Buddhism emerged over 2,500 years ago in Northern India. Historians,
religious scholars, and various Buddhist sects debate the actual year of the Buddha’s birth; it may have been as early as 644 BCE or as late as 540 BCE (although some point to other, later dates for his lifetime).
However, it is relatively certain that he was born Prince
Gautama Siddhartha, the son of Suddhodana,
king of the
Shakya tribe, in what is now Nepal. .