwholesome thoughts, experiencing the joy of such freedom. Later in the
night he recalled the details of his many past lives, and then he contemplated
the birth and death of all living beings following the results of their karma.
Then he directed his mind toward the elimination of ignorance, which led to
realization of the dissatisfactory conditions of life and finally the means of ces-
sation of life. With this ultimate insight his mind became liberated from the
defilement of desire. This liberation was the final Awakening.
He realized life is burdened by suffering (duhka, dukkha) and that every-
thing about life is impermanent (anitya, anicca). That impermanence applies
even to the self, which far from being eternal (as was widely believed with the
atma doctrine), is only a temporary compound of moods and emotions (anat-
man, annata). This sad state of human existence was imagined as akin to ill-
ness, and the Buddha’s teachings took the form of ancient medical formulas.
First you state the nature of the illness, then the conditions that give rise to it,
then determine whether there is a cure, and if so, prescribe the cure. The illness
is suffering. Yes, there is a cure, he taught, there is a way to stop the suffering,
not with medicine but by means of a moral regimen, the Eightfold Path.