SuttaCentral
There is a Wiki article which scholar(s) believe Mahayana indeed is taught by the Buddha as “precanonical Buddhism” which is later being discarded (but not all) by canonisation process in Asoka’s time:
But I think this hypothesis is just a “wild assumption” of the scholar(s)…
Wikipedia articles on Buddhism are so embarassing …
I have done a few small edits of a few Wikipedia articles. I would recommend it! I personally love wikipedia. It’s a great way to pool information from around the world and make it easily accessible! Of course this site is a … ah ha ha, almost said ‘true godsend’! But you know what I mean 
However, Wikipedia is very accessible and easy to read. I would recommend anyone who has enough interest and will to do so, to go ahead and edit away! So long as stuff is well written and properly referenced, it has a good chance of staying there, and adding to the improvement of public knowledge and understanding, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, wikipedia has a tendency to confirm widespread tacit “knowledge” and to be quite politicized, in my experience. The squeaky persistent editor wins the day rather than accuracy it seems.
Wikipedia seems governed by “Truthiness” to me.
For those interested in that term, one interesting essay on “truthiness” :Stephen Colbert, Scientific Pioneer: The Truth in ‘Truthiness’ – ThinkProgress
It is from the Velāma Sutta, AN9.20, but I don’t know how modern scholars regard this text.
No. For example, the first two upāsakas, Tapussa and Bhallika, went only to the Buddha and Dhamma for refuge, for the Saṅgha hadn’t yet come into existence.
I don’t know much about Ramana Maharshi, though if the man had arrived at an ariyan attainment, then in the traditional account of refuge-going he would indeed be reckoned “a son of the Sakyan” (or a “Buddhist”, if you will) even if it never occurred to him to call himself such.
Well, it wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but whether it would be right to judge it “irrational” would rather depend on which Buddhist perspective one has in mind. I’ll write more on this subject tomorrow.
Well yes, for that extremely brief period of time, before there was a sangha, his first diciples didn’t need the sangha refuge obviously. But generally all schools of Buddhism accept the triple refuge ss what defines a Buddhist, no? Naturally if the Buddha gets his first two disciples that would be an exception. But obviouslt the critical thing there that makes them Buddhist is that they are direct disciples of the Buddha!
But if there’s a paccekabuddha who has never even met or heard of the Buddha or his teachings, that’s something entirely different! For example, if a Christian monk lived alone as a hermit, and became enlightened, we don’t define him as a Buddhist. Even though obviously he would have attained the dhamma.
I’d be interested to know… Doesn’t seem like what I would expect from the Buddha. Reminds me a bit of the Tibetans and their claims that certain astrological days amplify your kammic consequences by 100 million etc. If kamma is intention, this does not make sense in my opinion. Seems too superstituous for the Buddha.
If someone may be defined as “a son of the Sakyan” due to their attainment, then I suggest differentiating between “a son of the Sakyan”, and ‘Buddhist’. If we all took that attitude, we would have Muslims saying the Buddha was a Muslim; Hindus saying he was a Hindu (which they do anyway), etc… I do not find that a useful way of using language.
Ok, let’s say it is the Buddhist perspective which hold the view that it is a good idea to get enlightened as quickly as possible. If that were the case, then one would want to be reborn with access to the Buddhist teachings. Being reborn in a place with no teachings, and having to struggle to find your own way, with no teachings to guide you, with no ariyas to guide you, would obviously make the path far far more difficult and slow.
And that is the defining difference - access to dhamma, or not. So, how could there be any reason at all for any Buddhist to want to be born somewhere where they have no access to Buddhism. As a Buddhist, they have taken refuge in the Buddha, dhamma, sangha. So how could they possibly wish, from that Buddhist perspective which they have undertaken, to have no sangha at all, and no access to dhamma, and no knowledge of the Buddha. I await your reasoning!
Perhaps you or other member of SC team should fix the article 
Ha ha! For me, it was really a question of not knowing the author, and coming across a couple of points which seemed off, from reading just a few pages, put me off a little. If there are things I can recognise as being off, it makes me wonder how many other things might be off in the information on topics I am less familiar with. Know what I mean? Makes me more cautious…
I can understand why an Enlightened One might choose not to teach in this world. Or not create a new dispensation.
And it is possible i saw one. It’s been a decade or two since her passing, but there was a woman who spent 40+ years as Peace Pilgrim walking as a non Buddhist mendicant across North America, preaching inner and worldly peace. I caution you, disparaging her or this idea might have very negative effect. I am not joking.
