One interesting thing about Buddhism is that Gautama Buddha is regarded as a human being, and not as a form of God. Buddhists regard Gautama Buddha as a wonderful human being, and revere him for realizing the truth about the world and teaching people about what he realized. Another interesting thing is that Buddhism believes that the truth that Gautama Buddha realized 2,500 years ago has existed since the very beginning of time. In other words, the truth about the world which Gautama Buddha realized has always been here. To acknowledge this, Buddhism includes an idea about "Seven Ancient Buddhas" or "Seven Past Buddhas".
The idea about the seven ancient Buddhas is that, prior to Gautama Buddha, there were six mythical Buddhas who also realized the truth hundreds of thousands of years before Gautama Buddha did. In Zen Buddhism at least, it's not generally believed that those six mythical Buddhas actually existed, but it's Buddhism's way of saying that the truth that Gautama Buddha realized has been here since the beginning of time, and so it's possible that other people also realized the truth long before Gautama Buddha did. The phrase “Seven Ancient Buddhas” refers to those six mythical Buddhas and Gautama Buddha. In chapter 15, Busso (The Buddhist Patriarchs) of Dogen's book Shobogenzo, the names of the seven ancient Buddhas are given as Vipasyin Buddha, Sikhin Buddha, Visvabhu Buddha, Krakucchanda Buddha, Kanakamuni Buddha, Kasyapa Buddha, and Gautama Buddha (the historical Buddha).
The Youtube clip below is a short audio recording (3 mins) of a talk by Gudo Nishijima in which he discusses this idea about the Seven Ancient Buddhas. I recorded this on a cassette recorder in 1999, so apologies if the sound quality isn't too good.
