by Ogo A. Bellard

Created on: August 11, 2007

Prince Siddhartha Gautama (est. 563 - 483 BCE) Prince, warrior, scholar, and teacher. Aka: Sanskrit: Siddhartha Gotama, later: Shakyamuni Buddha or The awakened one of the Shakya clan.

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." -Siddhartha Gautama (SG, SB)

It is virtually impossible to give a truly accurate account of Siddhartha's life and times; considering he lived an estimated 2570 years ago, and since his death, Siddhartha and his teachings have been open to interpretation and embellishment worldwide in the subsequent 25 millenniums. As a result in writing about Siddhartha, it is impractical not to include mythological renderings of fact to fully tell his story. One needs to look past the synesthetic metaphor to see the truth shining underneath.

On the night Siddhartha was conceived by his father King Suddhodana Gautama and his mother Queen Mahamaya, she had a vivid dream of a white elephant with six white tusks that painlessly entered into her body through her right side.

Elephants in the Asian continent have long been venerated and ascribed with various divine aspects. Ganapati or the combined form of Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva and Skanda; is a prime example and can be seen in the later Srittatvanidhi illustrations and text of the thirty two aspects of Ganapati. So for Queen Mahamaya to have dreamt of a special elephant, was considered very auspicious for the conception and forthcoming birth of Siddhartha, and in line with the existing mythology of the elephant present in her society.

When Queen Mahamaya was in her third trimester at ten months, she began the traditional journey to give birth in her home town; Devadaha, it was a short journey from the palace of the King in Kaplavastu, both situated in modern day Nepal. Whilst travelling through the gardens of Lumbini, the Queen dismounted to admire a flower, when she looked upward to the sky her birth pangs began. From what can be ascertained, there must have been complications in the birth, and

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