Chapter 2 continues the story of the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment. It covers his ‘discovery’ of the path between the excesses of luxury and extreme asceticism, his battles with the demon Māra, and his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. It then outlines the teachings of the Buddha after his enlightenment: the Middle Way, the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Three Jewels of Buddhism (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha), along with the Three Marks (suffering, impermanence, and non-self). It gives an account of the development of the Sangha, his lay following, and the role of women in Buddhism. It ends with an account of his death drawn primarily from the Mahāparinibbāna Suttanta.

This chapter provides the historical context of “early Buddhism”, the roughly four centuries of oral transmission from the death of the Buddha until his teachings were written down for the first time. It recounts how Buddhist doctrine was memorised by chanting aloud, using such mnemonic devices as repetition and ordered lists; it also shows how errors in transmission could have been introduced. Such errors became more likely as Buddhism spread throughout the Indian sub-continent and beyond into Central Asia, the number of monasteries increased, and sectarian differences arose, with each school preserving its own canon. The importance of comparative textual analysis is demonstrated by reference to accounts in Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese of the Buddha’s first sermon, the founding of the Buddhist Saṅgha (order of monks), and of the First Buddhist Council.