Searching for the real Buddha

This lengthy essay at AEON talks about the little that is known, or guessed, about the historical Buddha.   (Very, very little is known with any certainty.)

The author paints this picture (and make sure to read to the end):

Bringing the reliable historical fragments together, and discarding mythic elaborations, a humbler picture of the Buddha emerges. Gotama was born into a small tribe, in a remote and unimportant town on the periphery of pre-imperial India. He lived in a world on the cusp of urbanisation, albeit one that still lacked money, writing and long-distance trade. More importantly, we might ask what happened to Gotama after he had been drawn into a counterculture of ascetics and philosophers, and especially after he had attained his ‘awakening’. The texts say that the Buddha achieved remarkable success as a teacher straight away, but this seems unlikely.

The Pali account of the Buddha’s ‘First Sermon’ claims that its five recipients immediately attained enlightenment. But other texts give reason to doubt this. Indeed, these disciples are hardly mentioned again in the textual record, and in fact the occasional appearance of some of them is not entirely flattering. One text tells the story of an encounter between the Buddha and Koṇḍañña, the most prominent of the first disciples. After a lengthy absence from the Buddha, Koṇḍañña acts like a supplicating devotee, not an enlightened Buddhist saint (arahant): he is said to prostrate himself on the ground, stroking and kissing the Buddha’s feet, all the while announcing: ‘I am Koṇḍañña, I am Koṇḍañña!’

Another prominent member of the group of five, called ‘Assaji’, is mentioned in a few more places. But one text records the occasion when he was ill and became upset because he could no longer attain meditative absorption. Just like the text on Koṇḍañña’s emotional reunion with the Buddha, Assaji is not depicted as an enlightened saint. This suggests that, within the old Buddhist literature from ancient India, pre-mythic stories about the Buddha’s life have survived. Further historical fragments can be retrieved from myth, for example the primary Pali account of the Buddha’s ‘awakening’, where we are told that Gotama considered not bothering with teaching, since nobody would understand him. After Gotama did decide to teach, the first person to encounter him, an ascetic called Upaka, was not impressed. Upaka asks who Gotama’s teacher is. When Gotama replies that he is fully awakened, and so has no teacher, Upaka simply shakes his head and walks off, saying ‘maybe’.

That's sort of amusing.

The next section of the article is really interesting too - emphasising that Buddha's reputation may have been built by his "quietism".  And if one wants to be cynical, it almost comes across as describing an ancient version of Being There (a movie I don't care for, incidentally.)   That is, a case of people reading too much into simple, enigmatic statements, or insistent silence.

I doubt that it was the writers intention to give me that impression, but that's what came to my mind.

Science fiction and comedy has toyed with various ideas about Christ;  maybe it's time for a "Life of Gotama" too.