The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts

by Bhikkhu Sujato, Bhikkhu Brahmali

Genres: Buddhism, History

158 pages, Paperback

First published February 11, 2015

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by Venerable Shravasti Dhammika, himself a Buddhist teacher, scholar and author, who said that it is very good.

I managed to read this book in 2 days as it is concise and to the point. The corpus of Buddhist texts is huge since there are many different schools and traditions. The different Buddhist sects only started to develop about 200-300 years after Buddha's death so the texts developed by different traditions are later Buddhist texts and it is important to distinguish these from the Early Buddhist Texts (EBT), which were first transmitted orally (only written down about 100 years or so after Buddha's death) and remained distinct and intact despite transmission to different regions over 2300 years.

For those unfamiliar, the most comprehensive and oldest known body of Buddhist scriptures available is that of the Pali Canon that belongs to the Theravada tradition. This traveled from India to Sri Lanka probably around the time of King Asoka (about 150 year's after Buddha's death) and had been preserved by the Theravadan school since then. Most of the Buddhist scriptures from other ancient Indian Buddhist schools were lost or only exists partially, or are traced through transmissions to other subsequent traditions eg to the Chinese Agamas. The Theravadan school added on to the Canon but was careful not to edit the EBTs - any additions were added on as "Commentaries" (the Abhidammas). The Pali Canon is also known as the Tipitaka, or the three baskets. These three baskets, or collections, are:

1)The Sutta Pitaka - the basket of discourses (mainly containing the 5 Nikayas consisting mostly of Buddha's direct teachings, which are the core of EBT)
2)The Vinaya Pitaka - the basket of disciplines (training and rules for monks and nuns)
3)The Abhidhamma Pitaka - the basket of analysis (rules and commentaries)

The EBT consists mainly the 4 Nikayas, some portions of the 5th Nikaya (the Khudakka Nikaya) and some small portions of the Vinaya. They are distinct from the later Buddhist literature in many ways and the authors of this book were able to share many interesting details from their meta-analysis of studies by other scholars over the past 150 years.

Interestingly, the Chinese Agamas, which is derived from different texts from different ancient Indian Buddhist traditions/schools and languages (eg Sanskrit) that are now extinct, are almost identical to the Pali Nikayas although organised differently. This shows that the Buddhist world was conservative and careful to keep the EBTs as they were recorded and not change them. So one can make a reasonable inference that if the EBT had remained intact for 2300 years, it probably would have remained intact for 100 to 150 years from the death of Buddha till it was written down as the monks would have taken the same care and conservative approach to preserving the teachings, albeit through oral transmission (and perhaps especially due to oral transmission within a culture with strong oral tradition).

Through the examination of historical and geographical contexts, religious context, comparison of texts from different schools and the process of textual transmission, the character and style of the EBTs and archaeology evidence, the the authors were able to give reasonable, if not good evidence that the EBTs are authentic. All the later Buddhist texts kept the core of the EBT as they are, or expanded on the EBTs. Although the EBTs may be massive and some areas repetitive, if you look at its doctrine and the framework they are very consistent and coherent.

But they also reminded the reader that the point in establishing the authenticity of the EBTs is not to prove that they are all true, but to show that within the whole of the Buddhist Corpus, which includes the Pali Canon, some things were well learnt, some not so well-learnt, some true and some well...embellised and not so true. In looking at the EBTs, the important consideration for the reader is whether what is taught by the Buddha is practical and applicable for the ultimate goal - the end of suffering.

So by this, I would think that they are saying that while the evidence gives us some confidence that the EBTs are authentic, we should also not focus too much on the intellectual or academic arguments, or angst over the ultimate truth of the EBTs authenticity. Rather, we should distill for ourselves what is good enough for us to know about the origin and authenticity of the EBTs, and focus on what is more important - applying what Buddha taught, testing and verifying these for ourselves, and if we find that they lead to the greater awareness of reality and reduction of suffering, it gives us more faith to practise and continue in the path.

Because even Buddha asked his followers to test what he taught and not accept by blind faith. Testing the teachings through personal experience and validating these teachings eventually builds stronger faith.

I think this is a very reasonable and well-reasoned approach.

