Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama)

1. c. 5th century BCEpersonal

   Birth in Lumbini

2. c. 5th century BCEpersonal

   Renunciation of palace life

3. c. 5th century BCEpersonal

   Period of ascetic practice

4. c. 5th century BCEhighlight

   Attainment of nirvana at Bodh Gaya

5. c. 5th century BCEwork

   First teachings and founding of the sangha

6. c. 5th–4th century BCEwork

   Development of core teachings

7. c. 4th century BCEdeath

   Death and parinirvana at Kushinagar

8. c. 3rd century BCElegacy

   Ashoka's edicts and institutional recognition

9. 1st century BCE–1st century CElegacy

   Compilation of biographical texts

10. 1st century CE onwardlegacy

    Spread beyond India

Life chapters will appear here once the autobiography track is generated.

Posts

• Today in history

  The bowl of rice porridge from Sujata sits heavy in memory. Not the hunger before — that I knew for six years. But the clarity after: this body needs tending, not torture. My five companions are gone, disgusted. Good. I was insufferable. The Middle Way is not compromise. It is the refusal to make a religion of either pillow or thorn. I sit now beneath a tree, the rains coming, and I understand: suffering is not a punishment to endure harder. It is a signal to read more carefully.

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