The Life and Teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha: From the Four Sights to the First Sermon, and What the Mudras Reveal
The Only Founder Who Lived in This World: Why Shakyamuni Still Lights Our Hearts
In the quiet main hall of an old temple, beyond the faint scent of incense, a figure sits in a plain robe stripped of every ornament, one right hand raised in calm. This is Shakyamuni, also known as Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, who has guided people for some two thousand five hundred years with a gentle, wise smile that removes fear and cuts through doubt.
Amida promises rebirth in the Pure Land, Yakushi heals the sufferings of this world, and Dainichi embodies the truth of the universe itself. Shakyamuni is different from all of them: among the figures of Buddhism, he alone originates in a historical person who lived in a human body and faced human suffering on this earth.
Why did a prince of ancient India give up his throne and wealth, leave home, and after severe practice become the Awakened One? And how did his teaching become art and join the prayers of Japan? Separating historical fact from devotional tradition, this article follows his life, his teaching, and the art of the mudras on Buddha statues.
Historical Fact and Sacred Tradition: From the Prince of Kapilavastu to Leaving Home
To understand Shakyamuni deeply, it helps to separate the historical figure, Gautama Siddhartha as modern scholarship understands him, from the sacred tradition handed down in faith.
Historically, he was born around the fifth or sixth century BCE as a prince of Kapilavastu, a small state of the Shakya clan in what is now southern Nepal near the Indian border. His name was Gautama Siddhartha. He lived without want in a royal court, married, and had a son, but at the age of twenty-nine he left everything behind to take up the homeless life.
Buddhist tradition, on the other hand, describes his birth through a series of wonders. His mother, Queen Maya, conceived after dreaming that a white elephant entered her womb. Born in the garden of Lumbini, he is said to have taken seven steps, pointed to heaven and earth, and declared, "Above the heavens and below the heavens, I alone am the honored one." This is not a boast of arrogance but a declaration of human dignity: every living being is irreplaceable in itself.
The event known as the turning point of his departure is the Four Sights. Outside the palace gates he met an old man, a sick man and a corpse, and was shaken by the four sufferings no one can escape: birth, aging, sickness and death. Then he met a serene wandering monk, and resolved to seek the root cause of suffering. Beneath the tradition lies the earnest struggle of a young man who refused to rest in privilege and faced human pain honestly.
Six Years of Austerity, Awakening at Bodh Gaya, and the First Sermon at Sarnath
After leaving home, Siddhartha studied meditation under renowned teachers, but realized that mental concentration alone could not end his deepest suffering, and he left them.
Next he turned to extreme austerities, holding his breath, enduring hunger, and practicing for six years until he was little more than skin and bone. Yet he concluded that torturing the body would not bring peace of mind, and he gave up the practice. He bathed in the Nairanjana River, received an offering of milk porridge from a village girl named Sujata, and regained his strength. Then he sat beneath the bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, vowing not to rise until he awakened, and entered deep meditation.
This is where the legend of the defeat of Mara is told. Mara, the demon king who stands for desire and delusion, tried to break his meditation with sweet temptations and terrifying armies. Siddhartha calmly lowered his right hand and touched the earth with his fingertips, the gesture known as the earth-touching mudra. The earth goddess bore witness to the merit he had accumulated over countless lives, and Mara withdrew.
At dawn on the eighth day of the twelfth month, as he looked up at the morning star in the eastern sky, he realized the truth of the universe and became the Buddha, the Awakened One, at the age of thirty-five. Afterward, at the earnest request of the god Brahma, he decided to teach, and gave his first sermon to his five former companions at the Deer Park in Sarnath. This is called the First Turning of the Wheel of the Dharma. The wheel of truth began to turn.
The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Wisdom of the Middle Way
The core of what Shakyamuni taught is not blind faith but a practical philosophy of observing reality calmly. Its foundation is the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
- The truth of suffering: face the fact that life does not go as we wish.