The Suttas are full of threats that doing this or that or slander arahants makes you go to hell. I hope we can have discussions nowadays without the boogeyman.
… well, i was thinking, be careful or one might hurt people by attacking a good inspiration during difficult times, or be careful cuz everything one might read on the internet about a peace activist mifht not be true, but if one needs supernatural explanation to think-before-one-posts, sure. lol
peace, with metta.
No, i need to own this a bit more. It would bother me personally if anyone posted meanly about her or those she inspired. Especially on this site. In this way, i was not kidding, and felt a desire to deter such posts. I apologize if i offended anyone; i am not immune from conditioning, yet, tho one hopes to become so. 
edit: sadly, i note the wikipedia misrepresents her work. She spoke much more on inner peace than on worldly peace, and considered gradual work on inner peace as an absolute prerequisite for societal peace or justice. She taught internal conflict mediation, and compassion for self as a route to compassion for all. She taught progressive simplicity in needs, as burden lifting, illuminating in direct experience… Much more like an Enlightened One than her wikipedia “legacy”. And her definition of god was quite flexible, not as anthropormorphic as many listeners may have assumed.
About whom are you talking?
Anyway, I agree that it is harmful to disparage true virtue. It can have a degrading and demoralizing social effect, and also harms the cynical critic by dividing his soul against itself and proliferating confusion and inner conflict.
As much as I sympathize, but my recommendation would be: if you want to avoid someone disparaging a specific person - don’t mention them on the internet. As soon as you write something it doesn’t ‘belong’ to you anymore and people do with it what they want. Good or not, this is the discourse.
Imagine you’re a conservative Buddhist faith-follower - you have to endure a lot on this site! People investigate if the Buddha lived at all, if he was a misogynist, if his teaching was coherent, etc. People get hurt by it, but there is value in scrutinizing teachers, be it Buddhist monks, Ramana, Sai Baba, Osho, or the Pope. We can hope that the discussion is respectful, but don’t necessarily count on it…
gentlemen, while i appreciate the personal concern you both show, I am managing work on not-me (and also not-you) ok.
let’s focus back to the op and content of comments please. Your thoughts are not uninteresting to me.
I just looked Peace Pilgrim up and from a brief glance she’s a total spiritual badass:
Expressing her ideas about peace, she referred to herself only as “Peace Pilgrim”. Peace Pilgrim’s only possessions were the clothes on her back and the few items she carried in the pockets of her blue tunic which read “Peace Pilgrim” on the front and “25,000 Miles on foot for peace” on the back. She had no organizational backing, carried no money, and would not even ask for food or shelter. When she began her pilgrimage she had taken a vow to “remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food”.
For more resources on her see http://www.peacepilgrim.org/
@ERose I know you are concerned about criticism so you didn’t want to share too much but your comment was a great find for me and now I’m gonna check out more about her; so I thank you for that and apologize if you come under any distress due to my posting about her.
Thank you. I now vaguely recall sharing about her to some buddhist web forum about 20 years ago and the responses were quite harsh, re: “american” “female” “activist”. lol i renounce the form feeling perception choices awareness of “that” and again, ty all.
This article might be interesting Peace Pilgrim | Psychology Today
Thank you for sharing this, @ERose. 
It seems she was a truly remarkable person with a great deal of loving kindness. I look forward to learning more about her. 
It’s important to keep in mind that if someone is ‘enlightened’ depends on the people who make the assessment and their cultural background. Peaceful, happy and compassionate people are from the perspective of Pali-Buddhism good people, quite possibly ‘to be reborn in a heavenly realm’, but not Buddhas - simply because ‘Buddha’ or ‘Arahant’ is a technical term, not merely a respectful one.
Someone with Zen-‘Satori’ is not someone with ‘Sambodhi’ nor someone who ‘lives in Christ’ etc. One could argue that these differences don’t matter. Yet the lived-teachings differ, so it makes sense to distinguish.
Here is a youtube channel with all kinds of ‘awakened’, ‘realized’, ‘enlightened’ people. Maybe you’ll find it inspiring, or not, but it shows the variety in the field: https://www.youtube.com/user/BuddhaAtTheGasPump
Gabriel I agree with what you’re saying, at least mostly.
I am not familiar with the strict definition of sambodhi. But such a person would be an ārya - at least a stream enterer. Don’t you agree?