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Buddhist intellectual discourse owes its development to a dynamic
interplay between primary source materials and subsequent
interpretation, yet scholarship on Indian Buddhism has long neglected
to privilege one crucial series of texts. Commentaries on Buddhist
scriptures, particularly the sūtras, offer rich insights into the
complex relationship between Buddhist intellectual practices and the
norms that inform—and are informed by—them. Evaluating these
commentaries in detail for the first time, Richard F. Nance
revisits—and rewrites—the critical history of Buddhist thought,
including its unique conception of doctrinal transmission.

Attributed to such luminaries as Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and
Śāntideva, scriptural commentaries have long played an important role
in the monastic and philosophical life of Indian Buddhism. Nance reads
these texts against the social and cultural conditions of their
making, establishing a solid historical basis for the interpretation
of key beliefs and doctrines. He also underscores areas of contention,
in which scholars debate what it means to speak for, and as, a Buddha.

Throughout these texts, Buddhist commentators struggle to deduce and
characterize the speech of Buddhas and teach others how to convey and
interpret its meaning. At the same time, they demonstrate the
fundamental dilemma of trying to speak on behalf of Buddhas. Nance
also investigates the notion of “right speech” as articulated by
Buddhist texts and follows ideas about teaching as imagined through
the common figure of a Buddhist preacher. He notes the use of
epistemological concepts in scriptural interpretation and the
protocols guiding the composition of scriptural commentary, and
provides translations of three commentarial guides to better clarify
the normative assumptions organizing these works.



"Deftly engaging Indian Buddhist texts that represent a wide range of
genres and intellectual disciplines, Richard Nance’s nuanced and
beautifully written book attends carefully to the ways in which
Buddhist intellectuals variously elaborated and exemplified the norms
(interpretive, epistemic, pedagogical, and moral) meant to determine
which acts of speech and writing ought to count as authoritatively
Buddhist. Nance’s sensitive readings are guided throughout by a
sophisticated concern—of great timeliness for the fields of religious
studies—with the question of how religiously normative rhetoric
affects history. Refuting the idea that we can sharply distinguish
questions of what historical Buddhists ‘actually did’ from normative
accounts of what they ought to have done, Nance compellingly shows how
Indian Buddhist commentators and other intellectuals authored texts
that at once transmitted and constituted a tradition—while showing,
too, the problem with thinking about their intellectual activity in
only one of these ways. This important book should be read not only by
students of Buddhist thought and history but also by students of
religious studies who aim to overcome the facile dichotomy of ‘theory’
and ‘practice.’"  — Dan Arnold, Divinity School at the University of
Chicago, and author of _Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology
in Indian and Buddhist Philosophy_ and _Brains, Buddhas, and
Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and
Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind_