The Zion Square assault, also described by Israeli police,[1] the judge who passed sentence,[2] Israeli and foreign media as a 'lynch' or 'attempted lynch(ing)',[3][4][5][6][7] was an attack by Israeli youths against four Palestinian teenagers that took place on the night of 16–17 August 2012 at Zion Square in Jerusalem. The four were chased by 10–15 teenagers and a 17-year-old Palestinian boy Jamal Julani was beaten unconscious and subsequently found to be in a critical condition.[8][9][10][11]
Originally reported by police as a brawl between two groups, the incident achieved notoriety after an Israeli eyewitness posted an account on Facebook reporting that dozens of Israeli youths had tried to beat to death three Arab youths, and that, when one fell, they continued to kick his head. After the assailants fled, others in the vicinity stood about shouting angrily. When Israeli volunteers on the scene gave the boy assistance, their action was greeted by bystanders with expressions of resentment.[12] Julani had a heart condition and had to be revived by a responding medic. He was released from hospital a week after the attack.[13] In July 2013 he was still undergoing neurological and psychological care.[14] An eyewitness reported that police marked the site as a murder scene.[15]
Reports said that during the episode a policeman observed the assault without intervening. However, a police investigation determined that this referred to an earlier altercation nearby.[16] Prompt intervention by Magen David Adom, including C.P.R., managed to revive him. Authorities called his survival a miracle.[17] Police commissioner Yohanan Danino told the press, "The lynch in Jerusalem was the most severe and contemptible act imaginable in a democratic law-abiding country."[4]
On 19 August, Israeli police arrested several Israeli teenagers, the youngest of whom was 13 years old. One of the suspects expressed no regret. The attack took place on the same day as a firebombing of a Palestinian taxi driving near the Israeli settlement of Bat Ayin in which a Palestinian family of 5 and their driver suffered serious burns.[18][5] The incidents were condemned in Israel and throughout the world[19] and a national debate over anti-Arabism ensued. [18]
The attack

