Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Textual analysis and comparative discussion on early Buddhist sects and scriptures.
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Nibbida
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by Nibbida »

tiltbillings wrote:
Bankei wrote:
Don't forget there was a great deal of exchange between monks in the pre-modern era. Theravada monks in Tibet, Tibetan monks in Sri Lanka, Sri Lankans in India and Indonesia and the Chinese travelling monks, Faxian etc. They are the ones we know about, how many more where there? This is another facinating topic.
As for the Tibetan monks; certainly unlikely that they hasd any influence on the Pali suttas, given that the canon was settled long before Buddhism went to Tibet, and Tibetan monks did not - do not - have a complete set of the Agamas.

As for the travelling Chinese monks, there is no evidence that they had any influence on the Pali texts.

As an aside, I heard a talk by Guy Armstrong on the history of Buddhism in India (see below). He stated that the Tibetans have the Sarvastivadin canon is in Sanskrit. While similar to the Theravadan Pali canon, with much overlap, it is not complete.

Part 1: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/talk/3293/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 2: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/talk/3295/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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tiltbillings
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by tiltbillings »

Nibbida wrote:
tiltbillings wrote: As an aside, I heard a talk by Guy Armstrong on the history of Buddhism in India (see below). He stated that the Tibetans have the Sarvastivadin canon is in Sanskrit. While similar to the Theravadan Pali canon, with much overlap, it is not complete.

Part 1: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/talk/3293/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Part 2: http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/79/talk/3295/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It is not complete is because it is "hinayana," and was not worth the time and effort to translate i from Sanskrit into Tibetan.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by jcsuperstar »

if i remember correctly its pretty small isnt it?
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the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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tiltbillings
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by tiltbillings »

jcsuperstar wrote:if i remember correctly its pretty small isnt it?
It is not very much, which is really too bad given the care that was used in the translations done by the Tibetans.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Bankei
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by Bankei »

tiltbillings wrote:
Bankei wrote:no
That is really not helpful. So, none of the above answers has addressed your question in anyway.
I would like to try to find something in more detail, and more scholarly. Thanks
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nathan
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by nathan »

Well, the suttas aren't 'new' either. Eleventh century paperwork isn't old enough? I'm imagining someone with something like a wine cellar for toilet paper. "Ah yes, a '77, a particularly fine year for bum wipe." Some parts of copies of parts of the Tipitaka I have had have been so pawed over by me that I have had to replace them several times already. Personally, I can't afford to buy books just to put them into some kind of time capsule.

I've seen questions like this raised a few times. It appears to be something suggested by people who haven't actually read the whole Tipitaka. Have you read it? Have the authors quoted read it? I've read it over, a few times now, to the extent that it is possible for me. Overall, this is not the sort of message that lends itself to being mucked around with. The results of doing so would be like introducing gross errors to our collections of fundamental engineering texts. Planes would start falling out of the sky, buildings would fall over, etc.. Things would stop working.

Given that the Buddha's teaching is no less relevant today. Given that these teachings and this understanding are no less practicable and verifiable today, suggesting that the Buddha's message has been tampered with must then necessarily lead one to conclude that the universe has likewise been tampered with to accord with the suggested textual changes. Otherwise, the Buddha's message would no longer accord faithfully to the observable realities of today. Given that the instructions are still efficacious and the truths remain no less testable and continue to be consistently observable it is much more likely that there have been few if any modifications of any significance.

So, in addition to reading the Tipitaka, one might ask such questioners, have you applied it? Such an approach will resolve these kinds of issues far more completely and expediently than any amount of speculation about any lost artifacts of the past ever could.

Unless I've misunderstood the intention of the Buddha's life work and he was not interested in the promotion of our liberation from samsara but rather in the advancement of our enslavement to trivia and mediocrity.

:anjali:
But whoever walking, standing, sitting, or lying down overcomes thought, delighting in the stilling of thought: he's capable, a monk like this, of touching superlative self-awakening. § 110. {Iti 4.11; Iti 115}
Bankei
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by Bankei »

Hi Nathan

No I haven't read the whole Tipitaka. You are one of the few that claims to have done so.

Which tipitaka do you take as authentic and why?

I think my question is a legitimate one.

Maybe I could refine my question now. We know that the Pali Tipitaka is ancient. But how do we know that the version we have now is the same as the version in the 1st century AD?

Bankei
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by tiltbillings »

Bankei wrote: But how do we know that the version we have now is the same as the version in the 1st century AD?

Bankei
Why wouldn't it be? Answers to your question on Buddha-l not enough?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Bankei
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by Bankei »

tiltbillings wrote:
Bankei wrote: But how do we know that the version we have now is the same as the version in the 1st century AD?

Bankei
Why wouldn't it be? Answers to your question on Buddha-l not enough?
Because of the passage of time. (Maybe I should ask why would you expect it to do the same?)
You seem to think that this is a question which can be solved by a few internet posts - but it is far more complex than that.

