Who was the Buddha? Siddhartha Gautama was the man to become a Buddha; he was born in approximately 563 BCE into a family of the Kshatriya class in a kingdom called Shakya. Shakya was located in the mountains of the Himalayas, which is found in Nepal. Although Siddhartha’s early life was comfortable he didn't want to live a luxurious life, he wanted spiritual satisfaction. After Siddhartha’s journey to find a solution of life’s problems through a spiritual solution, he became to be known as the Buddha, which means “Enlightened One” or “The One Who Has Awakened.” By the time the Buddha was 80 years old, he was in poor health. Since he never thought of himself as a “leader”, he decided that the Dharma, including the rules of monastic life, would