The attack took place on Thursday night 16 August 2012, in Jerusalem's busy pub and entertainment district[13] on the eve of Eid-ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.[20] This year Israel had issued large numbers of entry permits to Palestinians to visit Jerusalem over the Muslim holy month.[1] According to interviews with the Palestinian victims, 17 year-old Jamal Julani, a matriculating student[5] from the predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras al-Amud, together with his cousins Muhammad Mujahid, 17, and Nuaman Julani, and a fourth boy were attacked and chased by some 50 Israeli youths, shouting "Death to Arabs".
The harassment began in Kikar Hahatulot (Cats' Square), which is notorious for its late-night drunken brawls. Initial reports spoke of a group singing racist, anti-Arab songs when, according to police, a girl declared she had been molested sexually, or raped,[21] by an Arab, and this remark is said to have caused the boys' rampage,[6] which started by beating up an Arab who happened to be passing by.[21]
Suspects gave defense lawyers a number of different versions of the events.[22] According to the police indictment in late August, when the group met up in central Jerusalem, a girl noted the presence of Arabs and told her friends, the defendants, that Arabs should not be seated there. Other teens joining in suggested attacking them. One said: "Whoever wants to show that he's a man go and hit the Arabs." The girl then shouted racist slogans—"Mohammad is dead" and "Death to Arabs", and several were chased from the area.[23] According to Reuven Rivlin some of the assailants wore shirts with a Betar symbol, which symbolizes both the revisionist Zionist youth movement created by Ze'ev Jabotinsky in 1923 and also a Jerusalem soccer team.[8][24] Press reports state that hundreds of bystanders refrained from intervening.[13] A Palestinian, who had himself been previously scarred by a cut from a bottle in an assault by Jewish youths, said that on the night in question Jewish and Arab workers at the restaurant where he is employed had driven off the mob, which was chanting "Death to the Arabs".[1]
According to the indictment by prosecutors nearly a year later, some 60 youths in Cats' Square began to harassing Arab youths around 11.30 pm, ordering them not to sit there and yelling slogans against Muhammad and Arabs. Some thirty of the group them hived off[2] towards Zion Square in search of Arabs to beat. The pursuing groups were composed of an "inner circle" involved directly in the assault, and an "outer circle" that joined in and encouraged them.[14] An attempt was made to kick a passing Arab, and a group encircled other Arabs who managed to flee. Shortly afterwards, they noted Jamal and three other boys, and gave chase, and hit one in the back of the neck.[23] According to his cousin Nuaman, one attacker said to Jamal, 'What are you doing, you son of a bitch?', and as Jamal tried to flee he was whacked in the chest and fell.[25] The teenagers continued to kick him after he fell down unconscious,[17] but as more police arrived, according to the Palestinians, the crowd quickly dispersed.[25]
When a Magen David Adom ambulance and emergency crew arrived on the scene, a paramedic, Amir Edri, found Jamal without pulse.[17][26] It was initially thought he was dead[25] but after 10 minutes of intense CPR and electric shock his pulse returned.[15] The three other Palestinians in the group suffered only minor injuries.[25]
Though one of the arrested suspects spoke of 40 to 50 youths involved in the beating, police concluded at the time that the number of Jewish youngsters directly implicated ranged from 10 to 15, while a few dozen others just stood around and watched. They also concluded that the attack was unprovoked.[16] On the following Monday, a police spokesman, Sergeant Shmuel Shinhav, described the assault as "simply a lynch".[17] Police later said that the fact Jamal suffered from a heart condition may have contributed to his loss of consciousness.[22] A lawyer for one of the girls who was involved but, according to him, did not participate in the beating, said that the teenagers had intended to beat him to death.[22]
Jamal was taken in a comatose state to the Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Kerem in southwest Jerusalem, where a Palestinian taxi-driver was also undergoing intensive care after suffering serious burns together with five members of the Abu Jayada family of Nahalin from a Molotov cocktail attack outside the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin earlier that day. A Jewish settler and resident of Kfar Etzion, Meir "Meron" Yehoshua, on hearing news of the firebombing, contacted the families of both the taxi-driver and his passengers and volunteered to drive them across the checkpoints to facilitate their visits to the hospital.[7] A week later, police detained three Israeli adolescents from the Bat Ayin settlement, all between 12 and 13, on suspicion of involvement in the taxi firebombing. Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon regarded both incidents as terrorist attacks that "constitute first and foremost an educational and moral failure".[27]
Jamal was in a coma for two days.[7] On emerging from it he said he had no memory of the attack and no fear of returning to downtown Jerusalem.[4] No official state or municipal representatives visited him for several days,[7] but Thursday, 23 August, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin paid Jamal a visit to apologise on behalf of the state. Rivlin told him that the assault was evidently not an 'isolated incident of racism towards Arabs, but a worrying phenomenon in Israeli society' and that it was 'a microcosm of a national problem that could endanger Israeli democracy.' [28] [4][6][29][30]
In the following days the police arrested eight teens, two of them girls, ranging in ages from 13 to 19.[5][16] A brother of one of the suspects who was also present asserted that the four Arab boys had provoked passersby and “made passes at Jewish girls", adding that "(Arabs) shouldn't be here, it's our area. For what other reason would they come here if not to make passes at Jewish girls?"[25] Another eyewitness said the Israeli group appeared to be hunting for Arabs.[17]
Jamal's mother called the youths terrorists and added that they themselves were had no political ideas and that, "We brought our children up to study, to be good and to love their homeland." His father was at a loss to understand why the youths did this, but called his son lucky for having survived.[5]
Fear spread throughout Israeli Arab communities in the wake of the two incidents, particularly in Jaffa, Safed and Haifa.[21]
Facebook report
A volunteer for the  NGO, which aids Israeli and Palestinian youths in distress, and who happened to be present at the scene, posted an eyewitness account on Facebook that night. She opened her account with the remark:
It's late at night, and I can't sleep. My eyes are full of tears for a good few hours now and my stomach is turning inside out with the question of the loss of humanity, the image of God in mankind, a loss that I am not willing to accept.[15]
According to the report, loud shouts of 'A Jew is a good soul, an Arab is a son of a —,' could be heard and dozens of youths ran and gathered to beat, nearly to death, three Arab youths strolling peacefully along Ben Yehuda Street.[31] When volunteers tried to resuscitate Jamal, she added, a mass of bystanders reportedly asked resentfully why they were reviving an Arab. Later, as Jamal's cousin gave testimony to the police two youths queried why he should be handed a bottle of water, and one of them commented: 'He is an Arab, and they don’t need to walk around in the center of the city, and they deserve it, because this way they will finally be afraid.' She complained that
Children aged 15–18 are killing a child their own age with their own hands. Really with their own hands. Children whose hearts were unmoved when they beat to death a boy their age who lay writhing on the floor.[15]
Investigations and arrests of the perpetrators
According to one report, the whole incident was recorded on official surveillance cameras and the police said other arrests were to be expected.[22] Sources in the Jerusalem Municipality now claim the city's security cameras were being upgraded at the time the attack took place and thus not working in the area. They said that the police would be reviewing, instead, footage recorded on cameras operated by local businesses.[32]
In an early report, Ma'ariv wrote that some 40 minutes before Jamal's near fatal beating, people had called the police to report a brawl, and an on-duty policeman arrived and stood by as the violence unfolded.[16] One Arab employed near the scene who had phoned the police claimed that on arriving a police officer decided not to act when he saw that the brawl involved teenagers.[4] The police department rejected the allegation, and replied that this call referred to the earlier altercation. They affirmed that when, 40 minutes later, further calls arrived reporting violence at Zion Square, additional officers were sent.[4]
Acting Jerusalem police chief General Menachem Yitzhaki established a special team to conduct investigations.[15]
The Israeli police had initially called the episode a "brawl", but 3 days later, on Sunday, termed it a "lynching".[25][33] According to a police account given to the magistrates' court, the attack took place in the heart of Jerusalem before a crowd that numbered in the hundreds,[25] some of whose members egged the attackers on.[34] Police have stated that they have found no evidence to corroborate suggestions the Palestinians had been provocative earlier, and were increasingly convinced Jamal had been attacked simply because he was an Arab.[11][16]
Between Sunday and Tuesday, police rounded up 8 youths ranging in age from 13 to 19, including three girls, on suspicion of being involved in the assault, and brought them before magistrates for a remand hearing. One of the girls, still under detention a week later, came from an ultra-Orthodox family and had until recently studied at the Beit Yaakov seminary.[11] Tamar Rotem, examining the backgrounds of some of the youths, identifies them as hailing from low-income Haredi neighbourhoods suffering from neglect and as drop-outs from religious seminaries.[11]
According to one of the defense lawyers, the suspects have provided different accounts of how the events unfolded. One version was that the Jewish youths were singing racist songs and chanting anti-Arab slogans when they came across the four Arab teenagers.[22] Some said that the Arabs were actually harassing them. By Monday, the deputy commander of the Lev Habira police station said investigators believe one girl in the group had incited the attackers.[22] A chase ensued that ended 200 yards away in Zion Square, where 10 people managed to catch Jamal.[5][16]
In late August, police filed indictments against 9 teens for aggravated battery, aggravated assault and incitement to violence,[23] and requested the court to hold them in detention until the end of proceedings. One, a girl, was released on house arrest.[35]
Statements by the alleged assailants
"For my part he can die, he's an Arab. If it was up to me, I'd have murdered him."—The 14-year-old suspect, identified only as O, said to court reporters on Monday 20 August.[5][6]
"He insulted my mom. So I caught him and beat him. I hit him and I hope he gets it again. I hope he dies. You can't go by Damascus Gate without getting stabbed. So why do they come here? I beat him, and I'd beat him again. I'm not sorry for what I did." [22]
Trial
Three teenagers and four men were indicted on charges of assaulting Arabs in Zion Square. Several eventually made plea bargains,[36] confessing to some of the charges. On 8 July 2013, the Jerusalem District Court handed down its verdict on the three minors charged with the assaults, finding them guilty. Defendant No.1 was sentenced to 8 months detention for aggravated assault; defendant No.2 was convicted of incitement to violence and racism, and given three months in detention; defendant No.3 was sentenced to 30 days in prison, and a 2-month suspended sentence, for aiding aggravated assault out of racist motives.[14] The Jewish Telegraphic Agency  reported the sentence as a 'slap on the wrist'.[37]
Ben-Zion Gopstein of Lehava, an organization dedicated to anti-assimilation, declared to reporters outside the courtroom that:'It seems that here the youth raised Jewish pride off the  floor, and did what the police should have done.'[38]
Aftermath
The Israeli Minister for Education requested that time be set aside in all junior and high schools throughout Israel for a lesson on the attempted lynching episode.[28][39]
The incident did not deter Palestinians from East Jerusalem or those from the West Bank who had obtained permits from visiting downtown Jerusalem.[1] Tamar Rotem reported that life at Zion Square has resumed its normal tranquil rhythms. Interviewing youths from the Bnei Akiva National Religious Party's youth movement, she found they knew nothing of the incident, and, when informed of the circumstances, were quick to come to the defense of the suspected perpetrators. One said: "It's very good that they (the Jewish assailants) hit them. . . It's just too bad they didn't kill them." Another boasted, "Had I been there, I would have killed them." Arabs are, they said, "terrorists who carry out attacks and want to murder all of us".[11] The director of the Masorti community, Rabbi Andrew Sacks, while noting that the attack elicited condemnation over the entire spectrum of the Jewish world, also drew attention to a certain diffidence, in the fact that Lehava had begun circulating a flyer in Jerusalem soon afterwards that was warning Arab males against flirting with or talking to Jewish girls.[40] The pamphlet, distributed both in Hebrew and Arabic, is similar to former messages by the Kach movement, reads in part: "We don't want you to get hurt, respect our girls' honor because they are dear to our hearts," and "If you're thinking of going to the pedestrian mall or the Jerusalem mall in order to go out with Jewish girls, this isn't the place. You can walk around your village and find girlfriends there. Not by us! Last week an Arab who thought he'd find some Jewish girls got hurt. We don't want you to get hurt."[10][40] Jerusalem police later asked the Justice Ministry for guidance in determining whether or not to pursue allegations that Lehava is inciting Jerusalemites to racism.[10]
In response to a claim by two east Jerusalem Arab teens that they were assaulted by three men at Tel Aviv beach after asking for directions and had had great difficulty in obtaining redress from the police when they tried to file a complaint, Knesset representative Ta'al party member Ahmad Tibi put the blame on Israeli police for failing in their duties. "Imagine Israel's response had the tables been turned and a Jew was lynched at an Arab town," Tibi declared, adding that a 'hunting season for Arabs is at its height with support from a rightist government and racist Knesset'. An Israeli news source phrased this story in its first sentence as: "Two East Jerusalem teens are claiming they were assaulted by three men in Tel Aviv earlier this week in what could be another case of racist violence after last week's Jerusalem lynch."[41]
In later years where violent rampages have led to the killing or beating up of Palestinian youths, the case of Jamal Julani has been cited to argue that racially motivated attacks on Palestinians are nothing new,[42][43] or that the lessons inculcated at the time have not sunk in.[28] Mohammed Sayyad of At-Tur, the youth who had alerted police to the violence against Julani, was himself attacked while having a meal by an Israeli group hunting Arabs 2 years later, who threw stones and threatened to kill him.[44]
In 2014 Lehava established a booth to distribute flyers, harass Arabs in the area and shout anti-Arab slogans in Zion Square hours after the burial of three Israeli teens who were murdered in the West Bank. Almost simultaneously, a leftist group formed to counter their activities in the square. Both groups organized just hours before Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped and murdered. The confrontations between the two groups continued for some months, regularly every Thursday and Saturday night.[45] A year later, in May 2015, an Ir Amim researcher Aviv Tatarsky, observing a similar incident of a Palestinian fleeing from Zion Square with a group of Jewish youths in pursuit, stated that the practice has been commonplace for years and that in the preceding year,  such violent attacks in central Jerusalem, reminiscent of what happened to Jamal Julani  took place almost every night from July through to December. [46]
The public debate in Israel
Nimrod Aloni, the head of the Institute for Educational Thought at , Tel Aviv, in an interview on Channel 1, linked the youths' attitude directly to national fundamentalism, and argued it was identical to the rhetoric of neo-Nazis, Taliban and Ku Klux Klan. Aloni stated that: "This comes from an entire culture that has been escalating toward an open and blunt language based on us being the chosen people who are allowed to do whatever we like."[5]
Gavriel Salomon, a professor of educational psychology at Haifa University, speaking to Israel Radio, attributed the attacks to increasing racism and violence in Israeli society, and an atmosphere of "legitimacy", declaring that "[s]uddenly it's not so terrible to burn Arabs inside a taxi."[5]
Zohar Eitan, a Tel Aviv University lecturer in musicology, on visiting Jamal to show solidarity as "an ordinary citizen", called the attack "very sad but unfortunately not shocking. It is the result of the indoctrination that these kids get."[5]
Local police say the attack "reflected profound hatred among Jewish youths in Jerusalem for local Arabs".[16]
Yehudit Oppenheimer, executive director of Ir Amim, blamed the attack on rampant discrimination, a policy he argues excluded Palestinians from the public sphere in Jerusalem, turning their neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem into islands of poverty and neglect, and "a climate that permits public displays of hatred towards foreigners".[34]
Blogger Mairav Zonszein, who initially translated the eyewitness testimony on Facebook and published it in an accessible English version,[12] argued that despite the widespread condemnation of the two attacks as examples of a "hate crime" and "terror attack", such assaults are not an "aberration from the norm" but are on the rise, with a 39% increase in acts of settler violence from 2010 to 2011 when 2.6 incidents a day were registered. She argued that similar acts of violence are treated differently by the law. An Israeli man who, assisted by accomplices and bystanders, used a razor blade to kill a Palestinian East Jerusalemite encountered in the Zion Square area in February 2011 received an 8-year sentence for manslaughter, while a 29-year sentence was handed down to Palestinian minors for killing an Israeli, Aryeh Karp, on a Tel Aviv beach in 2009. Zonszein stated that two different justice systems are in operation and that public condemnations by politicians were little more than lip-service.[47]
Haaretz published a piece that placed a portion of the blame on some of the attackers being drop-outs from impoverished Haredi neighborhoods.[48]
Foreign commentary
Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for The Atlantic, argued that such violence is not common,[49] and that Jerusalem's Arabs and Jews have achieved "in the city's public spaces, a kind of side-by-side integration". It's in the nature of things, he continued, that Jewish violence draws more coverage than Arab violence against Jews at times. Goldberg commended the arrests and said the acid test would take place in a future trial: "Will they be given sentences that match the gravity of the crime, or will they get off easy? It would be appalling, but unsurprising, if this is ultimately not treated as an attempted murder."[50]
Jill Jacobs, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, wrote that indictments will probably lead to a "few bad apples" verdict, but that the incident posed an issue for the global Jewish community. It differs, she argues, from price tag incidents, which may be dismissed as the handiwork of a few radical settlers. Recently, again in the heart of Jerusalem, a group of mostly teenage Beitar soccer fans had stormed the Malha Mall to attack Arab workers and shoppers and hurl racist abuse. Just as American Jews, mindful of the lynching of Leo Frank, once had to confront directly the issue of anti-Semitism and the broader and deeper undercurrents of racism and bigotry, they must take a hard look at the way Palestinians are being portrayed. Terms that, if applied to Jews, would be deemed virulently anti-Semitic, are often used of Palestinians, and some children get the impression hatred of Arabs is acceptable. "[R]eal teshuvah, repentance", she concludes, "will come only when we ensure that our everyday language does not teach our children to hate".[51]
Bradley Burston, surveying the work of pro-Israeli supporters like Pamela Geller, who, in his view, espouse the cause of a Jewish state by promoting hatred of Islam, argues that there are worrisome signs in the United States of a trend that is conflating Islamophobia with support for Israel, which runs in tandem with attacks on Palestinians by settlers and by Arab-hating youths in Israel. 'Israel,' he concludes, 'has elaborate defense systems against military attack and terrorism. Its defenses against its own extremists are much more porous.'[52]
Both Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg and Gil Troy are heartened by the official response in Israel to the assault. Goldberg noted that in August, both the U.S. and Israel had suffered wake-up calls in their struggles against terrorism. Both the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting and the Zion square incident (together with the taxi fire-bombing) came from an overlooked quarter, the activities of right-wing nativists, be they white supremacist or Christians, or Jewish fundamentalists. Whereas the U.S. appears to have ignored the extremists, in Israel national outrage prompted soul-searching and calls across political partisan lines to re-examine the educational system and crackdown on violent settlers.[53] Gil Troy notes that the entire Israeli political spectrum was united in expressing "outrage and shame". Israel's critics use such incidents to indict Israeli society, but on this occasion Israel's own right-wing government has publicly assumed responsibility and taken measures in educational reform to ensure Israel's youth will not stray towards violence.[54]
Architect Michael Sorkin, in a 2016 essay on the politics of architecture, and the promotional use of Zion Square as a zone of tolerance, and of Israel as a place affording a safe haven for Palestinian queers from their own culture,  cites the case as one the vaunted tolerance was that of bystanders not intervening to stop the aggression, and  suggests that the pinkwashing project’s message  was that  a broader ‘intolerance ‘, against Palestinians, would not be protested  there. [55]
Official reactions
Domestic
Israel:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the taxi firebombing[5] and spoke out about the attack in Zion square, saying, "In the State of Israel we aren't willing to tolerate racism and we aren't willing to tolerate the combination of racism and violence."[16][22]
Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman, said: "We unequivocally condemn racist violence and urge the police and law enforcement community to act expeditiously to bring the perpetrators to justice."[5]
Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's Vice Prime Minister called this incident and a separate attack on a cab driver "hate crimes" and "heinous acts".[17]
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat strongly condemned the incident, and called for "continued coexistence" but cautioned against jumping to premature conclusions about the motivation behind it.[16] One critic has replied that Barkat himself presides over both institutional segregation and the proliferation of hostile Jewish settlements in Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem.[47]
Education Minister for Education  Gideon Saar, who called the incident "violent" and "racist" instructed Israeli schools to discuss it in classes when the school term recommences.[16] His declaration was attacked as "lip-service" by Mairav Zonszein, who pointed out that it was Saar who initiated field trips for Israeli schoolchildren to Hebron where acts of brutality against Palestinians are reportedly not uncommon and, she asserts, have not been condemned by the Minister.[47]
Foreign
U.S. Department of State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland issued a written statement on the assault: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms the senseless act of hate and violence committed against a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem on August 17. We wish victim Jamal Julani a speedy recovery. Discriminatory acts of violence undermine and discredit efforts toward peace and security between Israelis and Palestinians. We welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu's unequivocal condemnation of racism and violence and his call for a full police investigation. The perpetrators of this hateful crime must be held to account."[56]
The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement expressing its horror at the two violent attacks against Palestinians.[19]
See also
Racism in Israel

