Who Was The Founder Of Buddhism?

The founder of Buddhism is Siddhartha Gautama who is estimated to have lived in the period c.563 B.C ~ c.483 B.C. Buddhism has been the principal religion in the Eastern World for centuries. It still is the dominant religion in Korea, Japan, China and many parts of South East Asia.

Siddhartha Gautama is believed to be born in approximately 563 B.C in the present day Nepal. His father, Suddhodana was a King in a district near the Himalayas and Gautama lived in all worldly pleasures in his early life. However, Gautama encountered the sufferings of the common man and being deeply depressed by the sufferings around him, he left the luxurious life and began a quest to find the meaning of pain and suffering.

Gautama left his palace and wandered the countryside in his quest. After the study of Hindu scriptures he turned to meditation. And while meditating under a fig tree called 'Bohdi' he was enlightened with God-consciousness called 'Nirvana'. His teachings on the way of life later became a religion called 'Buddhism' and Gautama came to be known as 'Buddha'.

The founder of Buddhism was Shakyamuni ('Shakya' was his royal family's name and 'muni' means 'the able one'). His parents gave him the name Siddharta Gautama. Siddharta Gautama lived some 2500 years back in northern India (this area is noe under Nepal). He was the first Buddha. Buddha is a title equivalent to the priest in Christianity.
For the first 29 years of his life, he lived the life of a prince with all the luxuries and a beautiful wife. After that, however, he started contemplating man's situation. He left his luxurious life and retired into a forest to contemplate. You might have noticed that some of the Buddha statues are shown as plump while some look emaciated. This is because, when he was a prince he was quite plump but as he gave up his luxuries and adopted the lifestyle of a meditating hermit, he lost pleasure in desire for everything (including fine food).
At the age of 35, he was 'enlightened' in Bodh Gaya, India, under a Bodhi tree. He believed that desire corrupts the soul and complete Nirvana is achieved when a soul is free of all wordly desires.
After that he taught many others about enlightenment and how to achieve it. He taught about the Mahanaya (the great vehicle) of Buddhism in his first three 'Wheels of Dharma'.  
The teachings of Siddharta Gautama are summarized in the Four Noble Truths.

Buddha, meditated under a tree for 40 years and reached nirvana.

The founder of Buddhism is Siddhartha Gautama.

Buddha

Buddhism was founded in India, 528 BC, by Siddhartha Gautama known as "Buddha" (the enlightened one). His devotees also call him "Bhagara" (Lord), and "Tathagata" (True-Winner).

    Gautama (563-483), was a Prince born in Lumbini near Nepal, where the legend says he had 40,000 dancing girls at his disposal... But he wander around the palace and he met successfully with "an old man begging for alms, a diseased man, a dead man, and a monk"... He was so impressed that on his 29th birthday he left palace, his wife and child and started to search for the cause of suffering and to find peace and happiness, following two yoga masters, then as a begging monk with severe asceticism... Finally, at age 35, he went near Benares and for 7 weeks he meditated under a fig tree, or a pipal tree, until he found "in a flash" his way, and became Buddha, the enlightened one, under the "Bodhi tree", or "Bo tree" (wisdom tree)... And life's problems were no longer an enigma to him!.

    He died of dysentery at age 80, upon eating some poisoned mush-rooms at the home of Cunda the smith... He did not blame Cunda for the mush-rooms, but rather his last command was that his companions tell Cunda that all of the meals he had eaten in his life two stood out as exceptional blessings. One was the meal under the Bo tree; the other the mush-rooms which were opening to him the final gates to Nirvana.

    Most people say his body was cremated, but archaeologists have recovered a huge sandstone casket near Kapilvastu, India, and the inscription shows they are the mortal remains of Gautama Buddha (his skeleton).

    Much of Buddha's life is legend, but one gets the impression to meet a great one in the history of humanity. He is a combination of a cool head and a warm heart: One of the greatest rationalists, a master in dialogue, like Socrates... And on the other hand, with a Franciscan tenderness so strong as to have caused his message to be subtitled "a religion of infinite compassion". Like St. Francis of Assisi he claimed as his friends the sun, the moon, the birds and trees...

    His social and ethical teachings were much like those of Jesus Christ; the cemetery meditations of Buddha can be read in any Christian temple... All Buddhists love the Sermon on the Mountain in Matt.5-8... The central social thesis of Buddhism is love and compassion to all of nature's creation because they are sacred and deserving of life and respect.