As the ideal hermit, the Pratyeka Buddha is compared with the rhinoceros khadga that lives lonely in the wilderness.

He is also called Nidana Buddha, as having mastered the twelve nidanas (the twelve links in the everlasting chain of cause and effect in the whole range of existence, the understanding of which solves the riddle of life, revealing the inanity of all forms of existence, and preparing the mind for nirvana).

He is also compared to a horse, which, crossing a river, almost buries its body under the water, without, however, touching the bottom of the river.

Thus in crossing samsara he 'suppresses the errors of life and thought, and the effects of habit and passion, without attaining to absolute perfection.'" Whether these Buddhas were unknown, as Eitel says, to primitive Buddhism, may be doubted.

See Davids' Hibbert Lectures, p.
146..