Niangben China, b. 1971
Famous thinker in ancient India and founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni Buddha was born in the southern part of today's Nepal. He was honored by later generations as Buddha (meaning “awakened person”), Buddha, etc; In the regions where people of Han nationality, he was honored as the Buddha, meaning the “founder of Buddhism” and was respected as a God of supreme intelligence by the world. Shakyamuni (565-486 BC) lived in the same era as Confucius in China. He was a prince of the state of Kapilawi in the north of ancient India (now in Nepal), belonging to the Chadali caste. According to the Buddhist scriptures, at the age of 19, Shakyamuni felt many pains such as being born, getting old , illness and death, and abandoned his royal life to become a monk. At the age of 35, he achieved great enlightenment under the bodhi tree and opened the time of Buddhism. Then he preached in the Ganges River Basin in northern and central India. In 486 BC, Shakyamuni was eighty years old and manifested nirvana in the city of Naga on the fifteenth day of the second month of the lunar calendar.