The night of awakening
The Mahāsaccaka Sutta describes the awakening in three stages, through the watches of one night. First he recalled his own past lives. Then he saw beings dying and being reborn according to their actions. Finally he understood suffering, its origin, its ending and the way to its ending, and his mind was freed from the defilements. 'Rebirth is ended,' the text says.
Tradition holds that he was thirty-five years old.
After the awakening
The Vinaya opens with the Buddha sitting under the tree for days afterwards, reflecting on dependent origination, the chain of conditions through which suffering arises and ceases.
The Ariyapariyesanā Sutta adds a striking moment of doubt: he hesitated to teach at all, thinking the truth he had found was too subtle for people to grasp. The god Brahmā Sahampati appeared and pleaded with him, saying there were beings 'with little dust in their eyes' who would understand. So he decided to teach.
Bodh Gaya
The place is now Bodh Gaya in Bihar. A descendant of the tree grows beside the Mahābodhi Temple, which UNESCO lists as a World Heritage Site, and Buddhists from every tradition come there on pilgrimage.
Why it matters
This is the defining event from which Buddhist teaching begins.
History and tradition
What historians can say
The awakening is an inner experience that history cannot examine. What can be said is that from this point the early sources describe Gotama as a teacher with a distinctive message, and that Bodh Gaya was already a place of Buddhist worship in the Mauryan period.
What Buddhist tradition remembers
Later tradition tells of Māra's army attacking him beneath the tree, and of the Buddha touching the ground to call the earth goddess to witness his right to be there. This 'earth-touching' gesture became one of the most common poses in Buddhist art.