22 ORIGINS: THE CAREER OF SIDDHARTIIATHE BUDDHA’S BIOGRAPHY 22 WONDROUS B/RTH 24 THE “WHEEL ‘111RNER” 26 THE “FOUR SIGHTS” 28 THE “GOING FORTH” 30 THE “AWAKENING” 34THE “FIRST TURNING OF THE D HA/L*4A WHEEL” 36THE GROWING SANGHA 38THE FINAL NIRVANA 40ART AND A It CHITECTUR DEPICTING IT 31 BUDDHA 42PART 1 • CHAPTER 2 Kevin TrainorTHE CAREER OF SIDDHARTHA enisianzamwsimiummatia THE BUDDHA’S BIOGRAPHYOver the past century and a half, the figure of the Buddha has become widely known outside the regions of Asia where Buddhist traditions origi-nated and flourished. Since the nineteenth century, Westerners have come to know of Buddhism through accounts of the Buddha’s life such as the epic poem The Light of Asia (1879) by the English poet Sir Edwin Arnold or through works such as Siddhartha (1922) by the German writer Hermann Hesse, For more than two millennia, narratives of the Buddha’s life have, not surprisingly, played a vital role in the lives of Buddhists throughout Asia, and from them the figure of the Buddha emerges today as through a prism, appearing at one point as a superhuman wonder worker, at another as a rationalist philosopher—he has even been seen by some modern writers as a crusading social reformer. It is noteworthy, then, that the Buddha’s biogra-phy, in the sense of a comprehensive account of his life from birth to final passing away, appears to have developed only gradually among the Bud-dha’s followers during the first centuries after his death, probably in close conjunction with the development of important pilgrimage sites identified with key events in his evolving life story. The Buddha is, to be sure, vividly present in the earliest surviving canonical texts, since in most cases these teachings are in the form of dia-logues between the Buddha and those whom he taught. Moreover, these texts provide detailed accounts of connected episodes in the Buddha’s life, in particular the events up to and following his enlightenment, and the period immediately before his final passing away, But a continuous narrative of his life developed only gradually and in fact jataka stories—accounts of the Buddha’s previous lives—were, judging from their prominence in the canon-ical collections (see pp.190-91), of more concern to the early Buddhist com-munity than the details of his early life as Siddhartha Gautama. Buddhist tradition also holds that Gautama was but the latest in a long Line of bud-dhas extending infinitely into the past and future (see p.93). Some scholars have attempted to separate. clearly the complex inter-mingling of the mythic and historical strands of the Buddha biography. Yet despite a considerable amount of research and debate, there is presently no consensus among scholars regarding the historical dates of Gautama Bud-dha’s life. There is a widely accepted tradition that he gained enlightenment
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