How many people were injured during Zion Square assault?


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Outline
 Buddhismportalvt
Gautama Buddha[note 3] (c. 563/480 – c. 483/400 BCE), also known as Siddhārtha Gautama (सिद्धार्थ गौतम) in Sanskrit or Siddhattha Gotama (शिद्धत्थ गोतम) in Pali ,[note 4] Shakyamuni (i.e. "Sage of the Shakyas") Buddha,[4][note 5] or simply the Buddha, after the title of Buddha, was a monk (śramaṇa),[5][6] mendicant, sage,[4] philosopher and teacher on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.[7] He is believed to have lived and taught mostly in the northeastern part of ancient India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.[8][note 6]
Gautama taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and the severe asceticism found in the śramaṇa movement[9] common in his region. He later taught throughout other regions of eastern India such as Magadha and Kosala.[8][10]
Gautama is the primary figure in Buddhism. He is believed by Buddhists to be an enlightened teacher who attained full Buddhahood and shared his insights to help sentient beings end rebirth and suffering. Accounts of his life, discourses and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarised after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition and first committed to writing about 400 years later.
Historical Siddhārtha Gautama
Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most people accept that the Buddha lived, taught, and founded a monastic order during the Mahajanapada era during the reign of Bimbisara (c.558– c.491 BCE, or c. 400 BCE),[11][12][13] the ruler of the Magadha empire, and died during the early years of the reign of Ajatasatru, who was the successor of Bimbisara, thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara.[14][15] While the general sequence of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" is widely accepted,[16] there is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies.[17][18]
The times of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Most historians in the early 20th century dated his lifetime as c. 563 BCE to 483 BCE.[1][19] More recently his death is dated later, between 411 and 400 BCE, while at a symposium on this question held in 1988,[20][21][22] the majority of those who presented definite opinions gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death.[1][23][note 6]  These alternative chronologies, however, have not been accepted by all historians.[28][29][note 7]
Historical context

The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born into the Shakya clan, a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE.[34] One of his usual names was "Sakamuni" or "Sakyamunī" ("Sage of the Shakyas"). It was either a small republic, or an oligarchy, and his father was an elected chieftain, or oligarch.[34] According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini, now in modern-day Nepal, and raised in the Shakya capital of Kapilvastu, which may have been either in what is present day Tilaurakot, Nepal or Piprahwa, India.[note 1]Warder: "The Buddha [...] was born in the Sakya Republic, which was the city state of Kapilavastu, a very small state just inside the modern state boundary of Nepal against the Northern Indian frontier.[8]
Walshe: "He belonged to the Sakya clan dwelling on the edge of the Himalayas, his actual birthplace being a few miles north of the present-day Northern Indian border, in Nepal. His father was, in fact, an elected chief of the clan rather than the king he was later made out to be, though his title was raja—a term which only partly corresponds to our word 'king'. Some of the states of North India at that time were kingdoms and others republics, and the Sakyan republic was subject to the powerful king of neighbouring Kosala, which lay to the south".[44]
The exact location of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown.[43] It may have been either Piprahwa in Uttar Pradesh, northern India,[45][46][47] or Tilaurakot,[48] present-day Nepal.[49][43] The two cities are located only fifteen miles from each other.[49]See also Conception and birth and Birthplace Sources</ref> He obtained his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath, and died in Kushinagar.
Apart from the Vedic Brahmins, the Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential Śramaṇa schools of thought like Ājīvika, Cārvāka, Jainism, and Ajñana.[50] Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought. In this context, a śramaṇa refers to one who labors, toils, or exerts themselves (for some higher or religious purpose). It was also the age of influential thinkers like Mahavira,[51] Pūraṇa Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, Ajita Kesakambalī, Pakudha Kaccāyana, and Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, as recorded in Samaññaphala Sutta, whose viewpoints the Buddha most certainly must have been acquainted with.[52][53][note 9] Indeed, Sariputta and Moggallāna, two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta, the sceptic;[55] and the Pali canon frequently depicts Buddha engaging in debate with the adherents of rival schools of thought. There is also philological evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, were indeed historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques.[56] Thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time.[57] In an era where holiness of person was judged by their level of asceticism,[58] Buddha was a reformist within the śramaṇa movement, rather than a reactionary against Vedic Brahminism.[59]
Historically, the life of the Buddha also coincided with the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley during the rule of Darius I from about 517/516 BCE.[60] This Achaemenid occupation of the areas of Gandhara and Sindh, which was to last for about two centuries, was accompanied by the introduction of Achaemenid religions, reformed Mazdaism or early Zoroastrianism, to which Buddhism might have in part reacted.[60] In particular, the ideas of the Buddha may have partly consisted of a rejection of the "absolutist" or "perfectionist" ideas contained in these Achaemenid religions.[60]
Earliest sources

