Gautama then exchanged his clothes with a poor passer-by, cut off his hair, and sent Channa, the charioteer back and became a begging, homeless hermit. Several hermits had taken up their abode in the caves of the Vindhya mountains; here they were at once surrounded by the solitudes of nature and sufficiently near to a large city to get their supplies. After coming to these caves he attaches himself to a Brahmin teacher, and under his guidance seeks, by undergoing severest penances, to gain superhuman power. After a little, he withdraws by himself to the jungles, where he spends six years in fasting and self-mortification. His severity of self-control gains him great fame, and disciples gather about him. A fear that, lest after all his efforts should be fruitless and that he should die, having gone wrong, made him finally give up the attempt. Now came the crisis of his life. The second struggle of Gautama was most intense. He wandered back to a village to get his morning meal. He sat down to eat it under a tree, known from that day to this as the “Bo-tree,” or tree of Wisdom. There he remained through the long hours of that day, debating with himself what next to do. The philosophy he had trusted in seemed to be doubtful; the penance he had practiced so long had brought no certainty, no peace; and all his old temptations came back upon him with renewed force. For years he had looked at all earthly good as vanity, worthless and transitory. Nay, more, he had thought that it contained within itself the seeds of evil, and must inevitably, sooner or later, bring forth its bitter fruit. But now to his wavering faith the sweet delights of home and love, the charms of wealth and power, began to show themselves in a different light and to glow again with attractive colors. They were yet within his reach; he knew he would be welcomed back, and yet--would there even then be satisfaction? Were all his labors to be lost? Was there _no_ sure ground to stand on? Thus he agonized in his doubt from the early morning until sunset. But as the day ended the religious side of his nature had won the victory; his doubt had cleared away; _he had become a Buddha_, that is _an Enlightened One_; he had grasped, as it seemed to him, the solution of the great mystery of sorrow, and had learned at once its causes and its cure. He seemed to have gained the haven of peace, and _in the power over the human heart of inward culture, and of love to others_, to rest at last on a certitude that could never be shaken. He renounced his penances, and from that time declared that no good resulted from them. It was a grand theory of _self-salvation_ that he had wrought out for himself--salvation by self-control and love--without any rites, ceremonies, charming priestly powers, without even the aid of the gods, man could save himself.