Gautama Maharṣi

Gautama Maharṣi is a legendary Vedic seer counted among the Saptarṣi (the seven great sages of tradition; he appears, for example, in the seven-rishi list of the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa). He is remembered as a mantra-dṛṣṭā ("seer of hymns") to whom a number of Rigvedic hymns are traditionally attributed, chiefly in Maṇḍala 1, and the seers Nodhas and Vāmadeva — counted in tradition among his sons and likewise reckoned hymn-seers (Vāmadeva is the seer to whom most of Maṇḍala 4 is ascribed) — belong to the same Gautama (Aṅgirasa) lineage. In epic and Purāṇic narrative he is the husband of Ahalyā, and his hermitage figures in the Rāmāyaṇa episode in which Rāma restores Ahalyā. He is generally distinguished by modern scholarship from the much later Nyāya philosopher Akṣapāda Gautama, author of the Nyāya-sūtras — though some traditional sources (e.g. the Vāyu Purāṇa and Mithilā tradition) identify the two — and he should not be confused with the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, who shares the Gautama gotra name. This Gautama belongs to legend and scripture, and any dates given for him are traditional rather than historical.