What festival as a child first led Siddhartha to meditation?

The festival that first led Siddhartha to meditation was the Ploughing Festival. According to traditional biographies, his father, King Śuddhodana, took the young prince to a royal agricultural ceremony marking the beginning of the ploughing season.

While the king and attendants watched the ceremony, Siddhartha was left beneath a rose-apple tree. He observed the labor of people and oxen, as well as the insects and worms exposed by the ploughs. The contrast between public celebration and the suffering involved in farming prompted him to reflect quietly.

Siddhartha then sat cross-legged and entered the first jhāna, a state of meditative absorption. Later versions add a miracle: the tree’s shadow supposedly remained over him even as the sun moved, protecting him from heat.

This story is not the same as Vesak, which commemorates major events in the Buddha’s life, or Asalha Puja, associated with his first sermon. Vassa is the Buddhist rains retreat. The Ploughing Festival is specifically the childhood episode linked with Siddhartha’s earliest recorded meditation.