No written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or from the one or two centuries thereafter. In the middle of the 3rd century BCE, several Edicts of Ashoka (reigned c. 269–232 BCE) mention the Buddha, and particularly Ashoka's Rummindei Minor Pillar Edict commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to Lumbini as the Buddha's birthplace. Another one of his edicts (Minor Rock Edict No. 3) mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts, establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era. These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon.[61][62] [note 10]

"Sakamuni" in also mentionned in the reliefs of Bharhut, dated to circa 100 BCE, in relation with his illumination and the Bodhi tree, with the inscription Bhagavato Sakamunino Bodho ("The illumination of the Blessed Sakamuni").[63]
The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, reported to have been found in or around Haḍḍa near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and now preserved in the British Library. They are written in the Gāndhārī language using the Kharosthi script on twenty-seven birch bark manuscripts and date from the first century BCE to the third century CE.[64]
On the basis of philological evidence, Indologist and Pali expert Oskar von Hinüber says that some of the Pali suttas have retained very archaic place-names, syntax, and historical data from close to the Buddha's lifetime, including the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta which contains a detailed account of the Buddha's final days. Hinüber proposes a composition date of no later than 350–320 BCE for this text, which would allow for a "true historical memory" of the events approximately 60 years prior if the Short Chronology for the Buddha's lifetime is accepted (but also reminds that such a text was originally intended more as hagiography than as an exact historical record of events).[65][66]
Traditional biographies

Biographical sources
The sources for the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Sūtra, Mahāvastu, and the Nidānakathā.[69] Of these, the Buddhacarita[70][71][72] is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE.[73] The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE.[74] The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE.[74] The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled the Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra,[75] and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoṣa.[76]
From canonical sources come the Jataka tales, the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123), which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātakas retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts.[77] The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as the bodhisattva's descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into his mother's womb.
Nature of traditional depictions

In the earliest Buddhist texts, the nikāyas and āgamas, the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience (sabbaññu)[78] nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent (lokottara) being. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, ideas of the Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu.[78] In the Sandaka Sutta, the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing [79] while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made a claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the "higher knowledges" (abhijñā).[80] The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a śramaṇa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty-five-year career as a teacher.[81]
Traditional biographies of Gautama generally include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supramundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma".[82] Nevertheless, some of the more ordinary details of his life have been gathered from these traditional sources. In modern times there has been an attempt to form a secular understanding of Siddhārtha Gautama's life by omitting the traditional supernatural elements of his early biographies.
Andrew Skilton writes that the Buddha was never historically regarded by Buddhist traditions as being merely human:
It is important to stress that, despite modern Theravada teachings to the contrary (often a sop to skeptical Western pupils), he was never seen as being merely human. For instance, he is often described as having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, "superman"; the Buddha himself denied that he was either a man or a god; and in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta he states that he could live for an aeon were he asked to do so.[83]

The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures, and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist.[84] British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure.[85] Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true.[86]
Biography
Conception and birth

The Buddhist tradition regards Lumbini, in present-day Nepal to be the birthplace of the Buddha.[88][note 1] He grew up in Kapilavastu.[note 1] The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu is unknown.[89] It may have been either Piprahwa, Uttar Pradesh, in present-day India,[45] or Tilaurakot, in present-day Nepal.[90] Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 15 miles apart.[90]
Gautama was born to a Hindu
Kshatriya family,[91][note 12] the son of Śuddhodana, "an elected chief of the Shakya clan",[8] whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. Gautama was the family name. His mother, Maya (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a Koliyan princess. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side,[93][94] and ten months later[95] Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilavastu for her father's kingdom to give birth.  However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree.
The day of the Buddha's birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak.[96] Buddha's Birthday is called Buddha Purnima in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India as he is believed to have been born on a full moon day. Various sources hold that the Buddha's mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days later. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pāli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a great king (chakravartin) or a great sadhu.[97] By traditional account, this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita's hair and Asita examined the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man.[97] Kondañña, the youngest, and later to be the first arhat other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha.[98]
While later tradition and legend characterised Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch, the descendant of the Suryavansha (Solar dynasty) of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka), many scholars think that Śuddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy.
Early texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachings of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition.[99] The state of the Shakya clan was not a monarchy and seems to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic.[100] The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of the śramanic Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.[101]

Early life and marriage

Siddhartha was brought up by his mother's younger sister, Maha Pajapati.[102] By tradition, he is said to have been destined by birth to the life of a prince and had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) built for him. His father, said to be King Śuddhodana, wishing for his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religious teachings and from knowledge of human suffering. While Śuddhodana has traditionally been depicted as a king, and Siddhartha as his prince, more recent scholarship suggests the Shakya were in-fact organised as a semi-republican oligarchy rather than a monarchy.[103]
When he reached the age of 16, his father reputedly arranged his marriage to a cousin of the same age named Yaśodharā (Pāli: Yasodharā). According to the early Buddhist Texts of several schools, and numerous post-canonical accounts, she gave birth to a son, named Rāhula.[104] Siddhartha is said to have spent 29 years as a prince in Kapilavastu. Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Buddhist scriptures say that the future Buddha felt that material wealth was not life's ultimate goal.[102]
Renunciation and ascetic life

At the age of 29, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Despite his father's efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhartha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Channa explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. On these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome ageing, sickness, and death by living the life of an ascetic.[105]
Accompanied by Channa and riding his horse Kanthaka, Gautama quit his palace for the life of a mendicant. It's said that "the horse's hooves were muffled by the gods"[106] to prevent guards from knowing of his departure.
Gautama initially went to Rajagaha and began his ascetic life by begging for alms in the street. After King Bimbisara's men recognised Siddhartha and the king learned of his quest, Bimbisara offered Siddhartha the throne. Siddhartha rejected the offer but promised to visit his kingdom of Magadha first, upon attaining enlightenment.
He left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit teachers of yogic meditation.[107][108][109] After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama (Skr. Ārāḍa Kālāma), he was asked by Kalama to succeed him. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practice, and moved on to become a student of yoga with Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rāmaputra).[110] With him, he achieved high levels of meditative consciousness and was again asked to succeed his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied, and again moved on.[111]
Awakening

According to the early Buddhist texts,[112] after realising that meditative dhyana was the right path to awakening, but that extreme asceticism didn't work, Gautama discovered what Buddhists know as being, the Middle Way[112]—a path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification, or the Noble Eightfold Path, as described in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, which is regarded as the first discourse of the Buddha.[112] In a famous incident, after becoming starved and weakened, he is said to have accepted milk and rice pudding from a village girl named Sujata.[113] Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a spirit that had granted her a wish.[113]

Following this incident, Gautama was famously seated under a pipal tree—now known as the Bodhi tree—in Bodh Gaya, India, when he vowed never to arise until he had found the truth.[114] Kaundinya and four other companions, believing that he had abandoned his search and become undisciplined, ceased to stay with him, and went to somewhere else. After a reputed 49 days of meditation, at the age of 35, he is said to have attained Enlightenment,[114][115] and became known as the Buddha or "Awakened One" ("Buddha" is also sometimes translated as "The Enlightened One").
According to some sutras of the Pali canon, at the time of his awakening he realised complete insight into the Four Noble Truths, thereby attaining liberation from samsara, the endless cycle of rebirth, suffering and dying again.[116][117][118] According to scholars, this story of the awakening and the stress on "liberating insight" is a later development in the Buddhist tradition, where the Buddha may have regarded the practice of dhyana as leading to nirvana and moksha.[119][120][116][note 13]
Nirvana is the extinguishing of the "fires" of desire, hatred, and ignorance, that keep the cycle of suffering and rebirth going.[121] Nirvana is also regarded as the "end of the world", in that no personal identity or boundaries of the mind remain. In such a state, a being is said to possess the Ten Characteristics, belonging to every Buddha.
According to a story in the Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1)—a scripture found in the Pāli and other canons—immediately after his awakening, the Buddha debated whether or not he should teach the Dharma to others. He was concerned that humans were so overpowered by ignorance, greed, and hatred that they could never recognise the path, which is subtle, deep and hard to grasp. However, in the story, Brahmā Sahampati convinced him, arguing that at least some will understand it. The Buddha relented and agreed to teach.
Formation of the sangha

