Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.100

c8.100

A widespread tradition represents Buddha as having been a king's son. At the head of this aristocratic community there must certainly have been some one leading man, appointed, we know not by what rules, with the title of king, which can scarcely in this case have indicated more than the position of *primus inter pares*. But the idea that Buddha's father, Suddhodana, enjoyed this royal dignity is quite foreign to the oldest forms in which the traditions regarding the family are presented to us: rather, we have nothing more or less to contemplate in Suddhodana than one of the great and wealthy landowners of the Sakya race, whom later legends first transformed into the "great king Suddhodana."