h. What little seems to be authentic history is easily told; nor
are, for our present purpose, of much value the legends, which
mangonize the life of Buddha. They will be found in every book that
treats of the subject, and some of the more famous are translated in
the article on Buddha in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. We content
ourselves with the simplest and oldest account, giving such facts as
help to explain the religious significance of Buddha's life and work
among his countrymen. Several of these facts, Buddha's place in
society, and the geographical centre of Buddhistic activity, are
essential to a true understanding of the relations between Buddhism
and Brahmanism.

Whether Buddha's father was king or no has rightly been questioned.
The oldest texts do not refer to him as a king's son, and this
indicates that his father, who governed the C[=a]kya-land, of which
the limits have just been specified,[6] was rather a feudal baron or
head of a small clan, than an actual king. The C[=a]kya power was
overthrown and absorbed into that of the king of Oude (Kosala) either
in Buddha's own life-time or immediately afterwards. It is only the
newer tradition that extols the power and wealth which the Master gave
up on renouncing worldly ties, a trait characteristic of all the later
accounts, on the principle that the greater was the sacrifice the
greater was the glory. Whether kings or mere chieftains, the C[=a]kyas
were noted as a family that cared little to honor the Brahmanic
priests. They themselves claimed descent from Ikshv[=a]ku, the ancient
seer-king, son of Manu, and traditionally first king of Ayodh[=a]
(Oude). They assumed the name of Gautama, one of the Vedic seers, and
it was by the name of 'the Ascetic Gautama' that Buddha was known to
his contemporaries; but his personal name was Siddh[=a]rtha 'he that
succeeds in his aim,' prophetic of his life! His mother's name
M[=a]y[=a] (illusion) has furnished Senart with material for his
sun-theory of Buddha; but the same name is handed down as that of a
city, and perhaps means in this sense 'the wonderful.' She is said to
have died when her son was still a boy. The boy Siddh[=a]rtha, then,
was a warrior _r[=a]jput_ by birth, and possibly had a very
indifferent training in Vedic literature, since he is never spoken of
as Veda-wise.[7] The future Buddha was twenty-nine when he resolved to
renounce the world. He was already married and had a son (R[=a]hula,
according to l