After his awakening, the Buddha met Taphussa and Bhallika—two merchant brothers from the city of Balkh in what is currently Afghanistan—who became his first lay disciples. It is said that each was given hairs from his head, which are now claimed to be enshrined as relics in the Shwe Dagon Temple in Rangoon, Burma. The Buddha intended to visit Asita, and his former teachers, Alara Kalama and Udaka Ramaputta, to explain his findings, but they had already died.
He then traveled to the Deer Park near Varanasi (Benares) in northern India, where he set in motion what Buddhists call the Wheel of Dharma by delivering his first sermon to the five companions with whom he had sought enlightenment. Together with him, they formed the first saṅgha: the company of Buddhist monks.
All five become arahants, and within the first two months, with the conversion of Yasa and fifty-four of his friends, the number of such arahants is said to have grown to 60. The conversion of three brothers named Kassapa followed, with their reputed 200, 300 and 500 disciples, respectively. This swelled the sangha to more than 1,000.
Travels and teaching

For the remaining 45 years of his life, the Buddha is said to have traveled in the Gangetic Plain, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and southern Nepal, teaching a diverse range of people: from nobles to servants, murderers such as Angulimala, and cannibals such as Alavaka.[122] Although the Buddha's language remains unknown, it's likely that he taught in one or more of a variety of closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, of which Pali may be a standardisation.
The sangha traveled through the subcontinent, expounding the dharma. This continued throughout the year, except during the four months of the Vassa rainy season when ascetics of all religions rarely traveled. One reason was that it was more difficult to do so without causing harm to animal life. At this time of year, the sangha would retreat to monasteries, public parks or forests, where people would come to them.

The first vassana was spent at Varanasi when the sangha was formed. After this, the Buddha kept a promise to travel to Rajagaha, capital of Magadha, to visit King Bimbisara. During this visit, Sariputta and Maudgalyayana were converted by Assaji, one of the first five disciples, after which they were to become the Buddha's two foremost followers. The Buddha spent the next three seasons at Veluvana Bamboo Grove monastery in Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha.
Upon hearing of his son's awakening, Suddhodana sent, over a period, ten delegations to ask him to return to Kapilavastu. On the first nine occasions, the delegates failed to deliver the message and instead joined the sangha to become arahants. The tenth delegation, led by Kaludayi, a childhood friend of Gautama's (who also became an arahant), however, delivered the message.
Now two years after his awakening, the Buddha agreed to return, and made a two-month journey by foot to Kapilavastu, teaching the dharma as he went. At his return, the royal palace prepared a midday meal, but the sangha was making an alms round in Kapilavastu. Hearing this, Suddhodana approached his son, the Buddha, saying:
Ours is the warrior lineage of Mahamassata, and not a single warrior has gone seeking alms.

The Buddha is said to have replied:
That is not the custom of your royal lineage. But it is the custom of my Buddha lineage. Several thousands of Buddhas have gone by seeking alms.

Buddhist texts say that Suddhodana invited the sangha into the palace for the meal, followed by a dharma talk. After this he is said to have become a sotapanna. During the visit, many members of the royal family joined the sangha. The Buddha's cousins Ananda and Anuruddha became two of his five chief disciples. At the age of seven, his son Rahula also joined, and became one of his ten chief disciples. His half-brother Nanda also joined and became an arahant.
Of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputta, Maudgalyayana, Mahakasyapa, Ananda and Anuruddha are believed to have been the five closest to him. His ten foremost disciples were reputedly completed by the quintet of Upali, Subhoti, Rahula, Mahakaccana and Punna.
In the fifth vassana, the Buddha was staying at Mahavana near Vesali when he heard news of the impending death of his father. He is said to have gone to Suddhodana and taught the dharma, after which his father became an arahant.

The king's death and cremation were to inspire the creation of an order of nuns. Buddhist texts record that the Buddha was reluctant to ordain women. His foster mother Maha Pajapati, for example, approached him, asking to join the sangha, but he refused. Maha Pajapati, however, was so intent on the path of awakening that she led a group of royal Sakyan and Koliyan ladies, which followed the sangha on a long journey to Rajagaha. In time, after Ananda championed their cause, the Buddha is said to have reconsidered and, five years after the formation of the sangha agreed to the ordination of women as nuns. He reasoned that males and females had an equal capacity for awakening. But he gave women additional rules (Vinaya) to follow.
Mahaparinirvana (Death)

According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Pali canon, at the age of 80, the Buddha announced that he would soon reach parinirvana, or the final deathless state, and abandon his earthly body. After this, the Buddha ate his last meal, which he had received as an offering from a blacksmith named Cunda. Falling violently ill, Buddha instructed his attendant Ānanda to convince Cunda that the meal eaten at his place had nothing to do with his passing and that his meal would be a source of the greatest merit as it provided the last meal for a Buddha.[123] Mettanando and von Hinüber argue that the Buddha died of mesenteric infarction, a symptom of old age, rather than food poisoning.[124][125]
The precise contents of the Buddha's final meal are not clear, due to variant scriptural traditions and ambiguity over the translation of certain significant terms; the Theravada tradition generally believes that the Buddha was offered some kind of pork, while the Mahayana tradition believes that the Buddha consumed some sort of truffle or other mushroom.  These may reflect the different traditional views on Buddhist vegetarianism and the precepts for monks and nuns.

Waley suggests that Theravadins would take suukaramaddava (the contents of the Buddha's last meal), which can translate literally as pig-soft, to mean "soft flesh of a pig" or "pig's soft-food", that is, after Neumann, a soft food favoured by pigs, assumed to be a truffle. He argues (also after Neumann) that as "(p)lant names tend to be local and dialectical", as there are several plants known to have suukara- (pig) as part of their names,[note 14] and as Pali Buddhism developed in an area remote from the Buddha's death, suukaramaddava could easily have been a type of plant whose local name was unknown to those in Pali regions. Specifically, local writers writing soon after the Buddha's death knew more about their flora than Theravadin commentator Buddhaghosa who lived hundreds of years and hundreds of kilometers remote in time and space from the events described. Unaware that it may have been a local plant name and with no Theravadin prohibition against eating animal flesh, Theravadins would not have questioned the Buddha eating meat and interpreted the term accordingly.[126]

According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha died at Kuśināra (present-day Kushinagar, India), which became a pilgrimage centre.[127] Ananda protested the Buddha's decision to enter parinirvana in the abandoned jungles of Kuśināra  of the Malla kingdom. The Buddha, however, is said to have reminded Ananda how Kushinara was a land once ruled by a righteous wheel-turning king and the appropriate place for him to die.[128]
The Buddha then asked all the attendant Bhikkhus to clarify any doubts or questions they had and cleared them all in a way which others could not do. They had none. According to Buddhist scriptures, he then finally entered parinirvana. The Buddha's final words are reported to have been: "All composite things (Saṅkhāra) are perishable. Strive for your own liberation with diligence" (Pali: 'vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā'). His body was cremated and the relics were placed in monuments or stupas, some of which are believed to have survived until the present. For example, the Temple of the Tooth or "Dalada Maligawa" in Sri Lanka is the place where what some believe to be the relic of the right tooth of Buddha is kept at present.

According to the Pāli historical chronicles of Sri Lanka, the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, the coronation of Emperor Aśoka (Pāli: Asoka) is 218 years after the death of the Buddha. According to two textual records in Chinese (十八部論 and 部執異論), the coronation of Emperor Aśoka is 116 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore, the time of Buddha's passing is either 486 BCE according to Theravāda record or 383 BCE according to Mahayana record. However, the actual date traditionally accepted as the date of the Buddha's death in Theravāda countries is 544 or 545 BCE, because the reign of Emperor Aśoka was traditionally reckoned to be about 60 years earlier than current estimates. In Burmese Buddhist tradition, the date of the Buddha's death is 13 May 544 BCE.[129] whereas in Thai tradition it is 11 March 545 BCE.[130]
At his death, the Buddha is famously believed to have told his disciples to follow no leader. Mahakasyapa was chosen by the sangha to be the chairman of the First Buddhist Council, with the two chief disciples Maudgalyayana and Sariputta having died before the Buddha.

While in the Buddha's days he was addressed by the very respected titles Buddha, Shākyamuni, Shākyasimha, Bhante and Bho, he was known after his parinirvana nirvana as Arihant, Bhagavā/Bhagavat/Bhagwān, Mahāvira,[131] Jina/Jinendra, Sāstr, Sugata, and most popularly in scriptures as Tathāgata.
Relics

After his death, Buddha's cremation relics were divided amongst 8 royal families and his disciples; centuries later they would be enshrined by King Ashoka into 84,000 stupas.[132][133] Many supernatural legends surround the history of alleged relics as they accompanied the spread of Buddhism and gave legitimacy to rulers.