- The truth of the cause: suffering arises from craving, from attachment to the self and to things.
- The truth of cessation: by letting go of attachment, we reach a state of peace where suffering ends, called nirvana.
- The truth of the path: the practice that leads there is the Eightfold Path of right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
Shakyamuni also taught the Middle Way, which rejects both indulgence in pleasure and fruitless austerity. A lute string breaks if it is too tight and does not sound if it is too loose; keeping body and mind in balance is the way to truth.
He also taught dependent origination, that all phenomena arise from countless conditions; impermanence, that all things change; and non-self, that nothing has a fixed, independent substance. At the age of eighty, as he entered final nirvana beneath the sal trees at Kushinagara, he left these last words: "Be a lamp unto yourselves, and let the Dharma be your lamp." Rely not on someone else but on yourself and on truth. That teaching still lights people's steps today.
Reading a Shakyamuni Statue: Mudras and the Shaka Triad of Horyuji
When you view a statue of Shakyamuni in a Japanese temple, knowing its form, attributes and mudras (hand gestures) greatly deepens the experience.
In form, a Tathagata wears no worldly ornaments. Where bodhisattvas wear the splendid jewelry of their royal days, the awakened Buddha wears only a simple single robe. He has the marks of superhuman wisdom, the thirty-two major and eighty minor characteristics, including the cranial protuberance (ushnisha), the white curl between the brows (urna) and the tightly curled hair.
As for attributes, Shakyamuni in principle holds nothing. Unlike Yakushi, who holds a medicine jar, empty hands themselves express a state of letting go of attachment.
There are three representative mudras.
- Fearlessness and wish-granting mudras: the right hand is raised with the palm forward, "have no fear," and the left hand is lowered, "I will grant your wishes." This is the most standard form, common to Buddhas in general.
- Earth-touching mudra: on a seated statue, the right hand is lowered from the knee and points to the earth with the fingertips, symbolizing the unshakable awakening that took the earth as its witness when Mara was defeated.
- Dharma-wheel mudra (preaching mudra): the fingers of both hands meet before the chest to form a circle, expressing the First Sermon.
In Japanese sculpture, the Shaka Triad in the Kondo (Golden Hall) of Horyuji, a National Treasure attributed to the sculptor Tori Busshi from the Asuka period, is celebrated for its mysterious archaic smile in the Northern Wei style and its draped-robe pedestal. In the Kamakura period, the Seiryoji-style Shakyamuni, with its distinctive concentric drapery folds, was widely venerated across the country.
Gautama Buddha, who struggled in ancient India and found truth through thorough self-observation, is not a distant god. His statues quietly speak of the possibility that anyone can let go of attachment and awaken to wisdom and compassion.
When your mind is stirred and anxiety or attachment threatens to hold you, remember the figure of Shakyamuni, smiling quietly with his right hand raised. Let go of fear and look at this moment as it is. The open palm offers a clear peace and a light to live by, across the centuries.
Enjoy Japanese History Through Mori no Akari
The compassionate gaze of Shakyamuni, who quietly removes fear without clinging to anything, and the sacred beauty of form handed down from ancient India to Asuka and Nara: the serene world of Japanese Buddhist art can bring deep harmony and calm to hearts busy with daily life.
Mori no Akari offers art works that let you color the sacred beauty of Japan's deities and Buddhist statues with your own hands, as part of the Mori no Akari Series.
References and Sources
- Nakamura Hajime, Gotama Buddha: Shakuson no shogai, Shunjusha, 1958
- Nakamura Hajime (trans.), Buddha no kotoba: Suttanipata, Iwanami Bunko, 1984
- Sawa Takaaki, Butsuzo zusetsu, Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1962
- Mizuno Kogen, Bukkyo yogo no kiso chishiki, Shunjusha, 1972
- Machida Koichi, Horyuji, Yakushiji, Toshodaiji no kobutsu, Chuokoron Bijutsu Shuppan, 1983