Mother Theresa Early life Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (gonxha meaning "rosebud" or "li ttle flower" in Albanian) was

born on 26 August 1910, in skb, Ottoman Empire (now Skopje, capital of the Republic of Macedonia). Although she was born on 26 Augus t, she considered 27 August, the day she was baptized, to be her "true birthday" .[8]She was the youngest of the children of a family fromShkodr, Albania, born to Nikoll and Drana Bojaxhiu.[9] Her father, who was involved in Albanian politics, died in 1919 when she was eight years old.[3][10] After her father's death, her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. Her father, Nikoll Bojaxhiu (his name mea ns 'painter') was of Kosovar Albanian origin possibly stemming from Prizren,Koso vo[a] while her mother's origin was possibly from a village near akovica, Kosovo. [11] According to a biography by Joan Graff Clucas, in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service in Bengal, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. [12] Her final resolution was taken on August 15, 1928, while praying at the shr ine of the Black Madonna of Letnice, where she often went on pilgrimage.[13] She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. She never ag ain saw her mother or sister.[14] Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Ra thfarnham, Ireland, to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India.[15] She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains,[16] where she learnt Ben galiand taught at the St. Teresas School, a schoolhouse close to her convent.[17] She took her firstreligious vows as a nun on 24 May 1931. At that time she chos e to be named after Thrse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries,[18][19] bu t because one nun in the convent had already chosen that name, Agnes opted for t he Spanish spelling Teresa.[20] She took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937, while s erving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta.[2 ][21] Teresa served there for almost twenty years and in 1944 was appointed head mistress.[22] Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasing ly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta.[23] The Bengal famine o f 1943 brought misery and death to the city; and the outbreak of Hindu/Muslim vi olence in August 1946 plunged the city into despair and horror.[24] Missionaries of Charity On 10 September 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call w ithin the call" while traveling by train to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling fro m Calcutta for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the

convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail woul d have been to break the faith."[25] As one author later noted, "Though no one k new it at the time, Sister Teresa had just become MotherTeresa".[26] She began h er missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cottonsari decorated with a blue border. Mother Teresa adop ted Indian citizenship, spent a few months in Patna to receive a basic medical t raining in the Holy Family Hospital and then ventured out into the slums.[27][28 ] Initially she started a school in Motijhil (Calcutta); soon she started tendin g to the needs of the destitute and starving.[29] In the beginning of 1949 she w as joined in her effort by a group of young women and laid the foundations to cr eate a new religious community helping the "poorest among the poor". Her efforts quickly caught the attention of Indian officials, including the prime minister, who expressed his appreciation.[30] Teresa wrote in her diary that her first ye ar was fraught with difficulties. She had no income and had to resort to begging for food and supplies. Teresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months. She wrote in her diary: Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the c ross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much they must ache in body and soul, looking for a home, food an d health. Then the comfort of Loreto [her former order] came to tempt me. You h ave only to say the word and all that will be yours again, the Tempter kept on saying ... Of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I desire to remain a nd do whatever be your Holy will in my regard. I did not let a single tear come. [31] Teresa received Vatican permission on 7 October 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity.[32]Its mission was t o care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled , the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared fo r throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are sh unned by everyone." It began as a small order with 13 members in Calcutta; by 19 97 it had grown to more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices and ch arity centers worldwide, and caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alc oholics, the poor and homeless, and victims of floods, epidemics, and famine.[33 ] In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made availa ble by the city of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). [ 34] Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the o pportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics recei ved

