Buddhism is one of many philosophies and ideas, but the basis and foundation for the religion is the life and teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. His past lives (Jatakas) leading up to (and including) his final incarnation as the Sakyamuni Buddha personify what can be described as the nature of Buddhas. Around the time of approximately 560 b.c.e., Siddhartha was born as a prince within a tribe called the Sakyas, grew up, and eventually became a renunciant. It is difficult to separate what is truly fact and historical regarding Siddhartha from what is myth and legend, and the man is at the basis of the religion (is, in fact, the religion himself, as some would say), and is inseparable from the beliefs and legends of Buddhism. "The historian must recognize that he has virtually no strictly historical criteria for distinguishing between history and myth in the accounts of the life of the Buddha" (Gethin, page 16). Siddhartha was born in what is modern-day Nepal, in the Kshatriya caste. Siddhartha's legendary aspects began with his conception (which consisted of a white elephant with a lotus flower touching his mother's side in a dream). On her way back to the village where she was raised, Siddhartha's mother gave birth to him while standing up in a forest grove, and "the whole earth trembled and partook in labor" (Bentley Oct. 27), and the infant Siddhartha could walk and talk right away, informing his mother that this would be his final birth. Shortly after his birth, prophecies were made claiming that Siddhartha would be either a great ruler (like Asoka), or a great teacher (like a Buddha) (Bentley, oct 27). Until the age of 29, Siddhartha lived a princely life of splendor in his father's home, but eventually became restless and left the palace walls. Once outside the walls, Siddhartha witnessed what has come to be referred to as 'The 4 Sightings', which included seeing his first elderly person, his first ill person, his first dead pe...