Understanding the Buddha: His Life and Teachings : หน้า 35/115

Buddha, an 'awaken one' who is fully enlightened and who has realized nirvana without the benefit of a Buddha's teaching in the lifetime in which he attains it. A Buddha is generally regarded as omniscient. -- The name Buddha is a generic term, not a proper name, meaning 'awakened', thus 'enlightened'. -- Gotama was 'the Buddha', not just 'Buddha', the historical founder of Buddhism whose teachings, the Dhamma, form its core. -- The historical Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. as Prince Siddhattha Gotama, in the Lumbini Park at Kapilavatthu, on the Indian border of present day Nepal. He was the son of King Suddhodana and Queen Maha Maya Devi who lived in the kingdom of the Sakyans, a tribe of the Aryan race that lived in the North India. At age 16 Siddhattha married Yashodhara who gave birth to their only son, Rahul. At the age of 29 Siddhattha renounced worldly life and left the palace to find an answer to the problem of suffering and a path to liberation from cyclic existence. Siddhattha attained enlightenment and became a Buddha at the age of 35. He spent 45 years wandering up and down the Ganges Valley expounding the doctrine that he has found and establishing the Sangha or Order of Buddhist monks and nuns, which still exists today. The Buddha died at age 80 in the year 543 B.C. in Kushinagara, not far from his birthplace at Lumbini. -- Besides the fully-enlightened Buddha who teaches Dhamma to the world (Samma-Sambuddha) there is the 'private Buddha' (Pacceka-Buddha), who is enlightened but does not teach. Buddhas appear at vast