  This entry concerns the historical individual, traditionally called Gautama, who is identified by modern scholars as the founder of Buddhism. According to Buddhist teachings, there have been other Buddhas in the past, and there will be yet more in the future. The title ‘Buddha’, which literally means ‘awakened’, is conferred on an individual who discovers the path to nirvana, the cessation of suffering, and propagates that discovery so that others may also achieve nirvana. If the teaching that there have been other Buddhas is true, then Gautama is not the founder of Buddhism. This entry will follow modern scholarship in taking an agnostic stance on the question of whether there have been other Buddhas, and likewise for questions concerning the superhuman status and powers that some Buddhists attribute to Buddhas. The concern of this entry is just those aspects of the thought of the historical individual Gautama that bear on the development of the Buddhist philosophical tradition.