Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha ('the awakened'), was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in the Indian subcontinent or South Asia (the Himalayan foothils of present-day Nepal and the eastern Ganges plain of northern India), during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, to royal parents of the Shakya clan, but renounced his home life to live as a wandering ascetic. After leading a life of mendicancy, asceticism, and meditation, he attained nirvana at Bodh Gaya in what is now India. The Buddha then wandered through the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain, teaching and building a monastic order. Buddhist tradition holds he died in Kushinagar and reached parinirvana ("final release from conditioned existence").
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