The Historical Authenticity of Early Buddhist Literature: A Critical Evaluation

[Ceisiwr]

By Alexander Wynne: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/3 ... GGSLRBV4ZA

[Assaji]

By Alexander Wynne:

Let me suggest a workable URL: http://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015 ... 05wzks.pdf

[Ceisiwr]

By Alexander Wynne:

Let me suggest a workable URL: http://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015 ... 05wzks.pdf

[SDC]

Not trying to be a square or anything, but has the author made this text freely available?

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

Not trying to be a square or anything, but has the author made this text freely available?

Assaji's link/url to Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies seems legit.

So, we'll assume so... unless anyone comes forth with specific claims to the contrary.

Metta,
Paul.

[SDC]

Greetings,

Not trying to be a square or anything, but has the author made this text freely available?

Assaji's link/url to Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies seems legit.

So, we'll assume so... unless anyone has claims to the contrary.

Metta,
Paul.

Thanks, Paul.

[Ceisiwr]

Not trying to be a square or anything, but has the author made this text freely available?

Yeah. This is what I was trying to link to: https://www.academia.edu/9209369/The_Hi ... Evaluation

[SDC]

Not trying to be a square or anything, but has the author made this text freely available?

Yeah. This is what I was trying to link to: https://www.academia.edu/9209369/The_Hi ... Evaluation

Nice! I was just about say that neither link was working.

[Kim OHara]

The OCBS link worked for me.


It's a good article, too. even though Wynne does allow his narkiness towards other scholars to shine out in his last paragraph.


Kim

[coffeendonuts]

The question is how much authenticity? Tantalizing read. I needed more. Interestingly, Wynne writes in the introduction of his The Origins of Buddhist Meditation:

The biggest problem in Buddhist Studies is that nobody knows what the Buddha taught. This is not because of an absence of early literary sources (in Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, etc.) that claim to contain his teachings. The problem rather, is that recent studies have shown that the early texts appear to contain a number of doctrinal differences, and it is not clear which formulations might be authentic and go back to the Buddha. The historical claims of the early Buddhist sects only add to the general scepticism. All claim that their canonical literature was compiled at the first council of Rajagrha, shortly after the Buddha’s death. Unfortunately, however, there are numerous differences between the various canons, even in the details about the extent and classification of the canon supposedly compiled at the first council.

...Richard Gombrich has pointed out that humorous statements attributed to the Buddha are probably authentic. As he puts it: ‘Are jokes ever composed by committees?’ But it is one thing to establish historical facts and another to identify teachings of the Buddha. Jokes or facts about the Buddha’s death do not establish whether the Buddha taught the Noble Eightfold Path, or even the Four Noble Truths. In short, then, it is difficult to see how the passages of outstanding historical significance—and there are not many obvious examples—could be used as the criterion by which to attribute any of the early doctrinal formulations to the Buddha.

...I will attempt to prove that facts about the Buddha’s early life are historically authentic and can be used to identify some of his teachings in the early literature... This text does not say anything about the content of the earliest Buddhist teachings, but I will use it to provide a historical background to early Buddhist thought in another way. I will attempt to show correspondences between the early literature on the two teachers and some of the speculations contained in the philosophical literature of early Brahminism

...A basic presupposition of this book is that the early Buddhist literature is heterogeneous. Despite this, I see no reason to deny the historicity of the literature as a matter of course, although nowadays scholars are generally sceptical of the antiquity and authenticity of early Buddhist literature.

In his article, Who was the Buddha?

Indeed, in the Pali Mahāpadāna Sutta, one of the most important sources for early Buddhist myth, the story of the Buddha’s youth is attributed to the entirely mythical figure of the former Buddha Vipassī, said to have lived 91 aeons ago (an inconceivably long time). This text is not a reliable source for the life of Siddhattha Gotama; to build up a more reliable picture, we must consider older parts of the Pali canon. In none of these is the Buddha ever called Siddhattha. Indeed, since this word means ‘one who has fulfilled [siddha] his purpose [attha]’, it looks very much like a mythic title, and in fact is used in only late mythic texts such as the Pali Apadāna.

I get the picture that much in the Pali canon is indeed mythic, heterogenous, normative, but Wynne manages to persist in mucking around and extracting bits and pieces that are likely historical accounts. Like he says, there's not much, but what he reveals is convincing and well-argued.

The very essence of good scholarship like this is the revelation that these great thinkers and their movements were just another human endeavor.