the tongue is so long that it can lick the ears:  the arms reach to the knees in an ordinary upright position:  the skin has a golden tinge:  there is a protuberance on the skull and a smaller one, like a ball, between the eyebrows.  The long arms may be compared with the Persian title rendered in Latin by Longimanus[744] and it is conceivable that the protuberances on the head may have been personal peculiarities of Gotama.  For though the thirty-two marks are mentioned in the Pitakas as well-known signs establishing his claims to eminence, no description of them has been found in any pre-Buddhist work[745], and they may have been modified to suit his personal appearance.  At any rate it is clear that the early generations of Buddhists considered that the Master conformed to the type of the Mahapurusha and attached importance to the fact[746].  The Pitakas repeatedly allude to the knowledge of these marks as forming a part of Brahmanic training and in the account of the previous Buddha Vipassi they are duly enumerated.  These ideas about a Great Man and his characteristics were probably current among the people at the time of the Buddha’s birth.  They do not harmonize completely with later definitions of a Buddha’s nature, but they show how Gotama’s contemporaries may have regarded his career.

In the older books of the Pitakas six Buddhas are mentioned as preceding Gotama[747], namely Vipassi, Sikhi, Vessabhu, Kakusandha, Konagamana and Kassapa.  The last three at least may have some historical character.  The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien, who visited India from 405 to 411 A.D., saw their reputed birthplaces and says that there still existed followers of Devadatta (apparently in Kosala) who recognized these three Buddhas but not Gotama.  Asoka erected a monument in honour of Konagamana in Nepal with a dedicatory inscription which has been preserved.  In the Majjhima-Nikaya[748] we find a story about Kakusandha and his disciples and Gotama once gave[749] an extended account of Vipassi, whose teaching and career are represented as almost identical with his own.  Different explanations have been given of this common element.  There is clearly a wish to emphasize the continuity of the Dhamma and the similarity of its exponents in all ages.  But are we to believe that the stories, true or romantic, originally told of Gotama were transferred to his mythical forerunners or that before his birth there was a Buddha legend to which the account of his career was accommodated?  Probably both processes went on simultaneously.  The notices of the Jain saints show that there must have been such legends and traditions independent of Gotama.  To them we may refer things like the miracles attending birth.  But the general outline of the Buddha’s career, the departure from home, struggle for enlightenment and hesitation before preaching, seem to be a reminiscence of Gotama’s actual life rather than an earlier legend.