An interesting comparison can be made with the Chinese text the Daodejing (DDJ). The DDJ was composed around the time of the Buddha and has survived to this day. In the last few decades there have been some important discoveries with at least two tombs unearthed containing copies of manuscripts of the DDJ. The tombs are the Guodian 郭店 and Mawangdui 馬王堆. These tombs can be dated 100 to 300 BC.

What was found that the text of the DDJ as it stood in 100BC is very different to the received text of the DDJ as we have it today. There was substantial agreements between the texts, but also many major variances with a complete different order of the chapters of the texts and many differences in characters used. Some of these indicate that the meaning has become distorted over time.

Imagine if we could find some texts in a tomb from the 1st century in Sri Lanka. Would they differ? how would they differ? Would they be in Pali?

I take a view that the Tipitaka is substantially what the Buddha preached, but not the exact words of the Buddha. Some things have been added, taken away and distorted. This is not necessarily deliberate, but is just what happens to a text over time. Also similar to the view of Richard Gombrich, I think the Theravadins have sometimes misunderstood parts of the texts of their own tradition. Overtime meanings of words are lost or meanings change slightly, this in turn leads to different interpretations.

Bankei
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tiltbillings
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by tiltbillings »

Bankei wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:
Bankei wrote: But how do we know that the version we have now is the same as the version in the 1st century AD?

Bankei
Why wouldn't it be? Answers to your question on Buddha-l not enough?
Because of the passage of time.
Well, you do seem to pretty much ignore everything everyone says to you about anything. For you the passage of time means that we could not possibly have the original just because there has been a passage of time. The question is: What do you mean by the original, which is something you have yet to define?
You seem to think that this is a question which can be solved by a few internet posts - but it is far more complex than that.
And you seem to think otherwise, whatever information is given you.
An interesting comparison can be made with the Chinese text the Daodejing (DDJ). The DDJ was composed around the time of the Buddha and has survived to this day. In the last few decades there have been some important discoveries with at least two tombs unearthed containing copies of manuscripts of the DDJ. The tombs are the Guodian 郭店 and Mawangdui 馬王堆. These tombs can be dated 100 to 300 BC.
And was the DOJ recired by groups of monks dedicated to keeping it alive and accurate?
Imagine if we could find some texts in a tomb from the 1st century in Sri Lanka. Would they differ? how would they differ? Would they be in Pali?
Now, they would be in Irish. K.R. Norman suggest otherwise?
I take a view that the Tipitaka is substantially what the Buddha preached, but not the exact words of the Buddha.
How would you know they were not in the exact words of the Buddha? Based upon what?
Some things have been added, taken away and distorted. This is not necessarily deliberate, but is just what happens to a text over time. Also similar to the view of Richard Gombrich, I think the Theravadins have sometimes misunderstood parts of the texts of their own tradition. Overtime meanings of words are lost or meanings change slightly, this in turn leads to different interpretations.
Yes, and this points to a very strong likelihood that the Theravadin did vey little editing at all to make the suttas conform to the Theravada doctrine.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by Bankei »

Bill

Just because I am not convinced by your arguments does not mean I am ignoring them. You seem to have a thing about 'attacking' me too!

Have you heard of the theory of impermanence? Why do you think a scripture would remain word for word for over 2400 years?

In China classical texts were memorised and written down and passed on. This would have included the DDJ.

Why assume the language of Buddhism in the first century of Sri lanka was in Pali? Richard Salomon has mentioned there are, surprisingly, very few Pali inscriptions found in Sr Lanka from the early period.

I don't think Irish was used in ancient Sri Lanka, but there are a few reasons to think that the scriptures may not have been in Pali, including:
- Scarcity of Pali inscriptions from this era (see Salomon)
- evidence that at least some of the sutta were in a language other than Pali (see norman)
- Buddhagosha had to translate the commentaries into Pali

They may have been in Pali, or another closely related Prakrit.

You ask how I would know what the exact words of the Buddha were.
Well, I don't. But:
- it is likely that the Buddha did not speak Pali.
- It is also likely that, at least part of, the Pali texts were 'translated' into Pali from another dialect.
- The monk Purana, from the time of the Buddha, did not agree with the teachings as per the first council.
- There are discrepancies between the Suttas/agamas as preserved in Gandhari, sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese etc. (would your counterargument would be that these others were all modified and not the Pali?).



In 1977 Charles Prebish and Jan Nattier showed that the Theravada vinaya was probably added to, and the Mahasamghika vinaya is likely to be older. Prebish has just written a new article in Pacific World standing by his 1977 discovery too.
This is what I mean by editing.

re editing
I am not sure there was any large scale conscious editing, except maybe at the various councils where texts were standardised.

