[Buddha-l] Back to the core values? -- and origins

[L.S. Cousins]

Curt,

>As far as the earliest known texts are concerned, isn't it true that 
>there are Mahayana texts that are just as early as the earliest Pali 
>texts? Here I am speaking of actual physical texts, ie, manuscripts. 
>This would suggest that there IS a possible parallel to the Gospel 
>of Thomas.

At the moment I am not aware of any Mahaayaana texts as old as the 
first century A.D. There are a number of non-Mahaayaana fragments of 
texts from that century. However, scholarly rumour suggests that 
there may be one fragment of an early Mahaayaanist text about to 
surface. We shall have to see.

But this misses the point. The Pali texts were transmitted orally for 
several centuries before the first century B.C. or so. So naturally 
there are no early Buddhist manuscripts. There is no reason to 
suggest that Mahaayaana texts were transmitted this way. The claim is 
rather that they were preserved in other realms by non-human beings.

Lance Cousins