Buddha (from Sanskrit, ‘the enlightened one’), a title (but not a name) of Siddharta Gotama (c.563–c.483 B.C.), the historical founder of Buddhism, and of any of his later representations. ‘Buddha’ can also mean anyone who has attained the state of enlightenment (Buddhahood) sought in Buddhism. The Pali Canon mentions twenty-four Buddhas. Siddharta Gotama was the son of the ruler of a small state in what is now Nepal. Tradition says that he left home at the age of twenty-nine to seek enlightenment, achieved it at the age of thirty-five, and was a wandering teacher until his death at eighty. He found ready-made in Indian culture the ideas of karma (‘fruits of action’) and samsara (‘wheel of rebirth’) as well as the view that escape from the wheel is the highest good, and offered his own Buddhist way of escape. See also BUDDHIS. K.E.Y.