There are many interpretations of the fundamental teachings in most major religions. In Christianity, there has been a major division over these teachings resulting in Catholicism and Protestantism, and then again within the Protestant Church, resulting in many differing opinions on the core teachings. The same goes for Buddhism. Buddha was born in the 6th century BC as Siddhartha Gautama into a high warrior caste, the Kshatriya. It is said that when he was a child he was inspected by a wise man and found marked, indicating that he would be an illustrious person (Experience of World Religions, p. 121). His life would follow one of two paths, that of his father as a ruler or that of a great spiritual leader. At the age of 29, after witnessing the sufferings of ordinary life, he began to question his education and the Brahminical teachings of the time. He leaves his wife and child and embarks on a quest to learn the essential truth. Siddhartha initially studied with two yoga masters, but when his spiritual needs were not met by their teachings, he turned to extreme asceticism. After five years of living in extreme asceticism, he is no closer to his goal of essential truth. Legend has it that Siddhartha abandoned the ascetic life, sat under a papal tree and began to meditate. During this time of meditation, Siddhartha enters a trance state and remembers his previous lives. He then reaches a higher state where his ignorance and desires are removed. It is now that he grasps the Four Noble Truths on the path to enlightenment. Buddha reveals these truths to five former companions. The first truth being: Birth is sorrow, age is sorrow, death is sorrow – everything in the world is sorrow and suffering. The second Noble Truth is that suffering comes from longing for the pleasures of life. The third Noble Truth teaches that to end suffering you must end desire and the final Noble Truth says that the path to ending desires lies in an Eightfold Path whose stages are right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right resolution. Efforts, mindfulness and right concentration. During Buddha's life, no written record of his teachings was preserved; they are transmitted by oral tradition by monks who memorize passages of the spoken words of the Buddha.