What then has Gautama done from the point of view of the Brahman?  He has given up his home to become an ascetic.  But this was permitted by usage, for, although the strict western code allowed it only to the priest, yet it was customary among the other twice-born castes at an earlier day, and in this part of India it awakened no surprise that one of the military caste should take up the life of a philosopher.  For the historian of Indic religions this fact is of great significance, since such practice is the entering wedge which was to split the castes.  One step more and not only the military caste but the lower, nay the lowest castes, might become ascetics.  But, again, all ascetics were looked upon, in that religious society, as equal to the priests.  In fact, where Gautama lived there was rather more respect paid to the ascetic than to the priest as a member of the caste.  Gautama was most fortunate in his birth and birth-place.  An aristocrat, he became an ascetic in a land where the priests were particularly disregarded.  He had no public opinion to contend against when later he declared that Brahman birth and Brahman wisdom had no value.  On the contrary, he spoke to glad hearers, who heard repeated loudly now as a religious truth what often they had said to themselves despitefully in private.

Gautama journeyed as a muni, or silent ascetic sage, till after seven years he abandoned his teachers (for he had become a disciple of professed masters), and discontentedly wandered about in M[=a]gadha (Beh[=a]r), ‘the cradle of Buddhism,’ till he came to Uruvel[=a], Bodhi Gay[=a].[9] Here, having found that concentration of mind, Yoga-discipline, availed nothing, he undertook another method of asceticism, self-torture.  This he practiced for some time.  But it succeeded as poorly as his first plan, and he had nearly starved himself to death when it occurred to him that he was no wiser than before.  Thereupon he gave up starvation as a means of wisdom and began to eat.  Five other ascetics, who had been much impressed by his endurance and were quite ready to declare themselves his disciples, now deserted him, thinking that as he had relaxed his discipline he must be weaker than themselves.  But Gautama sat beneath the sacred fig-tree[10] and lo! he became illumined.  In a moment he saw the Great Truths.  He was now the Awakened.  He became Buddha.

The later tradition here records how he was tempted of Satan.  For M[=a]ra (Death), ‘the Evil One’ as he is called by the Buddhists, knowing that Buddha had found the way of salvation, tempted him to enter into Nirv[=a]na at once, lest by converting others Buddha should rob M[=a]ra of his power and dominion.  This and the legend of storms attacking him and his being protected by the king of snakes, Mucalinda, is lacking in the earlier tradition.