According to Buddhist tradition, Siddhartha Gautama left his palace life at the age of 29.
This departure is known as the Great Renunciation. Traditional biographies say that Siddhartha left his household life after encountering what are commonly called the four sights: an old person, a sick person, a dead person, and a wandering ascetic. These encounters confronted him with suffering and with the possibility of finding a spiritual path beyond it.
The story presents the renunciation as a decisive break with aristocratic privilege. Siddhartha is said to have left his wife Yasodhara and young son Rahula, crossed the Anoma River, and exchanged his princely clothing for the life of a wandering seeker. He then studied with teachers and practiced severe asceticism before discovering the Middle Way.
The age of 29 belongs to traditional Buddhist biography, not a securely documented modern chronology. Accounts vary in details, but the sequence remains central: privileged household life, renunciation, years of practice, and awakening beneath the Bodhi tree.