Physical characteristics

An extensive and colourful physical description of the Buddha has been laid down in scriptures. A kshatriya by birth, he had military training in his upbringing, and by Shakyan tradition was required to pass tests to demonstrate his worthiness as a warrior in order to marry. He had a strong enough body to be noticed by one of the kings and was asked to join his army as a general. He is also believed by Buddhists to have "the 32 Signs of the Great Man".
The Brahmin Sonadanda described him as "handsome, good-looking, and pleasing to the eye, with a most beautiful complexion. He has a godlike form and countenance, he is by no means unattractive." (D, I:115)
"It is wonderful, truly marvellous, how serene is the good Gotama's appearance, how clear and radiant his complexion, just as the golden jujube in autumn is clear and radiant, just as a palm-tree fruit just loosened from the stalk is clear and radiant, just as an adornment of red gold wrought in a crucible by a skilled goldsmith, deftly beaten and laid on a yellow-cloth shines, blazes and glitters, even so, the good Gotama's senses are calmed, his complexion is clear and radiant." (A, I:181)
A disciple named Vakkali, who later became an arahant, was so obsessed by the Buddha's physical presence that the Buddha is said to have felt impelled to tell him to desist, and to have reminded him that he should know the Buddha through the Dhamma and not through physical appearances.
Although there are no extant representations of the Buddha in human form until around the 1st century CE (see Buddhist art), descriptions of the physical characteristics of fully enlightened buddhas are attributed to the Buddha in the Digha Nikaya's Lakkhaṇa Sutta (D, I:142).[135]  In addition, the Buddha's physical appearance is described by Yasodhara to their son Rahula upon the Buddha's first post-Enlightenment return to his former princely palace in the non-canonical Pali devotional hymn, Narasīha Gāthā ("The Lion of Men").[136]
Among the 32 main characteristics it is mentioned that Buddha has blue eyes.[137]
Nine virtues
Recollection of nine virtues attributed to the Buddha is a common Buddhist meditation and devotional practice called Buddhānusmṛti. The nine virtues are also among the 40 Buddhist meditation subjects. The nine virtues of the Buddha appear throughout the Tipitaka,[138] and include:
Buddho– Awakened
Sammasambuddho– Perfectly self-awakened
Vijja-carana-sampano– Endowed with higher knowledge and ideal conduct.
Sugato– Well-gone or Well-spoken.
Lokavidu– Wise in the knowledge of the many worlds.
Anuttaro Purisa-damma-sarathi– Unexcelled trainer of untrained people.
Satthadeva-Manussanam– Teacher of gods and humans.
Bhagavathi– The Blessed one
Araham– Worthy of homage. An Arahant is "one with taints destroyed, who has lived the holy life, done what had to be done, laid down the burden, reached the true goal, destroyed the fetters of being, and is completely liberated through final knowledge."
Teachings

Use of Brahmanical motifs
In the Pali Canon, the Buddha uses many Brahmanical devices. For example, in Samyutta Nikaya 111, Majjhima Nikaya 92 and Vinaya i 246 of the Pali Canon, the Buddha praises the Agnihotra as the foremost sacrifice and the Gayatri mantra as the foremost meter:
aggihuttamukhā yaññā sāvittī chandaso mukham.
Sacrifices have the Agnihotra as foremost; of meter, the foremost is the Sāvitrī.[139]

Tracing the oldest teachings
One method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest versions of the Pali Canon and other texts, such as the surviving portions of Sarvastivada, Mulasarvastivada, Mahisasaka, Dharmaguptaka,[140][141] and the Chinese Agamas. The reliability of these sources, and the possibility of drawing out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute.[142][143][144][145] According to Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies.[140][note 15]
According to Schmithausen, there are three positions held by scholars of Buddhism:[148]
"Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials."[note 16]
"Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism."[note 17][note 18]
"Cautious optimism in this respect."[note 19]
Dhyana and insight

A core problem in the study of early Buddhism is the relation between dhyana and insight.[143][142][145] Schmithausen notes that the mention of the four noble truths as constituting "liberating insight", which is attained after mastering the Rupa Jhanas, is a later addition to texts such as Majjhima Nikaya 36.[146][142][143]
Earliest Buddhism

According to Tilmann Vetter, the core of earliest Buddhism is the practice of dhyāna,[153] as a workable alternative to painful ascetic practices.[154][note 20] Bronkhorst agrees that Dhyāna was a Buddhist invention,[142] whereas Norman notes that "the Buddha's way to release [...] was by means of meditative practices."[156] Discriminating insight into transiency as a separate path to liberation was a later development.[157][158]
According to the Mahāsaccakasutta,[note 21] from the fourth jhana the Buddha gained bodhi. Yet, it is not clear what he was awakened to.[156][142] According to Schmithausen and Bronkhorst, "liberating insight" is a later addition to this text, and reflects a later development and understanding in early Buddhism.[146][142] The mentioning of the four truths as constituting "liberating insight" introduces a logical problem, since the four truths depict a linear path of practice, the knowledge of which is in itself not depicted as being liberating:[159]
[T]hey do not teach that one is released by knowing the four noble truths, but by practicing the fourth noble truth, the eightfold path, which culminates in right samadhi.[159]

Although "Nibbāna" (Sanskrit: Nirvāna) is the common term for the desired goal of this practice, many other terms can be found throughout the Nikayas, which are not specified.[160][note 22]
According to Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term "the middle way". In time, this short description was elaborated, resulting in the description of the eightfold path.[161]
According to both Bronkhorst and Anderson, the four truths became a substitution for prajna, or "liberating insight", in the suttas[120][116] in those texts where "liberating insight" was preceded by the four jhanas.[162] According to Bronkhorst, the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of "liberating insight".[163] Gotama's teachings may have been personal, "adjusted to the need of each person."[162]
The three marks of existence[note 23] may reflect Upanishadic or other influences. K.R. Norman supposes that these terms were already in use at the Buddha's time, and were familiar to his listeners.[164]
The Brahma-vihara was in origin probably a brahmanic term;[165] but its usage may have been common to the Sramana traditions.[142]
Later developments
In time, "liberating insight" became an essential feature of the Buddhist tradition. The following teachings, which are commonly seen as essential to Buddhism, are later formulations which form part of the explanatory framework of this "liberating insight":[143][142]
The Four Noble Truths: that suffering is an ingrained part of existence; that the origin of suffering is craving for sensuality, acquisition of identity, and fear of annihilation; that suffering can be ended; and that following the Noble Eightfold Path is the means to accomplish this;
The Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration;
Dependent origination: the mind creates suffering as a natural product of a complex process.
Other religions

Some Hindus regard Gautama as the 9th avatar of Vishnu.[note 11][166] However, Buddha's teachings deny the authority of the Vedas and the concepts of Brahman-Atman.[167][168][169] Consequently Buddhism is generally classified as a nāstika school (heterodox, literally "It is not so"[note 24]) in contrast to the six orthodox schools of Hinduism.[172][173][174]
The Buddha is regarded as a prophet by the minority Ahmadiyya[175] sect of Muslims—a sect considered deviant and rejected as apostate by mainstream Islam.[176][177] Some early Chinese Taoist-Buddhists thought the Buddha to be a reincarnation of Laozi.[178]
Disciples of the Cao Đài religion worship the Buddha as a major religious teacher.[179] His image can be found in both their Holy See and on the home altar. He is revealed during communication with Divine Beings as son of their Supreme Being (God the Father) together with other major religious teachers and founders like Jesus, Laozi, and Confucius.[180]
The Christian Saint Josaphat is based on the Buddha. The name comes from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva via Arabic Būdhasaf and Georgian Iodasaph.[181] The only story in which St. Josaphat appears, Barlaam and Josaphat, is based on the life of the Buddha.[182] Josaphat was included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology (feast day 27 November)—though not in the Roman Missal—and in the Eastern Orthodox Church liturgical calendar (26 August).
In the ancient Gnostic sect of Manichaeism, the Buddha is listed among the prophets who preached the word of God before Mani.[183]
In Sikhism, Buddha is mentioned as the 23rd avatar of Vishnu in the Chaubis Avtar, a composition in Dasam Granth traditionally and historically attributed to Guru Gobind Singh.[184]
In the Bahá'í Faith, Buddha is regarded as one of the Manifestations of God.
Depiction in arts and media
Films

Little Buddha, a 1994 film by Bernardo Bertolucci
Prem Sanyas, a 1925 silent film, directed by Franz Osten and Himansu Rai
Television
Buddha, a 2013 mythological drama on Zee TV
 2010 PBS documentary by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere
Literature
The Light of Asia, an 1879 epic poem by Edwin Arnold
Buddha, a manga series that ran from 1972 to 1983 by Osamu Tezuka
Siddhartha novel by Hermann Hesse, written in German in 1922
Lord of Light, a novel by Roger Zelazny depicts a man in a far future Earth Colony who takes on the name and teachings of the Buddha
Creation, a 1981 novel by Gore Vidal, includes the Buddha as one of the religious figures that the main character encounters
Music
Karuna Nadee, a 2010 oratorio by Dinesh Subasinghe
The Light of Asia, an 1886 oratorio by Dudley Buck
Painting
Shussan Shaka, a Zen painting motif

See also
List of founders of religious traditions
Notes

Citations

Bibliography

, 1120 pp.