[Alexander Duncan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Buddhist hermeneutics – from the Greek hermeneutikos, “of or for interpreting,” commonly but erroneously associated with the Greek god Hermes, the messenger of the Gods – is still in its infancy in the West, as the Dharma Transmission to the West, now in its 108th year, continues to take hold and proliferate. The most common Buddhist hermeneutic, especially among both traditional and modern Theravadins, is historicism, i.e., the belief that the meaning of the Buddhist message is identical with the words uttered by Siddattha Gotama (c 440–c 395 BCE), the historical Buddha. Although this hermeneutic may seem to many to be straightforward and self-evident, critical evaluation reveals it to involve numerous problems, including:

• Objective identification of the actual historical words of the Buddha (the Buddhavacana);
• Determination of the correct meanings of the words and the doctrines that they imply;
• Resolution of apparent contradictions;
• Resolution of apparent nonsense, including the problem of what nonsense actually is in the context of cultural relativism (i.e., what may be nonsense to you may not be nonsense to me and vice versa, and what may be nonsense to us may not have been nonsense 2,500 years ago); and
• The question of whether the Buddhavacana is comprehensive, complete, and exclusive, even if it is accurate and true.

The orthodox Theravada, which still has numerous adherents, both in Asia and in the West, holds that the Pali texts of the Pali Canon, including the Vinaya, Suttas, and Abhidhamma, all incorporate the exact words of Siddattha Gotama, in the language spoken by the Buddha, remembered pre-eminently by Ananda, who was graced with the gift of perfect memory, and verified by the arhants of the First Buddhist Council and their successors who were perfect and infallible in their understanding and transmission of the dharma. Thus, the collective text of the Pali Canon is the literal Buddhavacana, handed down without error for 2,500 years. We in the West are of course familiar with such thinking among Jews and Christians (the Bible is the literal inspired Word of Jehovah or the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) and Muslims (the Quran is the literal Word of Allah, dictated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel and preserved through an impeccable process of collation, after which all deviant texts were destroyed).

The state of knowledge in this area has been nicely summarized by Bhikkus Sujato and Brahmali in their monograph on this topic entitled The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts, published by Chroniker Press. Rhys Davids and Pande (Studies in the Origins of Buddhism, 4th ed., 1995) have also made significant contributions. Sujato and Brahmali appear to adhere to the revisionist Theravada school sometimes called “Modern Theravada,” a.k.a Progressive [sic] Theravada, Early Buddhism, or Original Buddhism. The main conclusion of this study that is relevant to the present discussion is that the Early Buddhist Texts (EBTs), which they identify generally with the Four Great Nikayas and some other texts including the Vinaya disciplinary code (patimokkha), parts of the Sutta Nipata, and, more controversially, the Udana, Itivuttaka, Dhammapada, Theragatha, and Therigatha, are “authentic.” Their general argument is that the description of the political geography, social conditions, economic conditions and trade, and religious context accurately correspond to the period during which the Buddha lived and taught; that the oral textual transmission is both reliable and dateable; that the remarkable vision and consistency of the Canon, including peculiarities that can only be explained historically, is evidence of a unitary founder who was a real historical person; that archaeological research supports the antiquity and accuracy of the Pali Canon and the reality of the Buddha; and that a comparison of later and earlier strata of the Canon shows an ideological development typical of other religions.

The whole tenor of Sujato and Brahmali’s argument consists of general assertions of this kind, such specific passages as they adduce having little or no doctrinal significance. However, even if we grant the veracity of this argument, it comes nowhere near proving their main thesis, their “theory of authenticity” (TOA), i.e., “that texts that purport of be the words of the historical Buddha and his immediate disciples were in fact spoken by them” (p. 9). Although their language largely finesses this point, if their argument is that the words contained in these texts accurately preserve the actual words of the historical Buddha, and not merely the general situation,^1 this conclusion is far too specific to be supported by the evidence they adduce. Perhaps it would be fair to say, then, that the Pali Canon preserves an overview or outline of the major doctrines of the historical Buddha as interpreted by his successors and preserved as they were perceived and understood roughly 150 to 350 years after the Buddha’s death. I believe Bhikku Bodhi has made the point more correctly when he states that the Pali Canon may include passages that resemble certain statements originally made by the Buddha. The problem then becomes how to identify and extract the utterances of the Buddha, such as they are, from the mass of material in which they are embedded, or if this is even possible (the comparison with extracting gold or any other metal from an aggregate ore is irresistible).

If one’s objective were to identify actually and objectively the precise technical language used by the historical Buddha, on which alone precise hermeneutical interpretations could be based, I would submit that this state of affairs is so complex and so ineffable that it is, practically speaking, impossible to sort out in an analytical or reductionist way, leaving us with a non-exclusive “general outline” theory at best. In fact, Bhikkhu Sujato himself has undermined his own position somewhat by making statements that he believes that much, perhaps most of the Pali Canon is actually inaccurate and contains many erroneous doctrines. Moreover, rather than producing a collection of texts that he does accept as a "common ground" basis for discussion, as Bhikkhu Bodhi, to his credit, has done, when it came to translating the Pali Canon he translated the entire Digha Nikaya, "erroneous" doctrines and all, nor has he explained how he has decided which doctrines are "valid" and which are not, rather giving the impression that his discriminations are ideologically motivated rather than objective.


