This section gathers events that the texts certainly record, but whose year the sources place very differently. These events are not put in any one year; instead the possible years are set side by side, and wherever a text gives a number of years, the pages for those years also carry a pointer. They fall into six groups: the chain of events around the Buddha's first return to his home town; the going forth of Mahākassapa; Meghiya attending the Buddha; the weaver's daughter of Āḷavī; the going forth of Aṅgulimāla; and the several discourses in which the Buddha himself speaks of being old. A few events once listed here have since been given firmer estimates and moved elsewhere: the death of King Pasenadi and the destruction of the Sakyans (the Buddha's own clan) are under the Buddha's last years in “Events known only to fall within a span of years”; the passing () of Sāriputta and Moggallāna is in Year 45 after the Awakening; the death of King Suddhodana and the formal going forth of Mahāpajāpatī are in Year 5. All ages are reckoned from an awakening at thirty-five.
Around the Buddha's first return to his home town
After the Awakening the Buddha returns for the first time to his home town, Kapilavatthu, and meets his father King Suddhodana and his kinsmen; his younger brother Nanda and his son Rāhula go forth one after the other, and his aunt Mahāpajāpatī asks for the first time to go forth. All the sources place these events in the same visit home, so they are grouped together, and their year moves with the year of the return. The sources differ widely on which year that was: the later commentaries of the say it was the spring after the first ended, that is, before the rains retreat of Year 2 after the Awakening; other sources give around Year 6, Year 7, or Year 12. The going forth of six Sakyan youths, Anuruddha, Ānanda, Devadatta, Upāli and others, is placed by some sources in this same visit; no separate entry has yet been made for it here. The Majjhima Nikāya of the Southern tradition has several discourses that the Buddha gave to Rāhula when he was seven, when he was eighteen, and when he had been for less than a year; to convert these into years, the year of the return home must first be settled.
The going forth of Mahākassapa
The sources arrange the timing of Mahākassapa's going forth differently. Some Buddha biographies and the ordination list of the Chinese Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya place him shortly after the going forth of Sāriputta and Moggallāna, which would put it before the rains retreat of Year 2 after the Awakening; the Chinese Zhong benqi jing places him in the period when the Buddha was living at the Jetavana in Sāvatthī, in an unknown year.
Meghiya attends the Buddha
Meghiya was a who, in the first twenty years after the Awakening when the Buddha had no permanent attendant, took his turn as the Buddha's attendant. The event took place on Mount Cāliya, and according to the year-by-year rains retreats recorded in the later commentaries the Buddha kept the rains retreat on Mount Cāliya three times, in Years 13, 18 and 19 after the Awakening, so all three years are possible.
The weaver's daughter of Āḷavī
The daughter of a weaver of Āḷavī heard the Buddha teach, kept up the practice for three years, and attained the when the Buddha visited again. The Buddha kept the rains retreat at Āḷavī only once, in Year 16 after the Awakening, so the first teaching is estimated in that year; the second visit was three years later, and its year follows from that. This event is found only in the later commentaries.
The going forth of Aṅgulimāla
That Aṅgulimāla was won over by the Buddha and went forth is a widely told story, but neither the sutras, the Vinaya nor the later commentaries record in which year it happened. A modern dictionary gives Year 20 after the Awakening, but that figure cannot be found in the original sources, so it is not listed as a possible year.
The discourses in which the Buddha himself speaks of being old
In several discourses the Buddha himself, or someone else, says that the Buddha is old, nearly eighty, or already eighty. These remarks occur in different discourses and the time of each cannot be fixed; reckoned at eighty, they fall roughly in Years 44 to 45 after the Awakening.