the Last Rites.[35] "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angelsloved and wanted."[35] Mother Teresa soon opened a hom e for those suffering from Hansen s disease, commonly known as leprosy, and call ed the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace).[36] The Missionaries of Charity als o established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing me dication, bandages and food. As the Missionaries of Charity took in increasing n umbers of lost children, Mother Teresa felt the need to create a home for them. In 1955 she opened the Nirmala Shishu Bhavan, the Children s Home of the Immacul ate Heart, as a haven for orphans and homeless youth.[37] The order soon began t o attract both recruits and charitable donations, and by the 1960s had opened ho spices, orphanages and leper houses all over India. Mother Teresa then expanded the order throughout the globe. Its first house outside India opened in Venezuel a in 1965 with five sisters.[38] Others followed in Rome, Tanzania, and Austria in 1968; during the 1970s the order opened houses and foundations in dozens of c ountries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States.[39] The Missionaries of Charity Brothers was founded in 1963, and a contemplative branch of the Sisters followed in 1976. Lay Catholics and non-Catholics were enrolled in the Co-Worker s of Mother Teresa, the Sick and Suffering CoWorkers, and the Lay Missionaries o f Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests,[40] and in 1984 founded with Fr. Joseph Langford the Missionaries of Charity Fathers[41] to combine the vocation al aims of the Missionaries of Charity with the resources of the ministerial pri esthood. By 2007 the Missionaries of Charity numbered approximately 450 brothers and 5,000 nuns worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 c ountries.[42] Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Early life Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi[7] was born on 2 October 1869 in Porbandar, a coastal town which was then part of the Bombay Presidency, British India.[8] He was bor n in his ancestral home, now known asKirti Mandir, Porbandar.[9] His father, Kar amchand Gandhi (18221885), who belonged to the Hindu Modhcommunity, served as the diwan (a high official) of Porbander state, a small princely state in the Kathi awar Agency of British India.[10] His grandfather was Uttamchand Gandhi, fondly called Utta Gandhi.[9] His mother, Putlibai, who came from the Hindu Pranami Vai shnava community, was Karamchand s fourth wife, the first three wives having app arently died in childbirth.[11] Growing up with a devout mother and the Jaintrad itions of the region, the young Mohandas absorbed early the influences that woul d play an

important role in his adult life; these included compassion for sentient beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance among indivi duals of different creeds.[12] The Indian classics, especially the stories of Sh ravana and Maharaja Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood . In his autobiography, he admits that it left an indelible impression on his mi nd. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself time s without number." Gandhi s early self-identification with Truth and Love as sup reme values is traceable to these epic characters.[13][14] In May 1883, the 13-y ear-old Mohandas was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji (her first name w as usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged c hild marriage, according to the custom of the region. [15] Recalling the day of their marriage, he once said, "As we didn t know much about marriage, for us it meant only wearing new clothes, eating sweets and playing with relatives." Howev er, as was also the custom of the region, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents house, and away from her husband.[16] In 1885, when Gandhi was 15, the couple s first child was born, but survived only a few days, and Ga ndhi s father, Karamchand Gandhi, had died earlier that year.[17] Mohandas and K asturba had four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born i n 1892; Ramdas, born in 1897; and Devdas, born in 1900. At his middle school in Porbandar and high school in Rajkot, Gandhi remained an average student. He pass ed the matriculation exam for Samaldas College atBhavnagar, Gujarat, with some d ifficulty. While there, he was unhappy, in part because his family wanted him to become a barrister. On 4 September 1888, Gandhi travelled to London, England, t o study law at University College London where he studied Indian law and jurispr udence[1] and to train as a barrister at the Inner Temple.[1] His time in London , the Imperial capital, was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu pr ecepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and promiscuity.[18] Although Gandhi ex perimented with adopting "English" customstaking dancing lessons for examplehe cou ld not stomach the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady, and he was alw ays hungry until he found one of London s few vegetarian restaurants. Influenced by Henry Salt s book, he joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its exec utive committee,[19] and started a local Bayswater chapter.[11] Some of the vege tarians he met were members of the Theosophical Society, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu literature. They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading th e Bhagavad Gita both in translation as well as in the original.[19] Not having s hown interest in religion before, he became interested in religious thought and began to read Hindu, Muslim[6]:4[20]

