---
id: buddha
recordStatus: draft
liveStatus: new
type: person
title: Buddha
titleEn: Buddha
titleRu: Будда
nameAlternatives:
  - name: "Sakya Muni"
    type: variant
    language: en
  - name: "Сакиа-Муни"
    type: variant
    language: ru
description: "The founder of Buddhism, called Sakya Muni in A Confession (1879–82), where his story is told and his answer to the question of life quoted."
birthDate: ""
birthDateOldStyle: ""
birthDateApproximate: true
deathDate: ""
deathDateOldStyle: ""
deathDateApproximate: true
birthPlace: ""
deathPlace: ""
nationality: ""
roles:
  - author read by Tolstoy
occupation:
  - religious teacher
relationToTolstoy: ""
relationshipDescription: "One of the four whose answer to the question of life A Confession quotes."
periodOfContact:
  from: ""
  to: ""
  notes: ""
synopsis: ""
relatedWorks:
  -
    id: confession
    role: quoted author
relatedArticles:
  - leo-tolstoy
  - arthur-schopenhauer
  - socrates
  - solomon
themes:
  - philosophy and the question of life
identifiers:
  wikidata: Q9441
  viaf: ""
  lccn: ""
  bnf: ""
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---

The Buddha (<span lang="ru">Будда</span>) is the founder of Buddhism. [[A Confession]] (<span lang="ru">Исповедь</span>, 1879–82) also calls him Sakya Muni (<span lang="ru">Сакиа-Муни</span>).

## In A Confession

- **Chapter VI.** The Buddha is one of the four, with [[Socrates]], [[Arthur Schopenhauer]] and [[Solomon]], who give the same answer to the question of life (VI.10). His story is told as "what the Indian wisdom tells": Sakya Muni, "a young, happy prince, from whom the existence of sickness, old age, and death had been hidden", meets an old man, a sick man and a dead man (VI.18–19).[^1] He "could find no consolation in life, and decided that life is the greatest of evils", and gave all his strength to freeing himself and others from it, so that life "shall not be renewed any more" (VI.20).[^2] VI.25 gives his answer in short: "To live in the consciousness of the inevitability of suffering, of becoming enfeebled, of old age and of death, is impossible — we must free ourselves from life, from all possible life."[^3]
- **Chapter VII.** Those who live in ignorance "have not yet understood that question of life which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon, and Buddha" (VII.4). Those who take the way of epicureanism forget "the things that gave Buddha no peace — the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death" (VII.8).[^4] Tolstoy could not take that way himself: "I, like Sakya Muni, could not ride out hunting when I knew that old age, suffering, and death exist" (VII.11).[^5]
- **Chapter XIV.** Among the saints' lives he came to love was that of "Prince Joasaph (the story of Buddha)" (XIV.7).[^6] The PSS commentary identifies it as the life of Joasaph in the *Prologue*, under 18 November, "a Christian retelling of the legend of the Buddha".[^7] Maude's translation drops the name Joasaph and keeps only "the story of Buddha".

## Open questions

- Neither the PSS commentary nor the Tolstoy Digital person list gives the Buddha's dates or names his source for the Sakya Muni story in chapter VI. The story of the three encounters is not traced to a source here.
- The identification in the first sentence is general knowledge, not from these sources.

## Dive provenance

- [1879-1882-a-confession](../works/non-fiction/personal-papers/1879-1882-a-confession/index.md) — the text of A Confession (PSS 23:1–59) and its commentary (PSS 23:515–537); Johan's reader notes of 10 October 2026 asked for this page.

[^1]: <span lang="ru">«А вот что говорит индийская мудрость: Сакиа-Муни, молодой счастливый царевич, от которого скрыты были болезни, старость, смерть, едет на гулянье и видит страшного старика, беззубого и слюнявого»</span> (PSS 23:25, ch. VI). English: Maude.

[^2]: <span lang="ru">«И Сакиа-Муни не мог найти утешения в жизни, и он решил, что жизнь — величайшее зло, и все силы души употребил на то, чтоб освободиться от нее и освободить других»</span> (PSS 23:26, ch. VI). English: Maude.

[^3]: <span lang="ru">«Жить с сознанием неизбежности страданий, ослабления, старости и смерти нельзя — надо освободить себя от жизни, от всякой возможности жизни», говорит Будда</span> (PSS 23:26, ch. VI). English: Maude.

[^4]: <span lang="ru">«забывать про то, что не дало покоя Будде — неизбежность болезни, старости и смерти»</span> (PSS 23:28, ch. VII). English: Maude.

[^5]: <span lang="ru">«как Сакиа-Муни, не мог ехать на охоту, когда знал, что есть старость, страдания, смерть»</span> (PSS 23:29, ch. VII). English: Maude.

[^6]: <span lang="ru">«Там были жития Макария Великого, Иоасафа царевича (история Будды), там были слова Иоанна Златоуста»</span> (PSS 23:52, ch. XIV). English: ours.

[^7]: <span lang="ru">«житие Иоасафа царевича, являющееся христианским пересказом легенды о Будде, — под 18 ноября»</span> (PSS 23:535, commentary, note 37). English: ours.