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.

.

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, 231 pp.

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Further reading
 The Buddha

 Early Buddhism

 Buddhism general

 at Project Gutenberg
 at Internet Archive
 at Internet Archive
 at Internet Archive
 at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
 on In Our Time at the BBC

 by Ven S. Dhammika


The salmon run is the time when salmon, which have migrated from the ocean, swim to the upper reaches of rivers where they spawn on gravel beds. After spawning, all Pacific salmon and most Atlantic salmon[1] die, and the salmon life cycle starts over again. The annual run can be a major event for grizzly bears, bald eagles and sport fishermen. Most salmon species migrate during the fall (September through November).[2]
Salmon spend their early life in rivers, and then swim out to sea where they live their adult lives and gain most of their body mass. When they have matured, they return to the rivers to spawn. Usually they return with uncanny precision to the natal river where they were born, and even to the very spawning ground of their birth. It is thought that, when they are in the ocean, they use magnetoception to locate the general position of their natal river, and once close to the river, that they use their sense of smell to home in on the river entrance and even their natal spawning ground.
In northwest America, salmon is a keystone species, which means the impact they have on other life is greater than would be expected in relation to their biomass. The death of the salmon has important consequences, since it means significant nutrients in their carcasses, rich in nitrogen, sulfur, carbon and phosphorus, are transferred from the ocean to terrestrial wildlife such as bears and riparian woodlands adjacent to the rivers. This has knock-on effects not only for the next generation of salmon, but to every species living in the riparian zones the salmon reach.[3] The nutrients can also be washed downstream into estuaries where they accumulate and provide much support for estuarine breeding birds.
Background

Most salmon are anadromous, a term which comes from the Greek anadromos, meaning "running upward".[4] Anadromous fish grow up mostly in the saltwater in oceans. When they have matured they migrate or "run up" freshwater rivers to spawn in what is called the salmon run.[5]
Anadromous salmon are Northern Hemisphere fish that spend their ocean phase in either the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean. They do not thrive in warm water. There is only one species of salmon found in the Atlantic, commonly called the Atlantic salmon. These salmon run up rivers on both sides of the ocean. Seven different species of salmon inhabit the Pacific (see table), and these are collectively referred to as Pacific salmon. Five of these species run up rivers on both sides of the Pacific, but two species are found only on the Asian side.[6] In the early 19th century, Chinook salmon were successfully established in the Southern Hemisphere, far from their native range, in New Zealand rivers. Attempts to establish anadromous salmon elsewhere have not succeeded.[7]

The life cycle of an anadromous salmon begins and, if it survives the full course of its natural life, usually ends in a gravel bed in the upper reaches of a stream or river. These are the salmon spawning grounds where salmon eggs are deposited, for safety, in the gravel. The salmon spawning grounds are also the salmon nurseries, providing a more protected environment than the ocean usually offers. After 2 to 6 months the eggs hatch into tiny larvae called sac fry or alevin. The alevin have a sac containing the remainder of the yolk, and they stay hidden in the gravel while they feed on the yolk. When the yolk has gone they must find food for themselves, so they leave the protection of the gravel and start feeding on plankton. At this point the baby salmon are called fry. At the end of the summer the fry develop into juvenile fish called parr. Parr feed on small invertebrates and are camouflaged with a pattern of spots and vertical bars. They remain in this stage for up to three years.[16][17]
As they approach the time when they are ready to migrate out to the sea the parr lose their camouflage bars and undergo a process of physiological changes which allows them to survive the shift from freshwater to saltwater. At this point salmon are called smolt. Smolt spend time in the brackish waters of the river estuary while their body chemistry adjusts their osmoregulation to cope with the higher salt levels they will encounter in the ocean.[18] Smolt also grow the silvery scales which visually confuse ocean predators. When they have matured sufficiently in late spring, and are about 15 to 20 centimetres long, the smolt swim out of the rivers and into the sea. There they spend their first year as a post-smolt. Post-smolt form schools with other post-smolt, and set off to find deep-sea feeding grounds. They then spend up to four more years as adult ocean salmon while their full swimming ability and reproductive capacity develop.[16][17][18]
Then, in one of the animal kingdom's more extreme migrations, the salmon return from the saltwater ocean back to a freshwater river to spawn afresh.[19]

Return from the ocean

After several years wandering huge distances in the ocean, most surviving salmon return to the same natal rivers where they were spawned. Then most of them swim up the rivers until they reach the very spawning ground that was their original birthplace.[20]
There are various theories about how this happens. One theory is that there are geomagnetic and chemical cues which the salmon use to guide them back to their birthplace. The fish may be sensitive to the Earth's magnetic field, which could allow the fish to orient itself in the ocean, so it can navigate back to the estuary of its natal stream.[21]
Salmon have a strong sense of smell. Speculation about whether odours provide homing cues go back to the 19th century.[22] In 1951, Hasler hypothesised that, once in vicinity of the estuary or entrance to its birth river, salmon may use chemical cues which they can smell, and which are unique to their natal stream, as a mechanism to home onto the entrance of the stream.[23] In 1978, Hasler and his students convincingly showed that the way salmon locate their home rivers with such precision was indeed because they could recognise its characteristic smell. They further demonstrated that the smell of their river becomes imprinted in salmon when they transform into smolts, just before they migrate out to sea.[20][24][25] Homecoming salmon can also recognise characteristic smells in tributary streams as they move up the main river. They may also be sensitive to characteristic pheromones given off by juvenile conspecifics. There is evidence that they can "discriminate between two populations of their own species".[20][26]
The recognition that each river and tributary has its own characteristic smell, and the role this plays as a navigation aid, led to a widespread search for a mechanism or mechanisms that might allow salmon to navigate over long distances in the open ocean. In 1977, Leggett identified, as mechanisms worth investigating, the use of the sun for navigation, and orientation to various possible gradients, such as temperature, salinity or chemicals gradients, or geomagnetic or geoelectric fields.[27][28]
There is little evidence salmon use clues from the sun for navigation. Migrating salmon have been observed maintaining direction at nighttime and when it is cloudy. Likewise, electronically tagged salmon were observed to maintain direction even when swimming in water much too deep for sunlight to be of use.[29]
In 1973, it was shown that Atlantic salmon have conditioned cardiac responses to electric fields with strengths similar to those found in oceans. "This sensitivity might allow a migrating fish to align itself upstream or downstream in an ocean current in the absence of fixed references."[30] In 1988, researchers found iron, in the form of single domain magnetite, resides in the skulls of sockeye salmon. The quantities present are sufficient for magnetoception.[31]
Tagging studies have shown a small number of fish don't find their natal rivers, but travel instead up other, usually nearby streams or rivers.[32][33] It is important some salmon stray from their home areas; otherwise new habitats could not be colonized. In 1984, Quinn hypothesized there is a dynamic equilibrium, controlled by genes, between homing and straying.[34] If the spawning grounds have a uniform high quality, then natural selection should favour the descendants that home accurately. However, if the spawning grounds have a variable quality, then natural selection should favour a mixture of the descendants that stray and the descendants that home accurately.[21][34]

Prior to the run up the river, the salmon undergo profound physiological changes. Fish swim by contracting longitudinal red muscle and obliquely oriented white muscles. Red muscles are used for sustained activity, such as ocean migrations. White muscles are used for bursts of activity, such as bursts of speed or jumping.[35] As the salmon comes to end of its ocean migration and enters the estuary of its natal river, its energy metabolism is faced with two major challenges: it must supply energy suitable for swimming the river rapids, and it must supply the sperm and eggs required for the reproductive events ahead. The water in the estuary receives the freshwater discharge from the natal river. Relative to ocean water, this has a high chemical load from surface runoff. Researchers in 2009 found evidence that, as the salmon encounter the resulting drop in salinity and increase in olfactory stimulation, two key metabolic changes are triggered: there is a switch from using red muscles for swimming to using white muscles, and there is an increase in the sperm and egg load. "Pheromones at the spawning grounds [trigger] a second shift to further enhance reproductive loading."[36]
The salmon also undergo radical morphological changes as they prepare for the spawning event ahead. All salmon lose the silvery blue they had as ocean fish, and their colour darkens, sometimes with a radical change in hue. Salmon are sexually dimorphic, and the male salmon develop canine-like teeth and their jaws develop a pronounced curve or hook (kype). Some species of male salmon grow large humps.[37]
Obstacles to the run

Salmon start the run in peak condition, the culmination of years of development in the ocean. They need high swimming and leaping abilities to battle the rapids and other obstacles the river may present, and they need a full sexual development to ensure a successful spawn at the end of the run. All their energy goes into the physical rigours of the journey and the dramatic morphological transformations they must still complete before they are ready for the spawning events ahead.
The run up the river can be exhausting, sometimes requiring the salmon to battle hundreds of miles upstream against strong currents and rapids. They cease feeding during the run.[5] Chinook and sockeye salmon from central Idaho must travel 900 miles (1,400km) and climb nearly 7,000 feet (2,100m) before they are ready to spawn. Salmon deaths that occur on the upriver journey are referred to as en route mortality.[38]
Salmon negotiate waterfalls and rapids by leaping or jumping. They have been recorded making vertical jumps as high as 3.65 metres (12ft).[39] The height that can be achieved by a salmon depends on the position of the standing wave or hydraulic jump at the base of the fall, as well as how deep the water is.[39]
Fish ladders, or fishways, are specially designed to help salmon and other fish to bypass dams and other man-made obstructions, and continue on to their spawning grounds further upriver.[40] Data suggest that navigation locks have a potential to be operated as vertical slot fishways to provide increased access for a range of biota, including poor swimmers.[41]

