WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -He saw four sights: a man bent with old age, a person afflicted with sickness, a corpse, and a wandering ascetic. It was the fourth sight, that of a wandering ascetic, that filled Siddhartha with a sense of urgency to find out what lay at the root of human suffering. Siddhartha left the luxury of the palace.

Detailed explanation-2: -He felt that his life of luxury was empty. At the age of 29, he persuaded his chariot driver, Channa, to take him out of the palace to the city. There he encountered the Four Sights: An old person-Siddhartha had never before seen an old person.

Detailed explanation-3: -At age twenty-nine, he made three successive chariot rides outside the palace grounds and saw an old person, a sick person, and a corpse, all for the first time.

Detailed explanation-4: -When he was 29 years old, legend dictates, he was jolted out of his idleness by the “Four Signs”: he saw in succession an old man, a sick person, a corpse being carried to cremation, and a monk in meditation beneath a tree.

Detailed explanation-5: -The early Buddhist texts state that Prince Siddhārtha’s motivation in renouncing the palace life was his existential self-examination, being aware that he would grow old, become sick and die. This awareness would also inspire his teachings later, such as on suffering and the Four Noble Truths.