Introduction
Rahula was the only son of Siddhartha Gautama and Yasodhara, born shortly before his father's renunciation of household life.
Family
- Father: Siddhartha Gautama
- Mother: Yasodhara
The First Novice
When the Buddha later returned to Kapilavastu after his enlightenment, the young Rahula, encouraged by his mother, asked his father for his inheritance; the Buddha responded by having him ordained as a novice monk (samanera), making Rahula traditionally regarded as the first Buddhist novice in history. He remained a monk for the rest of his life and is remembered in later tradition for his diligence in following the monastic training.
This article follows the Pali Canon and its commentarial tradition as the primary early Buddhist textual source; where sources genuinely disagree on a detail (such as an exact parentage), that disagreement is noted rather than resolved into a single invented certainty.