Mahāyāna presents itself as both a faithful heir to Śākyamuni Buddha and a profound re-reading of his significance. It regards its sūtras as the Buddha’s own word, revealed in ways and contexts that were not fully apparent to the earliest communities, and it treats the historical Buddha as the foundational teacher of its path of great compassion. At the same time, it acknowledges that its scriptures and interpretations arose within Buddhist communities some centuries after the Buddha’s passing, as an expansion and deepening of earlier doctrines rather than as simple repetitions of his historical sermons. In this way, Mahāyāna links itself to the Buddha as ultimate source while recognizing that its doctrinal forms took shape over time.

Within this framework, the figure of Śākyamuni is reinterpreted in more than purely historical terms. Mahāyāna emphasizes that Buddhahood is a universal potential, and that countless Buddhas exist across time and space, with Śākyamuni being the Buddha of this particular age. His life is read as the culmination of an inconceivably long bodhisattva career, in which compassion and wisdom were cultivated over vast eons. Even his apparent struggle for awakening is understood as a skillful means, a deliberate display to guide beings, rather than a simple biographical episode of a single lifetime.

Doctrinally, this leads to a vision in which the historical Buddha is one manifestation of a deeper, cosmic Buddhahood. Mahāyāna develops the idea that the Buddha’s true nature transcends his historical appearance, and it elaborates a multi-layered understanding of Buddhahood that includes the historical, visible teacher and more subtle, exalted modes of presence. On this basis, Mahāyāna claims to express the Buddha’s full intent: not merely the liberation of a limited number of disciples, but the universal liberation of all beings through the bodhisattva path. Earlier teachings are honored yet often treated as provisional, suited to particular capacities, while Mahāyāna presents itself as the complete unfolding of the Buddha’s compassionate purpose.