Talk:Mahayana sutras

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I'm thinking of redirecting this page to Buddhist Texts : Mahayana texts section. Anyone object?

[edit] Historicity and orgins

I have made some cuts to this article. The purported connection between the Mahayana sutras and the Fourth Council of Kanishka is quite spurious. I really don't know who started this myth, but it is wrong. Other features of this article are also dubious. The Mahayana legend of the Naga guardianship of the sutras is not universal. Much could be done to improve this article in order to refect modern scholarship on the origins of Mahayana sutras. There is also a subtle POV slant towards the Theravada view -- the implication is that the Theravada view of its canon is the touchstone for authenticity. In fact, the Theravadin canon is equally open to question.--Stephen Hodge 23:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

See my reply at talk:Buddha - God or Man greetings, Sacca 00:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sacca, the reason why I cut the linkage between the Kanishka Council and Mahayana is because it is extremely dubious: no reputable modern scholar accepts this. Can you come up with some non-POV proof ? The Kanishka Council was a purely Sarvastivadin affair. So I intend to revert to my previous edit. The orgin of Mahayana sutras is extremely complex and should not be dealt with in this simplistic outmoded manner -- in fact, they were probably first composed in the Deccan area, not in Kashmir and that region. If you have specialized in the origins of Mahayana sutras, I would like to hear your findings.

As I mentioned in talk:Buddha - God or Man, there is no non-POV proof that the Pali canon is very much older than Mahayana sutras - a little older, I would concede, but not more than 150 years. They are both as authentic or inauthentic as each other in terms of content.

I mentioned the Anguttara-nikaya. Compare the contents with the Ekottara-nikaya presrved in the Chinese canon. It's immediately obvious that there is a huge amount of new material included in the AN.

Do you recognize that the Pali Canon was decided to be closed at the third council? And that there existed a second and first council at approximately the same time as they are commonly believed to have taken place? Or do you maybe believe this did actually never take place, and the whole scripture was invented in the first cenury BC? greetings, Sacca 02:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From Buddha - god or man talkpage

Dear Sacca, concerning the Mahayana sutras, you say: "to me they are just later writings, put into the mouth of the Buddha to give them more authority. This is just the historical background-information. So, I like to always make the historical status of a text clear, and I think the historicity of texts does matter". But the same applies to large numbers of the suttas in the Pali canon or the other Agamas -- for example, more than half of the Anguttara-nikaya is clearly of late composition. The Pali canon is highly stratified, both in terms of text and ideas, which indicates that it had a long history of development. It is also noteworthy that the Pali canon was first put into writing around 29BCE, a similar date to the early Mahayana sutras. Apart from some prior epigraphic mentions and quotes, there is actually no evidence for the existence of the Pali canon earlier than the manuscript tradition that is supposed to start around 29BCE. It is likely that very little of the Pali canon (suttas and vinaya) as we have it now represents the actual words of the Buddha. In other words, the suttas in the Pali canon too are later compositions, put in the mouth of the Buddha to give them more authority -- most were probably composed around the time of Asoka and later . Then only difference between the suttas in the Pali canon and the Mahayana sutras is that the composition of the Pali suttas was done a bit earlier than the Mahayana sutras. As user Tony says, one's choice of authoritative sutras all comes down to a matter of faith --Stephen Hodge 23:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually this is not true. The agamas are of a different lineage than the Pali Canon, and are very similar to it. This provided the proof that science required, that those scriptures, which come from different monastic traditions (in geographically seperated locations), have a common source in time and place, one much older than the Mahayana Sutras. Because of this, the date at which the Pali Canon has been written down is not of much consequence. These scriptures existed long before they were written down: in the monastic tradition (of human beings) they were transmitted from generation to generation. A method which was also used for (parts of) the Hindu Vedas. That this method worked is proven by the Agamas, for which the same method was used before they were written down, and which are very similar in content to the Pali Canon (excepting the Abhidhamma of course)

Further: the Mahayana scriptures were composed in the first century AD. The fact that some of them incorporated ideas which can be traced back to the 1st century BC does not change the date of composition of those sutras. This should be accuratedly reflected in the article.

Also Mahayana Buddhism recognizes the teachings of the Pali Canon and the Agamas as older: see for example the theory of the three turnings, which puts the 'Hinayana' as the first turning. Both the Agamas and the Pali Canon come from the early buddhist schools, and in fact they derive from different early schools. It is interesting to see the history of those schools: they did not make arguments about the Sutta-pitaka or the Vinaya-Pitaks, but strictly about Abhidhamma(pitaka). This again indicates that the first two pitakas were very similar amongst those early schools, and that the Abhidhammas, as a later development, differed, which gave rise to arguments.

Consequently I will put most of what you deleted on the Mahayana Sutras back. Please feel free to go to Anguttara Nikaya and put in any data you honestly believe is true. greetings, Sacca 00:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sacca, The likelihood that parts of the agamas and the nikayas derive from a common source is well-known, though it should be noted that the written evidence for the Agamas is also very late. However, you have no evidence of dating apart from supposition. You say that "these scriptures existed long before they were writing down". How would set about proving this ? Strictly speaking, one could say that this is merely POV, since it cannot be established by any means. See, for example:

"We know, and have known for some time, that the Pali canon as we have it - and it is generally conceded to be our oldest source - cannot be taken back further than the last quarter of the first century BCE, the date of the Alu-vihara redaction, the earliest redaction that we can have some knowledge of, and that - for a critical history - it can serve, at the very most only as a source for the Buddhism of this period. But we also know that even this is problematic since as Malalasekera has pointed out '...how far the Tipitaka and its commentary reduced to writing at Alu-vihara resembled them as they have come down to us now, no one can say.' In fact, it is not until the time of the commentaries of Buddhaghosa, Dhammapala, and others - that is to say the fifth to sixth centuries C.E. - that we can know anything definite about the actual contents of this canon. We also know that there is no evidence to indicate that a canon existed prior to the Alu-vihara redaction. Although Ashoka in his Bhabra Edict specifically enjoined both monks and laymen to recite certain texts, which he named, he nowhere in his records gives any indication that he knew of a canon, or the classification of texts into nikayas." Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (p23-4), Gregory Schopen (Univ of Hawai'i 1997)

The precise dating of Mahayana sutras is not the problem: it is the failure to recognize that the Nikayas / Agamas are likely for the large part to have been composed over a period of several centuries after the Buddha died. