Suttas as History: Four Approaches to the Sermon on the Noble Quest (Ariyapariyesanasutta)

Lalitavistara supplements the terse statements about Uddaka Ramaputta (here Sanskritized as Rudraka Ramaputra) by making the Buddha already have a philosophical rebuttal before meeting him and meeting Rudraka only in the interest of showing him up. Both Sanskrit versions omit the “conjoining frame” of NQ (about destiny to rebirth, etc.), which further suggests the greater antiquity of the embedded portion, the Buddha autobiography.