The Very Idea of Buddhist History

A forum for those wishing to discuss Buddhist history and teachings in the Western academic manner, referencing appropriate sources.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Huseng »

Serenity509 wrote: How can we know for certain that the Pali scriptures were based on an existing oral tradition but the Mahayana scriptures were not? That's all I'm asking. :namaste:
They might have been based on an existing oral tradition, but the Pali canon is a translation of an earlier canon according to at least a few authorities on the subject, so whatever oral tradition existed beforehand was probably not in Pali. Moreover, by the time we can definitively date Pali scriptures writing had already existed in India for a few centuries at least.

Mahayana scriptures often speak of copying scriptures, which indicates an awareness and encouragement of writing, not memorization and transmission through oral recitation.

I imagine what happened was that an earlier oral tradition was kept intact and passed down through the generations until writing became an available and acceptable medium for transmission of Dharma, at which time it became possible to greatly expand on scriptures and add many layers of content to the vinaya, followed by Buddhist scholasticism (Abhidharma), the influences of which were inserted into scriptures later on (especially set numbers of items or concepts -- 18 dhatus, 12 ayatanas, etc.).
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Malcolm »

Indrajala wrote: Mahayana scriptures often speak of copying scriptures, which indicates an awareness and encouragement of writing, not memorization and transmission through oral recitation.
This ignores that in practice that Mahāyāna practitioners in India often memorized large portions of Mahāyāna sutra. For example, the first version of the large Prajñāpāramita was translated into Tibetan by a translator who had committed the whole thing to memory. Eventually his translation was superseded, but for a least half a century it was the main text Tibetans used.

People are too quick to dismiss memorization and oral transmission in the presence of writing. Writing in India was used to support oral transmission, not supplant it.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Huseng »

Malcolm wrote: This ignores that in practice that Mahāyāna practitioners in India often memorized large portions of Mahāyāna sutra.
That may have been the case as it often is today, but the scriptures are organized in chapters and read like they were systematized, which indicates editorial revision and organization. Now, granted, the Vedas were and still are memorized in chapters, but they're not prose. They also were formulated at a time before writing. Buddhists rapidly took to writing and encouraged it.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Malcolm »

Indrajala wrote:
Malcolm wrote: This ignores that in practice that Mahāyāna practitioners in India often memorized large portions of Mahāyāna sutra.
That may have been the case as it often is today, but the scriptures are organized in chapters and read like they were systematized, which indicates editorial revision and organization. Now, granted, the Vedas were and still are memorized in chapters, but they're not prose. They also were formulated at a time before writing. Buddhists rapidly took to writing and encouraged it.
The two are not necessarily in contradiction with one another.
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Zhen Li
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Zhen Li »

Indrajala wrote:
Serenity509 wrote: How can we know for certain that the Pali scriptures were based on an existing oral tradition but the Mahayana scriptures were not? That's all I'm asking. :namaste:
They might have been based on an existing oral tradition, but the Pali canon is a translation of an earlier canon according to at least a few authorities on the subject, so whatever oral tradition existed beforehand was probably not in Pali. Moreover, by the time we can definitively date Pali scriptures writing had already existed in India for a few centuries at least.

Mahayana scriptures often speak of copying scriptures, which indicates an awareness and encouragement of writing, not memorization and transmission through oral recitation.

I imagine what happened was that an earlier oral tradition was kept intact and passed down through the generations until writing became an available and acceptable medium for transmission of Dharma, at which time it became possible to greatly expand on scriptures and add many layers of content to the vinaya, followed by Buddhist scholasticism (Abhidharma), the influences of which were inserted into scriptures later on (especially set numbers of items or concepts -- 18 dhatus, 12 ayatanas, etc.).
I would hesitate to say anything is based on an "earlier canon." What seems to me more likely is that each monastery would have people who know/have memorised a different set of texts, and that the "Pali canon" represents a tradition from Sri Lanka after a purging of Mahayana/other Buddhist texts around the 3rd or 4th century (when the same may have happened in India in certain monasteries, a claim that would rely largely upon Faxian's accounts, but also the character of early Mahayana texts). I am not sure that, outside of Sri Lanka, any of the Indian monasteries agreed upon a sutra canon - though, vinaya they very well may have been. But it does appear that there were, occasionally, views of what was not canon.

