Buddha was born on the border of Nepal about 620 B.C. and died about 543 B.C. at Kusinagara in Oudh.
Buddhism was founded by Gautama Sakya Muni, the rebel child of Hinduism. It sprang up directly from Hinduism. Buddha never thought of founding a new religion. He made no new discovery. He was proclaiming only the ancient and pure form of religion which had prevailed among the Hindus.
The pure and noble religion of the Vedas and the Upanishads had degenerated into dead forms, unmeaning rites and ceremonies. The Brahmins claimed honour merely by their birth. They neglected the study of the Vedas and the practice of virtue. The Brahmins were treated with undue leniency, and the Sudras (the servant class) with undue severity. In order that flesh-eating might have the sanction religion, animals were slaughtered and sacrificed in Yajnas (ceremony where sacrifice is offered). Such was the state of society at the time when Buddha appeared. His tender and loving heart could not bear the shedding of so much innocent blood in the sacred name religion. Buddha declared that merit, and not birth, determined the position of a man in society. The persecuted Sudras joined him in large numbers and he unconsciously became the founder of a new faith.
Buddhism is the religion of earnest, undaunted effort. Buddha demands from you faith in your own Self, in your own latent forces. Without this faith, nothing can be achieved. The first words of Buddha, after his Enlightenment, were: "Wide open are the gates of Immortality. Ye that ears to hear, release your faith."

In Buddhism, the views on vegetarianism vary from school to school. In the schools of the Theravada and Vajrayana, the act of eating meat is not always prohibited (see Jivaka Sutta, below); the Mahayana schools generally recommend a vegetarian diet, based on the firm insistence by the Buddha in certain Mahayana sutras that his followers should not eat meat or fish. Interestingly, the accepted legend of the Buddha's death also says that he died after accepting tainted meat (pork infected with Trichinosis) from his hosts while travelling. The relevant word to describe this food, however, is contested as to meaning: it is not the usual term for meat - "mamsa" - , but sukara-maddava, which translates as "pig's delight" and has been interpreted as meaning a kind of truffle beloved of pigs.