Introduction
Suddhodana was the chief (raja) of the Shakya clan at Kapilavastu, father of Siddhartha Gautama, who would leave his household life to become the Buddha.
Family
- Father: Sihahanu
- Mother: Kaccana
- Spouse: Maya Devi (married)
- Spouse: Mahapajapati Gotami (married)
- Children: Siddhartha Gautama
- Siblings: Amitodana, Dhotodana, Sukkodana
Father of the Buddha-to-Be
Traditional accounts describe Suddhodana attempting, after prophecies at his son's birth suggested Siddhartha would become either a great king or a great renunciant, to keep the young prince surrounded by luxury and shielded from suffering, hoping to secure the worldly path. This effort famously failed when Siddhartha, despite his father's precautions, encountered the "Four Sights" — old age, sickness, death, and a wandering ascetic — that set him on the path to renunciation at age 29.
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.