I, with Malcom, don't think it is entirely unrealistic that writing was an aid to memorization - but I would be satisfied either way. What, perhaps, is more important, is, rather than the medium of textual transmission, rather the emphasis placed by Mahayanists upon text, as opposed to other practices. This is something that the Mahayana sutras do differ from mainstream Buddhist texts on, by their very nature. Mahayana sutras are also self-conscious in a way that mainstream Buddhist texts never were - i.e. they refer to themselves extensively, e.g. what you should do to them, how you should use them, what their character/nature is (as a Buddha, Goddess, true Caitya, etc.). There is clearly a level of displacement as regards the mainstream Buddhist practices which Mahayanists are trying to advocate here - while not being anti-stupa worship, and so forth, they are clearly trying to shift the emphasis to the text (trying to send the monks back to their books, as Schopen would put it).

This shift in emphasis makes more sense if the texts in question are physical - the injunctions we are speaking of put great emphasis on the care and curation of the text. If the Mahayana could survive without physical books, we wouldn't see this. Clearly, the main issue at hand in this regard is that the dharmabhanakas of mainstream Buddhism, who were by and large responsible for oral text transmission and teaching, were not willing to begin learning new sutras. The Mahayana, by all accounts, until the 5th century was very small, and largely made up of highly literate monks who shared a common interest, and was not large enough to facilitate the dharmabhanaka infrastructure required for the memorization and transmission of such large amounts of text. So the injunctions, which we should not ignore, put emphasis on, rather than memorization, the practices which will ensure the safety and longevity of the texts in book form. These are skilful devices which promote the survival and longevity of books, rather than orally transmitted texts.

That being said, we don't have the same kind of evidence for oral transmission that we do for textual transmission, so, as I said earlier, I wouldn't discount that some degree of oral transmission did occur - just that it clearly is not what the Mahayana sutras themselves are emphasising. Also, sorry to contradict you Malcom, but the sutras clearly are not entirely analytical, they're highly practical, and instructive of practice. Often the facts they present, which we might consider philosophical, are largely declarative in nature (not analytical, i.e. they don't come about through argumentation/reasoning). Analysis does exist to a large extent in sastra literature - which, while accepting some premises of the Mahayana sutras, doesn't go along with everything the sutra literature is presenting. It is important to be careful about conflating sastric with sutric claims. Anyway, if you're interested in further details on this model, please PM or email me.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Serenity509 »

I read a book on the Buddha by RKK that promotes the five periods doctrine. Does anyone still believe it today?
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by MiphamFan »

Chinese Buddhists do.
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明安 Myoan
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by 明安 Myoan »

Wikipedia says Tendai, Tiantai, and Nichiren.
The Three Ages of Buddhism is also an important teaching in Pure Land, specifically living in the Dharma declining era.
From my understanding the Five Periods is a subdivision of this idea into five 500-year periods.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Malcolm »

Monlam Tharchin wrote:Wikipedia says Tendai, Tiantai, and Nichiren.
The Three Ages of Buddhism is also an important teaching in Pure Land, specifically living in the Dharma declining era.
From my understanding the Five Periods is a subdivision of this idea into five 500-year periods.
This is basically a Hinayāna idea. While it enjoys some Mahāyāna popularity, there are other sutras which push back against it, such as the Lotus Sutra and so on
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Serenity509 »

The five periods doctrine is that each sutra was from a specific part of the Buddha's life, and that the Lotus Sutra and Nirvana sutra were his final teaching:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiantai#Five_Periods
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Malcolm »

Serenity509 wrote:The five periods doctrine is that each sutra was from a specific part of the Buddha's life, and that the Lotus Sutra and Nirvana sutra were his final teaching:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiantai#Five_Periods
Yes, I understand what you are saying, but that does not even make sense if you look at the Lotus Sutra itself which establishes there has never been any time nor will there be any time where the Buddha is not teaching the Lotus Sutra on Rajagriha. Kind of throws a kink in the five period theory no?

It never ceases to amaze me the schemes people come up with to limit the Buddha's teachings in time and space.
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明安 Myoan
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by 明安 Myoan »

The Three Ages and specifically living in the Age of the decline of the Dharma is a prominent teaching for the Jodo-shu and Shin schools, at least.
I can't speak for other Mahayana schools, and am not sure getting into detail would be on topic for this thread.

Serenity: my mistake. I was going off a reference in the Wikipedia article to the Mahasamnipata Sutra, which does divide the Three Ages into five periods. I'm not familiar with the sutra though and can't say more.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Malcolm »

Monlam Tharchin wrote:The Three Ages and specifically living in the Age of the decline of the Dharma is a prominent teaching for the Jodo-shu and Shin schools, at least.
But it is quite a provisional teaching.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Serenity509 »

My understanding of Buddhist history as a whole is primarily from D.T. Suzuki:
Mahayanism a Living Faith

So with Mahayanism. Whatever changes it has made during its historical evolution, its spirit and central ideas are all those of its founder. The question whether or not it is genuine, entirely depends on our interpretation of the term “genuine.” If we take it to mean the lifeless preservation of the original, we should say that Mahayanism is not the genuine teaching of the Buddha, and we may add that Mahayanists would be proud of the tact, because being a living religious force it would never condescend to be the corpse of a by-gone faith. The fossils, however faithfully preserved, are nothing but rigid inorganic substances from which life is forever departed.

Mahayanism is far from this; it is an ever-growing faith and ready in all times to cast off its old garments as soon as they are worn out. But its spirit originally inspired by the [the Buddha] is most jealously guarded against pollution and degeneration. Therefore, as far as its spirit is concerned, there is no room left to doubt its genuineness ; and those who desire to have a complete survey of Buddhism cannot ignore the significance of Mahayanism.

It is naught but an idle talk to question the historical value of an organism, which is now full of vitality and active in all its functions, and to treat it like an archeological object, dug out from the depths of the earth, or like a piece of bric-&-brac, discovered in the ruins of an ancient royal palace.

Mahayanism is not an object of historical curiosity. Its vitality and activity concern us in our daily life. It is a great spiritual organism; its moral and religious forces are still exercising an enormous power over millions of souls; and its further development is sure to be a very valuable contribution to the world-progress of the religious consciousness. What does it matter, then, whether or not Mahayanism is the genuine teaching of the Buddha?
http://theendlessfurther.com/is-mahayan ... he-buddha/
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Aemilius »

Indrajala wrote:
Malcolm wrote: This ignores that in practice that Mahāyāna practitioners in India often memorized large portions of Mahāyāna sutra.
That may have been the case as it often is today, but the scriptures are organized in chapters and read like they were systematized, which indicates editorial revision and organization. Now, granted, the Vedas were and still are memorized in chapters, but they're not prose. They also were formulated at a time before writing. Buddhists rapidly took to writing and encouraged it.
It is clear that the buddhist tradition has valued highly the memorization of sutras and texts even after the appearance of writing. Simply because when you die you leave your books behind, but if you have them in your memory they will follow you into your next life.
There is a sutta or sutra about this, which says that in your next life, possibly in a heavenly world, you will be reminded by the devas, or other beings, of the sutras that you had memorized in your past life, and then you will immediately remember them in that heavenly or other world.

There are also stories told by Venerable Master Hsuan Hua about memorizing sutras, how the result of memorizing sutras carries into one's future life or lives.
In buddhism there are traditional honorific titles that indicate how many agamas/nikayas or pitakas the person has memorized, often the people with vast powers of memorization were Upasakas or Upasikas. It is difficult to conceive how a person could memorize a whole Pitaka, or a whole Agama/Nikaya, nevertheless it has been the case!
Even today the CTTB has an Upasika that has memorized several Mahayana sutras and who teaches the practice of memorization to others: http://www.siddham.org/yuan_english/sha ... 21503.html

On the contrary, they say that if you know vast materials by heart, you have them organized in your mind! I don't know this myself, but this is what I have read and heard. So organisation itself is a characteristic of oral tradition also. You have to try it yourself to see what it is like, how it takes place.
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Zhen Li
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Zhen Li »

Aemilius wrote: It is clear that the buddhist tradition has valued highly the memorization of sutras and texts even after the appearance of writing. Simply because when you die you leave your books behind, but if you have them in your memory they will follow you into your next life.
There is a sutta or sutra about this, which says that in your next life, possibly in a heavenly world, you will be reminded by the devas, or other beings, of the sutras that you had memorized in your past life, and then you will immediately remember them in that heavenly or other world.

