ABC
Religious texts
Religious schools and traditions
Heavenly beings and deities
Legendary and historical figures
Legendary and real places
Symbols and art
Doctrines and rituals
- Awakening
- Community
- Compassion
- Craving
- Dependent origination
- Dharma
- Eightfold Path
- Emptiness
- Five Precepts
- Four Noble Truths
- Happiness
- Heavens and hells
- Impermanence
- Karma
- Koan
- Kung fu
- Meditation
- Merit
- Mindfulness
- Nirvana
- Non-self
- Om (mani padme hum)
- Parinirvana
- Pilgrimage sites
- Prajnaparamita
- Puja
- Pure lands
- Realms of existence
- Rebirth
- Recitation
- Renunciation
- Ritual
- Self
- Suffering
- Tales of rebirth
- Three Jewels
- Three-body doctrine
- Universal ruler
- Vesak
- Ye-dhamma formula
- Yoga
Kapilavastu
Legendary and real places
Kapilavastu is a small town in Nepal, close to the Indian border. According to Buddhist tradition it was home to Suddhodana, the king of the Shakya people and father of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who later became Buddha Shakyamuni. Siddhartha spent his formative years in the royal palace of Kapilavastu. It was from here that the young prince undertook four excursions during which he encountered human suffering for the first time. Thereafter he left the royal palace to become a monk and seek salvation. Thus, Kapilavastu is a sacred place for Buddhists and a major pilgrimage site.