Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
8. Rebirth
Seriously, these historical identifications are a perilous game and 
open a hundred doors to the play of imagination. Some may, in the nature of things must, be true; but once people begin, they don’t know where to stop. What is important is the lines, rather than the lives, the incarnation of Forces that explain what one now is – and, as for the particular lives or rather personalities, those alone matter which are very definite in one and have powerfully contributed to what one is developing now. But it is not always possible to put a name upon these; for not one hundred-thousandth part of what has been has still a name preserved by human Time.