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

[L.S. Cousins]

Isidoros,

>two points, please:
>
>(a) how certain is the generally said first century D.C. date for 
>the writing down / composition of the earlier Nikayas? On what is 
>this dating based; how has it been determined?

It is based upon the three verses in the Diipava.msa which refer to 
the writing down of the texts. Many scholars believe that these refer 
to the systematic writing down of the Pali texts at a Council in 
Ceylon. I am less certain of this. But it makes no difference. We 
have a whole subsequent literature of commentaries, etc. And we have 
now the first century A.D. texts in Gaandhaarii. There cannot really 
be any doubt that the first four Nikaayas were written down somewhere 
around this time - either a little earlier or a little later. Note 
that the Gaandhaarii texts include even Sutta commentaries and 
abhidhamma discussion.

>  Re this, what is the assumed date of the earliest extant 
>manuscripts that bear the early Theravada sutras? I have heard, too, 
>of much later dates for their composition, centuries later.

Manuscripts do not survive well in the Southern and South-East Asian 
climates. I am not sure that we have any complete Pali manuscript 
from the first millennium A.D. There is a fragmentary Ms of a portion 
of the Vinaya, preserved in the more favourable climate of Nepal, 
from the eighth or ninth century. There are a few Pali texts in 
inscriptions from present-day Thailand, belonging to a similar 
period. There are some short texts on gold leaves from present-day 
Burma, dating to around the fifth century A.D. There is also a 
commentary on the Vinaya, translated into Chinese in the fifth 
century A.D.

But the date of the manuscripts has little to do with either the date 
of composition or the date of writing down the orally preserved texts.

>(b) you wrote
>
>>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
>
>Now, I understand what you mean by *naturally", that "there are no 
>early Buddhists manuscripts" as per the point you make vis-a-vis 
>Curt's comment. Yet, in addition, I take you to mean that we have no 
>(nearly) contemporary to the Buddha records. Given this, and the 
>"fantastic" and credulous atmosphere extant (to my mind) during 
>those times, and especially in India, how certain and accurate would 
>you say are the earliest extant records for the birth and developing 
>events of the person named Buddha?

My impression is that the early texts were interested mainly in 
preserving the teachings. But they do contain information on the 
historical context in which the Buddha lived. He clearly did not live 
in the Mauryan Empire; so his date is prior to the invasion of 
Afghanistan and Pakistan by Alexander the Great in the fourth century 
B.C.

Some of the traditional texts concerning the life-story of the Buddha 
may be, or contain, later productions.

>And, while I do not wish to take any off the above stated question, 
>what, indeed, do you mean by that "naturally" there are no early 
>manuscripts *because* (my emphasis) there was then in place the oral 
>transmission process. So, the written record did not come into being 
>*because* there was an oral process?. I think not. Rather the oral 
>transmission process existed *because* there was no written 
>tradition. Or, isn't it so?!

They may have resisted the idea of writing down the texts. Early 
written texts were not a very accurate record and the technology for 
producing writing materials on a large scale had to be developed. We 
do not know for certain when writing was introduced in India, 
although it probably was not known at the time of the Buddha. Note 
that some Buddhist texts may have been written down as early as the 
second century B.C. or before.

Lance Cousins