3.7.2: Sages

A sage is a very wise person, who develops a way of living and then shares it with others. Sages are similar to prophets in that both are human beings who are sharing a way to better themselves with his or her society out of compassion. In other words, both sages and prophets want to world to be a better place. They differ in that God is absent in the case of the sage. Founders can be sages, but not all sages are founders. For instance, Benjamin Franklin was the sage of colonial America; he was an inventor, scientist, diplomat, and helped draft parts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. No one doubted his wisdom, but Benjamin Franklin did not found a religion.

Examples of religions founded by sages include Confucianism, founded by Confucius, and Buddhism, found by Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the Buddha.

Case study: Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

Statues of the Buddha in Thailand.

The founding of Buddhism begins with the life and teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. He was born 566 BCE somewhere in the northeastern corner of India, today known as Nepal, as a prince of the Sakya clan in Hinduism. In this part of India, there were different cultures and accommodated many religious traditions. Although the central religious system was Hinduism, it consisted of many different traditions, with the main common feature the fact that they all originated on Indian soil.

At birth it was prophesied that he would become either a great king or a religious leader. Throughout his early life, Siddhartha's father sought to protect him from the sorrows of the world. He grew up in delightful palaces, was schooled in the noble arts and married a beautiful princess who bore him a son. However, while his son was still a baby, Gautama began to be disturbed by his sheltered life. Eventually, one day he got the chance to inspect the outside world. There he met, one after the other, an old man in the last stages of senility, a sick man afflicted by disease, a corpse being carried to the cremation ground and, finally, a shaven–headed, wandering religious beggar, clad in a simple yellow robe, but radiating peace and joy.

Siddharta decided to leave his wife and baby son to search for peace and joy. This is called the Great Renunciation. For six years he tried various prescribed ways, including the life of an ascetic, which, at the end of this period, left him ill and starved almost to the point of death. He left his companions and went to meditate under a fig tree, determined not to stop before he found the answer. It was there that he reached Enlightenment and became the Buddha.

Gautama's first disciples were his former five companions with whom he had spent most of his time during his quest. A few days later he had gathered a band of sixty–odd disciples. Thus was founded the nucleus of the Buddhist order of the monks, or sangha. For eight months of the year they would travel from place to place preaching, and then for the four months of the rainy season they would live in bamboo huts in great parks donated by wealthy followers.

Gautama died at the age of eighty, having received no calling nor divine revelation during his lifetime, nor ever calling himself a deity.