Where did Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) grow up and live?

📍Sacred Garden, Lumbini, Rupandehi District 32900, Nepal

“I was born Siddhartha Gautama around 563 BC in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, the son of a king of the Shakya clan. My mother died a week after my birth. I grew up sheltered from suffering in the palace at Kapilavastu. At twenty-nine I left the palace and encountered old age, sickness, death, and a wandering ascetic. I left my family, practised extreme asceticism, and finally sat under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya until I understood the nature of suffering and its cessation. I taught for forty-five years and died at eighty. The Lumbini garden where I was born is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and pilgrimage destination. The sheltered childhood's encounter with reality was the pivot around which five hundred million people's faith turns.”

👍 LovedThe Bodhi tree and the understanding that arrived beneath it. The forty-five years of teaching that produced one of the world's great religions. The community of monks and nuns.

👎 DislikedThe sheltered childhood that had not prepared me for reality. The extreme asceticism I eventually abandoned. The leaving of my wife and son.

Map showing where Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha) lived — Sacred Garden, Lumbini, Rupandehi District 32900, Nepal

🗺️ Approximate location today

📷 Location image · via Wikimedia Commons

Sources: Armstrong, K. Buddha (2001), Viking; Nanamoli, B. The Life of the Buddha (1972), Buddhist Publication Society