Buddhist tradition places the household of Siddhartha Gautama at Kapilavastu, the principal town of the Shakya people, a small republic on the edge of the Kosala kingdom. The accounts describe a father determined that his son should rule rather than renounce, and a childhood arranged so that nothing distressing would be seen: three palaces for the seasons, and the roads cleared before any outing.
The four sights are the story of that arrangement failing. On successive journeys out of the city the young man sees an old man, a sick man, a corpse being carried to burning, and finally a wandering ascetic with a calm face, and learns from his charioteer that the first three come to everybody. The great departure follows, at twenty nine, leaving a wife and a newborn son.
The town returns to the narrative years later, when the Buddha visits it as a teacher. The texts record a difficult reunion: a father who wants his son to behave like a prince and finds him begging in the streets of his own city, and a series of ordinations from within the family, including his half brother Nanda, his son Rahula, and cousins who become the closest and, in one case, the most hostile of his followers. It is also where his foster mother asked three times for women to be admitted to the order, and was refused, before the request was granted on conditions. The commentaries add that the Shakyas were destroyed by a neighbouring king within the Buddha's own lifetime.