When the Buddha reached the deer park[326], a wood where ascetics were allowed to dwell and animals might not be killed, the five monks saw him coming and determined not to salute him since he had given up his exertions, and turned to a luxurious life.  But as he drew near they were overawed and in spite of their resolution advanced to meet him, and brought water to wash his feet.  While showing him this honour they called him Friend Gotama but he replied that it was not proper to address the Tathagata[327] thus.  He had become a Buddha and was ready to teach them the Truth but the monks demurred saying that if he had been unable to win enlightenment while practising austerities, he was not likely to have found it now that he was living a life of ease.  But he overcame their doubts and proceeded to instruct them, apparently during some days, for we are told that they went out to beg alms.

Can this account be regarded as in any sense historical, as being not perhaps the Buddha’s own words but the reminiscences of some one who had heard him describe the crisis of his life?  Like so much of the Pitakas the narrative has an air of patchwork.  Many striking passages, such as the descriptions of the raptures through which he passed, occur in other connections but the formulae are ancient and their use here may be as early and legitimate as elsewhere.  In its main outlines the account is simple, unpretentious and human.  Gotama seeks to obtain enlightenment by self-mortification:  finds that this is the wrong way:  tries a more natural method and succeeds:  debates whether he shall become a teacher and at first hesitates.  These are not features which the average Indian hagiographer, anxious to prove his hero omnipotent and omniscient, would invent or emphasize.  Towards the end of the narrative the language is more majestic and the compiler introduces several stanzas, but though it is hardly likely that Gotama would have used these stanzas in telling his own story, they may be ancient and in substance authentic.  The supernatural intervention recorded is not really great.  It amounts to this, that in mental crises the Buddha received warnings somewhat similar to those delivered by the daemon of Socrates[328].  The appearance of Brahma Sahampati is related with more detail and largely in verse, which suggests that the compiler may have inserted some legend which he found ready to hand, but on the whole I am inclined to believe that in this narrative we have a tradition not separated from the Buddha by many generations and going back to those who had themselves heard him describe his wrestling to obtain the Truth and his victory.