Note

1. In fact three forms of the TOA are identifiable: (1) the strong form: where the Pali Canon quotes the historical Buddha, it does so accurately, with little or no variation from his actual diction and syntax (the orthodox Theravadin view); (2) the semi-strong form: where the Pali Canon quotes the Buddha, it does so using diction and syntax that broadly resembles the actual diction and syntax of the historical Buddha; (3) the weak form: the general situations described in the Pali Canon accurately portray the life and times of the Buddha, including his general ideas; some actual sayings of the Buddha probably survive in the Canon, and it is possible to trace a kind of chronological development in the Canon. The weak form of the TOA necessarily allows for a broad range of alternative doctrinal formulations. At best, the evidence for the TOA supports the weak form.

[Fabio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of interesting informations about the problem of the authenticity of the early Buddhist texts and if is possible to ascribe them to the historical Buddha.
There's only one thing unsatisfactory about this book. The author finds a bit problematic to explain sutras where Buddha talks to Deva or inhabitants of Deva-loka. IMHO trying to minimize this aspect of the doctrine shows how the idea of Protestant Buddhism is still strong

[Michael Roe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this page without the intent to write a review, but perhaps a few words will be of use. I note Alexander Duncan's review, below and do have to take exception to it. Mr. Duncan's critique derives from, perhaps, his strong allegiance to the Tantric mahasiddha, Ngakpa, and Dzogchen traditions, which greatly postdate the period of the Early Buddhist Texts that derive from the teachings of the Buddha's earliest Sangha and monastic disciples. Dzogchen's teachings appeared perhaps 1000 years after the time of the Buddha, and it is understandable that Duncan's focus might be more aligned with teachings that evolved so far distant from that of the historical Buddha.

Further, Duncan suggests that Bhikkhus Sujato and Brahmali make the case that the Pali Canon is the inerrant transcription of the actual words of the Buddha. This argument is not well founded, as the authors do not make this specific claim, but actually point to the EBTs as being historically, geographically, and archeologically resonant with the descriptions in the early texts. The teachings of the Buddha and his Sangha, as best as we can tell, were memorized by a number of monastics who met after his death to determine the entirety of the teachings, and to endeavor to recollect them in a recited oral history that has proved to be substantially reliable.

Duncan's argument that the Pali Canon is represented by orthodox Theravada as the actual words of the Buddha fails( with the careless analogy to the Bible and the Quran being called the inerrant words of G-d) insofar as we understand that the Buddha likely spoke in Magadhi Prakrit; Pali is not a spoken language but the language used many years after the death of the Buddha to record his teachings and to write them down in the Pali language.

In early Buddhism we do not speak, as Christians or Muslims might, of faith or inerrancy, but in the sense of saddhā, or confidence. Confidence in the authenticity of the early Buddhis Texts comes from the kind of detailed and skilled analysis that Vens. Sujato and Brahmali applied in constructing this excellent book. Neither of these scholars is trying to prove a point in order to merely support their own beliefs, but has applied scholarship and investigation to making the very strong case for the overall authenticity, and reliability, of the contents of much of the Early Buddhist Texts as being representative of the historical Buddha's teachings, and the understanding of this early Dhamma and Vinaya as absorbed by his devoted Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis. "The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts" is a very enjoyable read, and is vibrant with solid investigation and sound reasoning, from two highly regarded scholars. Highly recommended to any and all that want to really embrace the Buddha and Buddhism from this most important period in history.

[Rodeweeks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may be a bit difficult to understand but still worth reading. I have studied hermeneutics of Christian scriptures at university and know that it is not an easy subject. As always I am delightful to read that the same happens in other religions. Of the Buddhist scriptures I have studied the Satipathana Sutta at university and regularly reads it in my personal devotional time, as well as two different modern versions of the Dhammapada. If I understand correctly these two will fall within the scope of early Buddhist texts. I also rather enjoy the Heart sutra, which will be a non-EBT.

[Ata A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali tackle a sea of knowledge by summarizing, quoting, referencing scholastic and traditional research regarding the authenticity of texts that are 2300+ years old. It’s a tedious task, And I am convinced that by preponderance of the evidence, one could indeed say the majority of the Pali Canon is genuinely from the Buddha. What we can certainly say is that these texts do come from the very early sangha , and that these teachings contain truth, veracity, and deep elements of the supramundane. Worth the read!