There are also stories told by Venerable Master Hsuan Hua about memorizing sutras, how the result of memorizing sutras carries into one's future life or lives.
In buddhism there are traditional honorific titles that indicate how many agamas/nikayas or pitakas the person has memorized, often the people with vast powers of memorization were Upasakas or Upasikas. It is difficult to conceive how a person could memorize a whole Pitaka, or a whole Agama/Nikaya, nevertheless it has been the case!
Even today the CTTB has an Upasika that has memorized several Mahayana sutras and who teaches the practice of memorization to others: http://www.siddham.org/yuan_english/sha ... 21503.html

On the contrary, they say that if you know vast materials by heart, you have them organized in your mind! I don't know this myself, but this is what I have read and heard. So organisation itself is a characteristic of oral tradition also. You have to try it yourself to see what it is like, how it takes place.
It's really not a problem if you get used to memorization. Many actors keep all of Shakespeare's sonnets and many full plays entirely memorized. I would like to see your reference for that sutra. The Nikayas aren't too hard to memorize if you think about it - there's so much repetition, and some of them are organized entirely by number. This is probably why the suttabhanakas didn't memorize the Khuddaka Nikaya as one unit, but rather as individual books, since it's unorganised and too long.

Of course, the vinayas had rules for filling in the gaps for a reason - people did forget things, or change things over time. And studies of oral literature do support the claim that texts did change over time (see L.S. Cousins, "Pali Oral Literature") - this doesn't help the case of Pali-centric Buddhists, for whom the oldest surviving manuscripts are under a millennium old. One should rely on the early Chinese translations of the Agamas if one wants accuracy with regards to those early materials - but one can also make comparative studies and see that indeed the Pali texts do preserve quite a bit.
Serenity509 wrote:My understanding of Buddhist history as a whole is primarily from D.T. Suzuki:
If we really have no accurate facts about that which is lost to the mists of time, one story is as good as any other. I have studied countless articles and books on the actual question of the "origin" of the Mahayana, and none are satisfying. Scientifically, we can only say that such a matter is far beyond certainty. But writing history isn't always about scientific precision. From the humanistic school of thought that one should make sense of such matters, and that any story is as good as any other, the stories we need are well supplied by Buton, Taranatha, Paramartha, Vasumitra, etc.
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Caodemarte »

Just a reminder of something most of the posters know, but have not stated.

The spread of the Mahayana has often been associated with lay traders and merchants. Satisfying a commercial need of these merchants, written material also provided a transportable religious trade or tribute/gift item. Written materiel may also been a convenient way of spreading the Mahayana through these international networks and keeping far flung monasteries along the international trading networks in line. So for commercial and social needs alone it makes sense for the Mahayana to stress texts, as did Christianity and Islam for these reasons among others.

Of course, the Pali canon was compiled hundreds of years after the Buddha (and Theravada emerged well after that and the Mahayana). AFAIK, Pali itself is a blend of several eastern and western dialects together with some Sanskrit. Some have hypothesized that it is some form of an old trade language (again, the connection with merchants); some that that this mixture of dialects was done later to harmonize the texts. Whatever the Buddha spoke it was probably closely related either to the language of Kosala or something related to Magadhi. So the canon would have most likely been translated from oral or even earlier written accounts. (If there are occasional errors, occasional interpolated material, additions, or mistranslations, unless you are making an argument from authority ("It is true because God said it, even the typos!" as some of my fellow Floridians would argue), does it matter in a religious sense any more than in mathematics if the material is useful and true?)
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by daverupa »

Caodemarte wrote:Of course, the Pali canon was compiled hundreds of years after the Buddha (and Theravada emerged well after that and the Mahayana).
The Pali Canon is a compilation spanning a very long time, it's true; but the Nikayas from within that set, when compared with the Agamas, show a common baseline - the later Sthaviravada School that would become modern Theravada added a lot and commented on a lot, same as the other Schools, all of which pre-date Mahayana, which added a lot more & commented a lot more.

That's the thing with these early texts, and with Early Buddhism generally: the Nikayas/Agamas are the best sources we have, and most of what they convey is very likely from within a hundred years of the Buddha's final nibbana.

This cannot be said for any later text: nothing specifically Theravada, nothing specifically Mahayana.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Aemilius
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Aemilius »

Zhen Li wrote:
Aemilius wrote: It is clear that the buddhist tradition has valued highly the memorization of sutras and texts even after the appearance of writing. Simply because when you die you leave your books behind, but if you have them in your memory they will follow you into your next life.
There is a sutta or sutra about this, which says that in your next life, possibly in a heavenly world, you will be reminded by the devas, or other beings, of the sutras that you had memorized in your past life, and then you will immediately remember them in that heavenly or other world.

