Ñāṇa wrote:Secular Western historical and text-critical approaches that [1] attempt to stratify the development of Buddhist ideas and the extant texts of the Pāli Tipiṭaka into different historical periods (and often make other judgments on this basis as well).
Proposing relativism as a [2] justification for marginalizing or dismissing traditional Buddhist beliefs.
[3] Dismissing Pāli exegetical texts as later sectarian interpretations.
This is great, simple and clear.
The bolded portions are problematic...
[1] A stratification clearly obtains. Conclusions will vary.
I suggest that there is ample evidence that the earlier Buddhist communities did not give the same sort of emphasis to certain topics as some later Buddhist communities (wheel-turning monarchs, bodhisatta birth narratives and previous lives), and that in some cases later communities take up as topical certain subjects which must be gleaned from rather tight spaces in the earlier texts (bodhisatta path, future and past buddhas).
I am inspired by Kierkegaard, via Nanavira:
In general, all that is needed to make the question simple and easy is the exercise of a certain dietetic circumspection, the renunciation of every learned interpolation or subordinate consideration, which in a trice might degenerate into a century-long parenthesis.
Another way of putting this might be to focus on what is sandiṭṭhiko, etc.
[2] Such relativism is apparent. Conclusions will vary.
In my opinion, nothing clearly distinguishes, say, the Norse pantheon & cosmology from Buddhist ones. On this level alone, the Buddhist religion is one among many.
[3] These exegetical texts are factually later. Conclusions will vary.
I thought it was apparent that the historical accident which sees Theravada virtually alone on the field of extant early schools does not thereby distinguish its doctrines as true
in toto.
The suppression of critical thought in favor of scholastic dogmatism is not justified.
You have also made reference to an abiding oral component, transmitted alongside the recitations. Now, I think the oral tradition meant that the inherent performance of any Buddhist text was a recitation interspersed with commentary, and that the Nikayas are basically preaching primers comprised of early and late components, if I may be so simplistic. In any event, there is no
prima facie reason to identify any later scholastic material as faithfully replicating this early oral performance material.