Gandhi was called to the bar on 10 June 1891. Two days later, he left London for India,[11] where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him.[19] His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed and, later, after applying and being turned down f or a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended up returning toRajkot to m ake a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, a business he was forced t o close when he ran afoul of a British officer. In his autobiography, Gandhi ref ers to this incident as an unsuccessful attempt to lobby on behalf of his older brother.[11][19] It was in this climate that, in April 1893, he accepted a yearlong contract from Dada Abdulla & Co., an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony o f Natal, South Africa, then part of the British Empire.[11] Martin Luther King M artin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family s long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, servi ng from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and fro m 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distingu ished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather ha d graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Semina ry in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senio r class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he en rolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for th e doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and marri ed Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainment s. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family. In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. A lways a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by thi s time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the natio n. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United S tates, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in ho nor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after th e Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requ iring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the firs t rank. In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Co nference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now

burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twent y-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and actio n; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these year s, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspi ring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; h e planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he di rected the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he deli vered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twen ty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees ; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the sy mbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure. At the age of thirty-f ive, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Pe ace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. On t he evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striki ng garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha Biography Traditional biographies The primary sources for the life of Siddhrtha G autama are in a variety of different and sometimes conflicting traditional biogr aphies. These include the Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara Stra, Mahvastu, and the Nidna kath.[14]Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by the poet Avaghoa, and dating around the beginning of the 2nd century CE . [14] The Lalitavistara Stra is the next oldest biography, aMahyna/Sarvstivda biogra phy dating to the 3rd century CE. [15] The Mahvastu from the MahsghikaLokottaravda se ct is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th cent ury CE. [15] TheDharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, an d is entitled the Abhinikramaa Stra, and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. Lastly, the Nidnakath is from theTheravda sect in Sri Lanka, composed in the 5th century CE by Buddhaghoa.[16]

From canonical sources, the Jtaka tales, Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achari yabhuta Sutta (MN 123) include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jtaka tales retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisat tva, and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts.[17] TheMahpadna Sutta and Acchariyaabbhuta Sutta both recount miraculous ev ents surrounding Gautama s birth, such as the bodhisattva s descent from Tuita He aven into his mother s womb. Traditional biographies of Gautama generally includ e numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of the Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lo kottara) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Ma hvastu, over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supramun dane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no nee d for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformit y with the world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma".[18] Neverth eless, some of the more ordinary details of his life have been gathered from the se traditional sources. In modern times there has been an attempt to form a secu larunderstanding of Siddhrtha Gautama s life by omitting the traditional supernat ural elements of his early biographies. The ancient Indians were generally uncon cerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts refle ct this tendency, providing a clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught th an of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of t he culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Ja in scriptures, and make the Buddha s time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist.[19][Full citation needed] Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered his torically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhrtha Gautama did exist as a historical figure.[20]Michael Carrithers goes a bit further by stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening a nd liberation, teaching, death" must be true.[21][Full citation needed] Concepti on and birth Various sites have been identified as possible places of Gautama Bu ddha s birth. UNESCO listsLumbini, Nepal as a world heritage site and birthplace of Gautam Buddha. There are other claims of Buddha s birth in Piprahwa in Uttar Pradesh, India; or Kapileswara in Orissa, India.[7][8][9][11][23]and raised in the small kingdom or principality of Kapilavastu.[24] According to the most trad itional biography,[which?] the Buddha s father was King uddhodana, the leader of Shakya clan, whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the gr owing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha s lifetime; Gautama was the family nam e. His mother, Queen Maha Maya (Mydev) and Suddhodana s wife, was a Koliyan princes s. Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that a white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side,[25] and ten m onths later Siddhartha was born. As was the

Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilvast u for her father s kingdom to give birth. However, her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree. The day of the Budd ha s birth is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak.[26] Various sou rces hold that the Buddha s mother died at his birth, a few days or seven days l ater. The infant was given the name Siddhartha (Pli: Siddhattha), meaning "he who achieves his aim". During the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journey ed from his mountain abode and announced that the child would either become a gr eat king (chakravartin) or a great holy man.[27] By traditional account,[which?] this occurred after Siddhartha placed his feet in Asita s hair and Asita examin ed the birthmarks. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day, and invit ed eight brahminscholars to read the future. All gave a dual prediction that the baby would either become a great king or a great holy man.[27] Kaundinya (Pali: Kondaa), the youngest, and later to be the firstarahant other than the Buddha, wa s reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would b ecome a Buddha.[28] While later tradition and legend characterized uddhodana as a hereditary monarch, thedescendant of the Solar Dynasty of Ikvku (Pli: Okkka), many scholars think that uddhodana was the elected chief of a tribal confederacy. Earl y texts suggest that Gautama was not familiar with the dominant religious teachi ngs of his time until he left on his religious quest, which is said to have been motivated by existential concern for the human condition.[29] At the time, many small city-states existed in Ancient India, called Janapadas. Republics and chi efdoms with diffused political power and limited social stratification, were not uncommon amongst them, and were referred to as gana-sanghas.[30]The Buddha s co mmunity does not seem to have had a caste system. It was not a monarchy, and see ms to have been structured either as an oligarchy, or as a form of republic.[31] The more egalitarian gana-sangha form of government, as a political alternative to the strongly hierarchical kingdoms, may have influenced the development of t he Shramana-type Jain and Buddhist sanghas, where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism.[32] Early life and marriage Siddhartha was born in a royal Hindu Ks hatriya family. He was brought up by his mother s younger sister, Maha Pajapati. [33] By tradition, he is said to have been destined by birth to the life of a pr ince, and had three palaces (for seasonal occupation) built for him. Although mo re recent scholarship doubts this status, his father, said to be King uddhodana, wishing for his son to be a great king, is said to have shielded him from religi ous teachings and from knowledge of human suffering. When he reached the age of 16, his father reputedly arranged his marriage to a cousin of the same age named Yaodhar (Pli: Yasodhar). According to the traditional account,[which?] she gave bir th to a son, named Rahula. Siddhartha is

then said to have spent 29 years as a prince in Kapilavastu. Although his father ensured that Siddhartha was provided with everything he could want or need, Bud dhist scriptures say that the future Buddha felt that material wealth was not li fe s ultimate goal.[33] Departure and ascetic life surrounded by a halo, and acc ompanied by numerous guards, mithuna loving couples, and devata, come to pay hom age.[34] Gandhara art, Kushan period(1st3rd century CE) At the age of 29, the po pular biography continues, Siddhartha left his palace to meet his subjects. Desp ite his father s efforts to hide from him the sick, aged and suffering, Siddhart ha was said to have seen an old man. When his charioteer Channa explained to him that all people grew old, the prince went on further trips beyond the palace. O n these he encountered a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and an ascetic. These depressed him, and he initially strove to overcome ageing, sickness, and death b y living the life of an ascetic.[35] Accompanied by Channa and aboard his horse Kanthaka, Gautama quit his palace for the life of amendicant. It s said that, "t he horse s hooves were muffled by the gods"[36] to prevent guards from knowing o f his departure. Gautama initially went to Rajagaha and began his ascetic life b y begging for alms in the street. After King Bimbisara s men recognised Siddhart ha and the king learned of his quest, Bimisara offered Siddhartha the throne. Si ddhartha rejected the offer, but promised to visit his kingdom ofMagadha first, upon attaining enlightenment. He left Rajagaha and practised under two hermit te achers. After mastering the teachings of Alara Kalama (Skr. ra Klma), he was asked by Kalama to succeed him. However, Gautama felt unsatisfied by the practise, and m oved on to become a student of Udaka Ramaputta (Skr. Udraka Rmaputra). With him h e achieved high levels of meditative consciousness, and was again asked to succe ed his teacher. But, once more, he was not satisfied, and again moved on. [37] Siddhartha and a group of five companions led by Kaundinya are then said to have set out to take their austerities even further. They tried to find enlightenmen t through deprivation of worldly goods, including food, practising self-mortific ation. After nearly starving himself to death by restricting his food intake to around a leaf or nut per day, he collapsed in a river while bathing and almost d rowned. Siddhartha began to reconsider his path. Then, he remembered a moment in childhood in which he had been watching his father start the season s plowing. He attained a concentrated and focused state that was blissful and refreshing, t he jhna.