There are also stories told by Venerable Master Hsuan Hua about memorizing sutras, how the result of memorizing sutras carries into one's future life or lives.
In buddhism there are traditional honorific titles that indicate how many agamas/nikayas or pitakas the person has memorized, often the people with vast powers of memorization were Upasakas or Upasikas. It is difficult to conceive how a person could memorize a whole Pitaka, or a whole Agama/Nikaya, nevertheless it has been the case!
Even today the CTTB has an Upasika that has memorized several Mahayana sutras and who teaches the practice of memorization to others: http://www.siddham.org/yuan_english/sha ... 21503.html

On the contrary, they say that if you know vast materials by heart, you have them organized in your mind! I don't know this myself, but this is what I have read and heard. So organisation itself is a characteristic of oral tradition also. You have to try it yourself to see what it is like, how it takes place.
It's really not a problem if you get used to memorization. Many actors keep all of Shakespeare's sonnets and many full plays entirely memorized. I would like to see your reference for that sutra. The Nikayas aren't too hard to memorize if you think about it - there's so much repetition, and some of them are organized entirely by number. This is probably why the suttabhanakas didn't memorize the Khuddaka Nikaya as one unit, but rather as individual books, since it's unorganised and too long.
Seems that I can't find this sutta I had in mind very rapidly. I am sure it still exists. I found another sutta about remembering teachings, the Sona Sutta. In this Sutta the Bhagavan Shakyamuni asks Sona to recite from memory the suttas that he knows, then he recites the sixteen parts of Atthaka Vagga. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Have You tried memorizing any sutras? It is really hard, even a short sutra like the Heart Sutra or Diamond Sutra requires a lot of work. I only know some short passages or excerpts from sutras by heart.

There are artists like pianists, violinists, singers, troubadours, etc.. who have vast repertoires of music and verses in their minds and memories. They are astonishing. In buddhism traditionally there is prejudice against all artists, so it is a difficult subject and comparison. Even in modern times some persons take the Sutta that condemns all artists or musicians as bound for hell, as a literal truth! I wouldn't be so sure about it, because sound in some form is found in the higher realms also.
svaha
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They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca, gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā parasparaṁ vyavaharantu."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
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Re: The Very Idea of Buddhist History

Post by Zhen Li »

Aemilius wrote:Have You tried memorizing any sutras? It is really hard, even a short sutra like the Heart Sutra or Diamond Sutra requires a lot of work. I only know some short passages or excerpts from sutras by heart.

There are artists like pianists, violinists, singers, troubadours, etc.. who have vast repertoires of music and verses in their minds and memories. They are astonishing. In buddhism traditionally there is prejudice against all artists, so it is a difficult subject and comparison. Even in modern times some persons take the Sutta that condemns all artists or musicians as bound for hell, as a literal truth! I wouldn't be so sure about it, because sound in some form is found in the higher realms also.
I never found it very difficult, but I have a background in theatre so that may change things. Though I never set out to memorize suttas or sutras, with the exception of the Diamond Sutra, I do have much committed to memory just through close study over the years, and translation does this too - a few chapters of the Astasahasrika are fairly fixed in my memory now. The Heart Sutra is fairly easy once you know the divisions and use mnemonics.

But as far as I have experienced, anyone who thinks Buddhism has a prejudice against the arts is seriously disconnected from real Buddhist communities.
daverupa wrote:That's the thing with these early texts, and with Early Buddhism generally: the Nikayas/Agamas are the best sources we have, and most of what they convey is very likely from within a hundred years of the Buddha's final nibbana.

This cannot be said for any later text: nothing specifically Theravada, nothing specifically Mahayana.
This is a very optimistic assessment, and one really should be more specific, since the "Nikayas/Agamas" clearly are quite a temporally stratified set of texts, and the Pali texts we have were in a state of fluidity until at least the second millennium. There's also a stratification in what can be confirmed as earlier with certainty, e.g. An Shigao's Saṃyuktāgama texts, but also many Mahayana texts, prior to a large number of other Nikaya/Agama texts. That the Nikayas/Agamas are internally consistent in a way that appears doctrinally prior, says nothing about excluded materials, i.e. Mahayana materials, as that appearance can very likely be, and if they had any wits about them was, intentional. As regards Mahayana texts, what we can say about those is different from what we can say about, or whether we should say anything about, "the emergence of the Mahayana." It may turn out that it doesn't make sense to speak of such a thing in the times of pre-common era Buddhism. After all, the picture that is emerging on the textual side of things is one of Mahayana developing within mainstream sects. This may lead is to infer what we can and, at this point, cannot say with any certainty about what a picture on the ground may look like.
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