About five hundred years before the birth of Christ the Buddha was born at a small village in India, only a few days' journey from Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus. His father was the Rajah of the tribe of Sakyas. The boy's family name was Gautama, and under this name we shall oftenest speak of him in this chapter. But his followers never use the name Gautama, thinking it too familiar and intimate. They always speak of him under some title, such as "the Lion of the Tribe of Sakya," "the Happy One," "the Conqueror," "the Lord of the World," "the King of Righteousness," and so on. When he was only seven days old his mother died, and he was brought up by his aunt.
The boy was quiet and thoughtful, and seemed to take no pleasure in hunting or in practising any of those exercises which would fit him to lead his tribe in war. His friends and relatives and the great Sakya nobles were very cross at this, because they feared that, when their enemies should attack them, the young prince would be found unequal to lead them in their conflicts. So they went to his father, and complained that the boy did nothing but follow his own pleasures, and that he learned nothing useful. When Gautama heard of this, he asked the King, his father, to fix a day on which he could show his skill and strength in all the manly arts. On the appointed day thousands of people thronged to the place that had been chosen to see what the Prince could do. He surprised every one, for he could ride the fiercest horses and fling the heaviest spears. He shot arrows with a bow that 1,000 men could not bend, and the sound of whose twanging was heard 7,000 miles away. After this the people held their peace and wondered.
When he was nineteen he married his cousin, a girl singularly beautiful and good. For the next ten years after that we know nothing at all about him, but we are sure that he lived a quiet, peaceful life, treating all around him with gentleness and courtesy, and thinking little about sickness or sorrow. One day, when he was about twenty-nine years old, he was driving to the pleasure-grounds when he saw a man broken down by age--weak, poor, and miserable--and he asked the man who was driving his chariot to explain the sight. To which the charioteer replied that all men who live to a great age become weak in mind and body, just like the poor old wreck they had seen in the street. Another day he saw a man suffering from disease, and again the charioteer explained that all men have to suffer pain. A few days later he saw a dead body, and learned for the first time--a fact that had been kept from him through all the days of his childhood and his manhood even up to that hour--that all human beings must die.