As Swami Vivekānanda a great sage once put it in the Parliament of Religions of Chicago, Buddhism is "Hinduism's rebel child." Siddhārtha Gautama was a prince from the north Indian tribe of the Shākyas (hence his name, Shākyamuni, or sage of the Shākyas), located in present-day Nepāl. King Suddhodana brought many seers from around the country to tell him the fate of his new son, Siddhārtha Gautama. One particular Brāhmin (a Hindu priest) prophesied that the boy would become either the world's greatest ruler or a very holy man. King Suddhodana was greatly feared, envisioning a naked, long-haired bony old man covered in ashes and meditating surrounded by corpses (many tantrics mortified the senses and constantly reminded themselves of their morality, that they were encased in perishable skin and bones, by meditating thusly). Siddhārtha means "[he who] has wealth or perfection" and Gautama denotes 'he who has descended from Gautama' (Gautama Maharishi was one of the Saptarishis, or Seven Sages. He was one of the Maharishis (great sages) of Vedic times known to have been the discoverer of powerful mantras – 'mantra-drashta' (literally mantra-seer), in Sanskrit. The Rig Veda has several suktas or verses that go with his name. It is for this reason that Europeans once called him the Godamid, a silly Anglicization of the name Gautama or Gotama). The Brahmin warned that Siddhārtha would embrace sādhu-hood (become a holy man) if he were to see four sights: a sick man, an old man, a dead man and a monk. Naturally, King Suddhodana was mortified lest Gautama become a holy man, on that account casting off his king's vestments. So king Suddhodana ordered all infirm people to leave the city and outlawed holy men from his kingdom.
One day, Siddhārtha wanted to take a pleasure ride through the gardens of the palace and to see the city. He saw a sick man, and asked why he was so debilitated.