The Life of Buddha
Gautama Buddha, the historical Buddha, lived in northeast India between 563 and 483 BC. As a bodhisattva he had passed through thousands of existences before coming to Earth for his ultimate transmigration. This last lifetime he began as a son of the King of the Sakya, Suddhodana, who ruled at Kapilavastu on the border of Nepal, and was born in a village called Lumbini into the warrior tribe called the Sakyas (from where he derived the title Sakyamuni, meaning "Sage of the Sakyas").
According to ancient tradition, Queen Maya, his mother, first had a dream of a beautiful white elephant coming down into her womb, and this was interpreted as a sign that the Buddha, or a universal emperor, was about to be born. When her time came, Queen Maya went into the garden and gave painless birth to the bodhisattva. He immediately walked, spoke, and was received by Brahma.
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