Skilled predators, such as bears, bald eagles and fishermen can await the salmon during the run. Normally solitary animals, grizzly bears congregate by streams and rivers when the salmon spawn.[3][42] Predation from Harbor seals, California sea lions, and Steller sea lions, can pose a significant threat, even in river ecosystems.[43][44]
Black bears also fish the salmon. Black bears usually operate during the day, but when it comes to salmon they tend to fish at night.[45] This is partly to avoid competition with the more powerful brown bears, but it is also because they catch more salmon at night.[46] During the day, salmon are very evasive and attuned to visual clues, but at night they focus on their spawning activities, generating acoustic clues the bears tune into.[45] Black bears may also fish for salmon during the night because their black fur is easily spotted by salmon in the daytime. In 2009, researchers compared the foraging success of black bears with the white-coated spirit bear, a morphed subspecies of the black bear. They found the spirit bear had no more success catching salmon at night time, but had greater success than the black bears during the day.[47]
Otters are also common predators. In 2011, researchers showed that when otters predate salmon, the salmon can "sniff them out". They demonstrated that once otters have eaten salmon, the remaining salmon could detect and avoid the waters where otter faeces was present.[48][49]

The spawning

The term prespawn mortality is used to refer to fish that arrive successfully at the spawning grounds, and then die without spawning. Prespawn mortality is surprisingly variable, with one study observing rates between 3% and 90%.[38][50] Factors that contribute to these mortalities include high temperatures,[51][52] high river discharge rates,[53] and parasites and diseases.[50][54] However, "at present there are no reliable indicators to predict whether an individual arriving at a spawning area will in fact survive to spawn."[38]
The eggs of a female salmon are called her roe. To lay her roe, the female salmon builds a spawning nest, called a redd, in a riffle with gravel as its streambed. A riffle is a relatively shallow length of stream where the water is turbulent and flows faster. She builds the redd by using her tail (caudal fin) to create a low-pressure zone, lifting gravel to be swept downstream, and excavating a shallow depression.  The redd may contain up to 5,000 eggs, each about the size of a pea, covering 30 square feet (2.8m2).[55] The eggs usually range from orange to red. One or more males will approach the female in her redd, depositing his sperm, or milt, over her eggs.[56] The female then covers the eggs by disturbing the gravel at the upstream edge of the depression before moving on to make another redd. The female will make as many as seven redds before her supply of eggs is exhausted.[56][57]
Male pink salmon and some sockeye salmon develop pronounced humps just before they spawn. These humps may have evolved because they confer species advantages. The humps make it less likely the salmon will spawn in the shallow water at margins of the streambed, which tend to dry out during low water flows or freeze in winter. Further, riffles can contain many salmon spawning simultaneously, as in the image on the right. Predators, such as bears, will be more likely to catch the more visually prominent humped males, with their humps projecting above the surface of the water. This may provide a protective buffer for the females.[58]
Dominant male salmon defend their redds by rushing at and chasing intruders. They butt and bite them with the canine-like teeth they developed for the spawning event. The kypes are used to clamp around the base of the tail (caudal peduncle) of an opponent.[58]
The condition of the salmon deteriorates the longer they remain in fresh water. Once the salmon have spawned, most of them deteriorate rapidly and die. This programmed senescence is "characterized by immunosuppression and organ deterioration."[38][59][60] The Pacific salmon is the classic example of a semelparous animal. It lives for many years in the ocean before swimming to the freshwater stream of its birth, spawning, and then dying. Semelparous animals spawn once only in their lifetime. Semelparity is sometimes called "big bang" reproduction, since the single reproductive event of semelparous organisms is usually large and fatal to the spawners.[61] Most Atlantic salmon also die after spawning, but not all. About 5 to 10%, mostly female, return to the ocean where they can recover and spawn again.[18]

Keystone species

In the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, salmon is a keystone species, supporting wildlife from birds to bears and otters.[62]  The bodies of salmon represent a transfer of nutrients from the ocean, rich in nitrogen, sulfur, carbon and phosphorus, to the forest ecosystem.
Grizzly bears function as ecosystem engineers, capturing salmon and carrying them into adjacent wooded areas. There they deposit nutrient-rich urine and faeces and partially eaten carcasses. It has been estimated that bears leave up to half the salmon they harvest on the forest floor,[63][64] in densities that can reach 4,000 kilograms per hectare,[65] providing as much as 24% of the total nitrogen available to the riparian woodlands.[3] The foliage of spruce trees up to 500m (1,600ft) from a stream where grizzlies fish salmon have been found to contain nitrogen originating from fished salmon.[3]

Salmon continue to surprise us, showing us new ways in which their oceanic migrations eventually permeate entire terrestrial ecosystems. In terms of providing food and nutrients to a whole food web, we like to think of them as North America's answer to the Serengeti's wildebeest.[66]

Wolves normally hunt for deer. However, a 2008 study shows that, when the salmon run starts, the wolves choose to fish for salmon, even if plenty of deer are still available.[67] "Selecting benign prey such as salmon makes sense from a safety point of view. While hunting deer, wolves commonly incur serious and often fatal injuries. In addition to safety benefits we determined that salmon also provides enhanced nutrition in terms of fat and energy."[66]
The upper reaches of the Chilkat River in Alaska has particularly good spawning grounds. Each year these attract a run of up to half a million chum salmon. As the salmon run up the river, bald eagles arrive in their thousands to feast at the spawning grounds. This results in some of the world's largest congregations of bald eagles. The number of participating eagles is directly correlated with the number of spawning salmon.[68]
Residual nutrients from salmon can also accumulate downstream in estuaries. A 2010 study showed the density and diversity of many estuarine breeding birds in the summer "were strongly predicted by salmon biomass in the autumn."[69] Anadromous salmon provide nutrients to these "diverse assemblages ... ecologically comparable to the migrating herds of wildebeest in the Serengeti".[65]

Prospects
In 2009, NOAA advised that continued runoff into North American rivers of three widely used pesticides containing neurotoxins, will "jeopardize the continued existence" of endangered and threatened Pacific salmon.[70][71] Global warming could see the end of some salmon runs by the end of the century, such as the Californian runs of Chinook salmon.[72][73] A 2010 United Nations report says increases in acidification of oceans means shellfish such as pteropods, an important component of the ocean salmon diet, are finding it difficult to build their aragonite shells.[74] There are concerns that this too may endanger future salmon runs.[75]
Notable runs

Adams River (British Columbia)
Chilkat River (Alaska)
Columbia River (British Columbia, United States)
Copper River (Alaska)
Fraser River (British Columbia)
River Spey (Scotland)
River Tay (Scotland)
River Tweed (border of Scotland and England)
River Tyne (England)
Snake River (United States)
Yukon River (Alaska, Yukon, British Columbia)
See also
Animal navigation
Environmental impact of reservoirs
June hogs
Natal homing
Olfactory navigation
Pre-spawn mortality in coho salmon
Sardine run

Cited sources

Further reading

Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2011).  in FishBase. December 2011 version.
USDA Forest Service,  Pacific Northwest Fisheries Program. Retrieved 30 December 2011.
Knapp G, Roheim CA and Anderson JL (2007)  World Wildlife Fund.
Lackey, Robert.  Oregon State University.
Mozaffari, Ahmad and Alireza Fathi (2013)  arXiv preprint: 1312.4078.
Quinn, Thomas P. (2005)  UBC Press. ISBN978-0-7748-1128-6.
Magnetoception and natal homing
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Bracis, Chloe (2010)  University of Washington.
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Metcalfe J, Arnold G and McDowall R (2008)  pp.175–199. In: John D. Reynolds, Handbook of fish biology and fisheries, Volume 1, John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-0-632-05412-1.
Moore A, Privitera L and Riley WD (2013)  In: H Ueda and K Tsukamoto (eds),Physiology and Ecology of Fish Migration, CRC Press, pp.28–55. ISBN9781466595132.
Ueda, Hiroshi (2013)  In: H Ueda and K Tsukamoto (eds),Physiology and Ecology of Fish Migration, CRC Press, pp.1–27. ISBN9781466595132.
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Wired.  2 December 2008.
Nitrogen
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Resilience
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Bottom DL, Jones KK, Simenstad CA and Smith CL (Eds.) (2010)  Ecology and Society, Special Feature.

 True Slant, 9 July 2009.
 Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Retrieved 17 December 2011.
 Wired, 13 January 2011.
 US National Park Service.
 Mount Shasta News, 30 September 2009.