釋迦牟尼

釋迦文 (釋迦文尼); 釋伽文 Śākyamuni, the saint of the Śākya tribe. (sa) muni is saint, holy man, sage, ascetic monk; it is: intp. as 仁 benevolent, charitable, kind, also as 寂默 one who dwells in seclusion. After '500 or 550' previous incarnations, Śākyamuni finally attained to the state of Bodhisattva, was born in the Tuṣita heaven, and descended as a white elephant, through her right side, into the womb of the immaculate Māyā, the purest woman on earth; this was on the 8th day of the 4th month; next year on the 8th day of the 2nd month he was born from her right side painlessly as she stood under a tree in the Lumbinī garden. For the subsequent miraculous events v. Eitel. also the 神通遊戲經 (<Lalitavistara>), the 釋迦如來成道記, etc. Simpler statements say that he was born the son of Śuddhodana, of the (sa) kṣatriya caste, ruler of Kapilavastu, and Māyā his wife; that Māyā died seven days later, leaving him to be brought up by her sister Prājapati; that in due course he was married to Yaśodharā who bore him a son, Rāhula; that in search of truth he left home, became an ascetic, severely disciplined himself, and finally at 35 years of age, under a tree, realized that the way of release from the chain of rebirth and death lay not in asceticism but in moral purity; this he explained first in his four dogmas, v. 四諦 and eightfold noble way 八正道, later amplified and developed in many sermons. He founded his community on the basis of poverty, chastity, and insight or meditation, ad it became known as Buddhism, as he became known as Buddha, the enlightened. His death was probably in or near 487 B.C., a few years before that of Confucius in 479. The sacerdotal name of his family is Gautama, said to be the original name of the whole clan, Śākya being that of his branch, v. 瞿, 喬.; his personal name was Siddhārtha, or Sarvārthasiddha, v. 悉.