Was Buddha greater than God?  The earliest school of Buddhists, the Theravadin school, considered him to be a mortal man, who was "enlightened" over and above the gods.  Buddha, being a mere mortal descended from apes, presented his own enlightenment as something that was greater than the gods.  He paid for this with his life.

     Buddha died of a digestive problem.[1]  Interestingly, four bad guys of the Bible also died the same way.  Herod the Great tried to kill the baby Jesus, and his reward was worms at both ends – his breath stank and his penis had worms living in it.  Antiochus IV smeared pigs' blood all over the Jewish sanctuary and demanded people worship him as God.  He got a bad case of intestinal worms and died confessing, "It is not right for mortals to assume the titles of gods."  King Jehoram murdered his brothers, and so the Prophet cursed him, and he died of intestinal worms.  Another Herod killed Saint James the Tall, and was struck with intestinal worms.[2]  Eusebius' history recorded ten years of persecution, which was the most grievous holocaust the Roman Empire ever inflicted against Christians.  At the end of it, the emperor who perpetrated it died of intestinal worms.  On one occasion, the emperor had sent pimps to abduct a Christian woman, so that he could rape her.  Like Herod, the worms eventually swarmed inside his penis.[3]