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

[L.S. Cousins]

Curt,

>While this is true - it is a truth that is being selectively 
>applied. Only certain texts are being granted the status of being 
>based on a previously existing oral tradition that accurately 
>preserves the Buddha's teachings - while other texts of the same 
>date or even earlier, are dismissed as "new".

I don't remember commenting on their quality.

>Everyone knows that much of the Mahayana corpus bears obvious marks 
>of having been an oral tradition prior to being written down. 
>Therefore there should be "no doubt" that these also "could have 
>accurately preserved information".

What everyone knows is not known to me. It is very difficult to 
distinguish between an early written text and an oral one. This is 
because the first written texts tend to continue the style of the 
oral period.

But you are making a claim that the teachers of the early Mahaayaana 
did not make. They said that their scriptures were brought from the 
Naaga realm by Naagaarjuna or given by Maitreya in the Tusita heaven 
and the like. As far as I know, they never claim they were preserved 
and handed down by the reciters of the Sangha.

Lance Cousins