Bankei
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by DNS »

Hi Bankei,

The Tipitaka was written around 100 BCE on palm leaves. It has been re-written word-for-word since then as the leaves deteriorate up to this day (as a tradition, they still do it in Sri Lanka, as far as I know). And modern printing has been used since the time they were available. The Tipitaka we have today is the same as the one written at 100 BCE.

If there were any revisions or changes, they would have had to happen while the tradition was still oral. Is that what you are suggesting, that there were changes and revisions from the time of the First to Fourth Councils?
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by Chula »

Bankei wrote: - The monk Purana, from the time of the Buddha, did not agree with the teachings as per the first council.
This is a misrepresentation of what the Culavagga in the Vinayapitaka states. It only says that the monk came later to the council and decided he preferred to remember the teachings as it was taught to him - he just didn't want to take the trouble of remembering more. There was no disagreement - the Canon specifically says it was amicable.

It's worthwhile ascertaining your sources before making these kinds of statements. You can't always trust them not to have ulterior motives.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by tiltbillings »

Bankei wrote:Bill

Just because I am not convinced by your arguments does not mean I am ignoring them. You seem to have a thing about 'attacking' me too!
That naughty Bill, shame on him.
Have you heard of the theory of impermanence? Why do you think a scripture would remain word for word for over 2400 years?
I never said that, did I? The texts, however, seem to be far better preserved than you seem to be giving them credit.
In China classical texts were memorised and written down and passed on. This would have included the DDJ.
Memorized and recited by groups of monks on a routine basis?
Why assume the language of Buddhism in the first century of Sri lanka was in Pali? Richard Salomon has mentioned there are, surprisingly, very few Pali inscriptions found in Sr Lanka from the early period.
And what would be the point of inscriptions in Pali when it is a liturgical language that the common folk do not know? K.R. Norman puts Pali within a couple generation of the Buddha. It certainly would have been a dialect easily understood by the Buddha, being not so different from Magadhi.
I don't think Irish was used in ancient Sri Lanka
It was a joke, son, a joke.
but there are a few reasons to think that the scriptures may not have been in Pali, including:
- Scarcity of Pali inscriptions from this era (see Salomon)
Not convincing, see above.
- evidence that at least some of the sutta were in a language other than Pali (see norman)
Norman certainly does not hold your doubts.
- Buddhagosha had to translate the commentaries into Pali
Because the commentaries were in Shinalese.
They [assuming you mean the commentaries] may have . . . closely related Prakrit.
Not according to the records.
You ask how I would know what the exact words of the Buddha were.
Well, I don't. But:
- it is likely that the Buddha did not speak Pali.
So? He likely spoke in a dialect hardly removed from Pali.
- It is also likely that, at least part of, the Pali texts were 'translated' into Pali from another dialect.
That is what Norman said, which is reasonable, but hardly indicates wholesale editing.
- The monk Purana, from the time of the Buddha, did not agree with the teachings as per the first council.
And that was very neatly addressed on Buddha-L. Let the rest of the reads know what was said there about that. http://www.preterhuman.net/texts/religi ... tbudcn.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- There are discrepancies between the Suttas/agamas as preserved in Gandhari, sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese etc. (would your counterargument would be that these others were all modified and not the Pali?).
And are we talking about finding Buddha-nature doctrines in this other texts? Or are we talking about no real significant doctrinal difference?
In 1977 Charles Prebish and Jan Nattier showed that the Theravada vinaya was probably added to, and the Mahasamghika vinaya is likely to be older. Prebish has just written a new article in Pacific World standing by his 1977 discovery too.
This is what I mean by editing.
What part of the Vinaya? Also, there are significant differences of opinion on that matter. Nakamura, in his INDIAN BUDDHISM, points out that Vinaya study is big among Japanese scholars and that they hold the the Pali Vinaya is the oldest overall.
I am not sure there was any large scale conscious editing, except maybe at the various councils where texts were standardised.
I have not seen any modern scholar hold that there was any large scale editing. Standardization is not uncommon, but I'd like to see where it has made any major change in doctrinal teachings.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Bankei
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Re: Are the Sutta's really ancient?

Post by Bankei »

Sorry to call you Bill, I meant Tiltbillings

So now you are agreeing with me that the Theravada Pali Tipitaka is not the exact word of the Buddha. Maybe you are saying it is closer to the exact word than I am? Is that your position?

Can you read Japanese? I can, and have read a few works or modern day vinaya scholars such as Yamagiwa and Sasaki. Nakamura's scholarship is dated now. The Pali vinaya is certainly ancient, but that doesn't mean it is the exact word of the Buddha.

The Pali tradition is remarkably well preserved. But errors have crept in and additions have been made.

I suggest you read some of the works or Richard Gombrich, especially his book How Buddhism began: the conditioned genesis of the early teachings.

Bankei
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