religious use of the _Vedas_ and
the right to sacrifice were strictly confined to the Brahmans.
There were travelling logicians, anchorites, ascetics, and solitary
hermits. Although the ranks of the priesthood were closed against
intruders, still a man of lower caste might become a religious
teacher and reformer. Such were the conditions which welcomed
Gautama Buddha.

One hundred miles northeast of Benares, at Kapilavastu, on the banks of
the river Rohini, the modern Kohana, there lived about five hundred
years before Christ a tribe called Sakyas. The peaks of the mighty
Himalayas could be seen in the distance. The Sakyas frequently
quarrelled with the Koliyans, a neighboring tribe, over their water
supplies from the river. Just now the two clans were at peace, and two
daughters of the rajah of the Koliyans were wives of Suddhodana, the
rajah of the Sakyas. Both were childless. This was deemed a very great
misfortune among the Aryans, who thought that the star of a man's
existence after death depended upon ceremonies to be performed by his
heir. There was great rejoicing, therefore, when, in about the
forty-fifth year of her age, the elder sister promised her husband a
son. In due time she started with the intention of being confined at her
parents' house, but it was on the way, under the shade of some lofty
satin trees in a pleasant grove called Lumbini, that her son, the future
Buddha, was unexpectedly born. The mother and child were carried back to
Suddhodana's house, and there, seven days afterward, the mother died;
but the boy found a careful nurse in his mother's sister, his father's
other wife.

Many marvellous stories have been told about the miraculous birth and
precocious wisdom and power of Gautama. The name Siddhartha is said to
have been given him as a child, Gautama being the family name. Numerous
were his later titles, such as Sakyasinha, the lion of the tribe of
Sakya; Sakya-muni, the Sakya sage; Sugata, the happy one; Sattha, the
teacher; Jina, the conqueror; Bhagava, the blessed one, and many others.

In his twentieth year he was married to his cousin, Yasodhara, daughter
of the rajah of Koli. Devoting himself to home pleasures, he was accused
by his relations of neglecting those manly exercises necessary for one
who might at any time have to lead his people in war. Gautama heard of
this, and appointed a day for a general tournament, at which he
distinguished himself