01/05/2026
Today is Vesak fullmoon poya day
Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Gautama Buddha, was a great religious teacher who lived in the eastern Indo-Gangetic plains in the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legend, he was born on the full moon day of Vesak in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal. Born to royal parents of the Shakya dynasty, he lived in three palaces built for him in Kimbulvatnuwara. On the day of his birth, Prince Rahula, who was born to the goddess Yashodhara, renounced the pleasures of royalty and began his life as an ascetic.
He sought the truth by becoming an ascetic and seeking various followers. Finally, he decided to seek it alone, without following any teachers, and committed atrocities to prove whether a life of great happiness, not achieved through a life of great pleasure, could be attained by inflicting great suffering on the body. But that too was in vain.
Having abandoned that too, he lived a life of meditation according to the Middle Way, without both extremes of excessive pleasure and excessive suffering for the body. After that, he attained Buddhahood on the full moon day of Vesak in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India.
The Buddha then traveled through the lower Indus-Gangetic Plain, teaching the Dhamma among the monks and establishing the Buddhist order. According to Buddhist tradition, he attained Parinibbana on the full moon day of Vesak in Kushinagar (modern Uttar Pradesh, India). Having destroyed all defilements and attained Buddhahood, he is not reborn or wanders in samsara after Parinibbana.