In a sense, I have been writing this book for thirty-five years. Who the Buddha was and what he was like has intrigued and fascinated me since I became a Buddhist in my late teens. In my 1989 book The Buddha and His Disciples I looked at some aspects of his persona, his style of teaching and his relationships. and in the subsequent decades I wrote several articles dealing with other aspects of the Buddha’s life: his physical appearance, his habits, his travels and even his diet. Some of that earlier work has been incorporated into the present book. To get at least some feel for the world in which the Buddha lived, I also undertook three walking tours through India that followed in his footsteps: going from Bodh Gaya to Varanasi; from Bodh Gaya to Rajgir and back again; and, longest of all, retracing the Buddha’s final journey from Rajgir to Kusinara. In the last few years I have also immersed myself in Vedic literature from both the early and late periods, the better to understand the religious and social background to the Buddha’s life. In writing this book I have received generous help and encouragement from many people. Discussions with Anandajoti Bhikkhu, Peter Prins, Sarah Shaw and Peter Harvey have been enormously helpful mainly on matters related to the Dhamma. Input from Bhikkhu Khemarato, Bhikkhunī Acala, Chris Burke and Ranjith Dissanayake helped fine-tune the final draft.