9th AVATAR – GAUTAMA BUDDHA / BALA KRISHNA AVATAR

The life story of the Buddha begins in Lumbini, near the border of Nepal and India, about 2,600 years ago, where a prince named Siddharta Gautama was born. Gautama Buddha  is also known as Bala Krishna and he  is mentioned as an Avatar of Sriman Narayana in the Puranic texts of Hinduism. In the Bhagavata Purana, He is twenty-fourth of twenty-five avatars, prefiguring a forthcoming final incarnation. Thus, Sriman Narayana took up the avatar of Buddha, to purify Hinduism of excessive ritualism. 

Siddharta, the ascetic prince renounced the throne to lead the world on the path of peace. He is the founder of the Buddhist religion prominent across the world. He was born the crown prince of the Kapilavastu to Suddhodana and Maya. He was named Siddhartha, meaning “All things fulfilled”..

Siddharta was saddened by death of living creatures, since his childhood days and used to question: “Alas! Do all living creatures kill each other?” He wasn’t happy with any answers that were provided to him and he decided to find out the meaning and the absolute truth and he left his wife and child to a hermit’s life in the forest and one day became the enlightened one.

His preaching spawned off the religion of Buddhism. Gautama preached detachment, and the middle path consisting of eightfold virtues of right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.