[Buddha-l] Are the Pali Sutta's really ancient?

[Bankei]

On 2 March 2010 07:25, Bruce Burrill <brburl at charter.net> wrote:

> At 04:11 AM 3/1/2010, you wrote:
> >Thank you Bruce for the long and detailed reply. It was very helpful.
> >
> >You asked if I had an example of variant manuscripts for Pali Suttas. I
> >don't have anything at hand, but I recall reading many a PTS translation
> >where the translator  had written about this. Wynne in "The Origin of
> >Buddhist Meditation" talks about variant readings a fair bit, but I also
> >believe that whole passages differed between manuscripts found in Sri
> Lanka
> >and Thailand or Burma. Does anyone have any references for this?
> >
> >Thanks
> >
> >Bankei
>
> Sure, this exist, but it hardly evidence of a wholesale editing of
> the Pali suttas to fit the Theravada doctrine. What this points to is
> the problem of manuscripts copied by scribes and the problem that
> there was no central authority overseeing any of the scribal work.
> Look at the PTS' Pali edition of the suttas and you will se that the
> editors have included the variant readings they had access to, and
> what is seen seems to be just that, scribal variations.
>
> Also, difference between Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand would be
> expected. There is no evidence that I have seen that any of those
> differences are significant.
>
> ____
>

Even one word can have a huge effect on the interpretation of doctrine.
See Wynne's book for some examples, and Norman's papers for some more.

Bankei