The Buddha: His Life and Teaching

The book begins by emphasizing the enduring significance of the Buddha’s personality and message. Buddhism developed from the Buddha’s first discourse to five ascetics at Sarnath and subsequently spread across numerous cultures through peaceful teaching rather than coercion. Its expansion is attributed to its rational, ethical, and compassionate character, as well as to the conduct of its missionaries, who relied on persuasion, universal goodwill, and respect for existing religious traditions. The central narrative links the Buddha’s biography directly with the formation of his teaching. His encounters with ageing, illness, death, and renunciation initiated the search for release from suffering. His rejection of both sensual indulgence and self-mortification led to the discovery of the Middle Way. Following enlightenment, he taught dependent arising, the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path as a practical system through which individuals may understand conditioned existence, eradicate craving and ignorance, and attain Nibbāna. The first sermon is therefore presented as the doctrinal foundation embracing the whole of the Buddha’s teaching.