I don't think it is quite like that. The use of mythic language and story is something all religions do - all religions - as a way of portraying how they understand themselves in relationship to others, the world in which they find themselves and the universe as a whole. There is a fair amount in the Pali suttas that takes the Brahmanical mythos and gives it a significant twist to make a Buddhist point, and in the process these things then become part of the Buddhist mythos.Jechbi wrote:Good points. If it's not a legitimate text passage, then there's not much point in spending too much time with it, I guess.
There is the story about the monk going to the Brahma-realm asking the Brahma a question which Brahma finally, after much bluster, takes the monk aside and admits that he has no idea as to the answer of the question, but Brahma states that the Buddha knows. Did it really happen? Does it matter if it did or not for the point of the story to be made?
That is reasonable.As an aside, I find it useful to approach these texts from the perspective of how they inform such things as recollection of the Buddha, recollection of the Dhamma, understanding with regard to practice, and so on. In other words, how they are useful as Dhamma instruction rather than whatever else we might wish them to be. In that respect, I would agree that the perspective of rote literalism can just get in the way.