[Buddha-l] Chinese Canon

[Richard Hayes]

On May 26, 2010, at 12:06 PM, Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote:

> Is the Chinese Canon merely a commentary on the Pali Canon and thus less  
> authoritative (closer to the Buddha's intention)? Or, did parts of the  early 
> canon got recorded in Chinese before the Pali was sometimes later tampered  
> with and that is why some of the differences in the Chinese canon can 
> sometimes  be more authoritative,

The latter. Some parts of the Chinese canon seem to predate their counterparts in the Pali canon. Étienne Lamotte's Histoire du bouddhisme indien (also available in English translation) has quite a bit of information on the differences among the canons.

> I really don't want to get into a discussion of what authoritative means.

There's a good fellow! But what exactly do you mean by "discussion"?

Richard