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

[Bob Zeuschner]

If only the senior monks had written everything down, instead of keeping 
it an oral tradition for four hundred years.
How perfect is the oral tradition? There were already controversies 
within a hundred years after the Buddha's death (Kathavathhu?).
Bob

Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote:
>  >>Another thing to consider is that when all the witnesses agree, this
> doesn't necessarily mean they are telling the truth. It might mean they
> have cooked up the story among themselves. Consistency can be explained
> in more than one way. And even if the consistency is genuine, then it
> implies a lack of imagination as much as anything else - or, more
> seriously, a vigilant hostility to independent thinking.<<
>  
> If a group of senior monks agreed on what the Buddha said, imagination 
> and independent thinking were not a factor.