Buddha's Birthday

Buddha's Birthday
A statue of the child Gautama Buddha as depicted in his apocryphal story of birth
Official name	Fódàn (佛誕) Phật Đản Chopa-il (초파일, 初八日) बुद्ध जयन्ती
Also called	Buddha's Birthday Buddha Purnima Buddha Jayanti
Observed by	Buddhists Hindus
Liturgical Color	Namsey
Type	Buddhist, cultural
Significance	Celebrates the birthday of Gautama Buddha
Date	varies by region: April 8 or May 8 (Japan) Second Sunday in May (Taiwan) 8th day of 4th lunar month (mainland East Asia) first full moon of Vaisakha (South Asia and Southeast Asia)
2016 date	14 May
2017 date	3 May
2018 date	21 May
Frequency	annual
Related to	Vesak

varies by region:

Buddha's Birthday is a holiday traditionally celebrated in Mahayana Buddhism to commemorate the birth of the Prince Siddhartha Gautama, later the Gautama Buddha and founder of Buddhism. According to the Theravada Tripitaka scriptures (from Pali, meaning "three baskets"), Gautama was born in Lumbini in modern-day Nepal, around the year 563 BCE, and raised in Kapilavastu.

According to this legend, briefly after the birth of young prince Gautama, an astrologer named Asita visited the young prince's father—King Śuddhodana—and prophesied that Siddhartha would either become a great king or renounce the material world to become a holy man, depending on whether he saw what life was like outside the palace walls.

Śuddhodana was determined to see his son become a king, so he prevented him from leaving the palace grounds. But at age 29, despite his father's efforts, Gautama ventured beyond the palace several times. In a series of encounters—known in Buddhist literature as the four sights—he learned of the suffering of ordinary people, encountering an old man, a sick man, a corpse and, finally, an ascetic holy man, apparently content and at peace with the world. These experiences prompted Gautama to abandon royal life and take up a spiritual quest.

The exact date of Buddha's Birthday is based on the Asian lunisolar calendars and is primarily celebrated in Baisakh month of the Buddhist calendar and the Bikram Sambat Hindu calendar, and hence it is also called Vesak. In Nepal, the birth-country of Buddha, it is celebrated on the full moon day of the Vaisakha month of the Buddhist calendar. In Theravada countries following the Buddhist calendar, it falls on a full moon Uposatha day, typically in the 5th or 6th lunar month. In China and Korea, it is celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. The date varies from year to year in the Western Gregorian calendar, but usually falls in April or May. In leap years it may be celebrated in June.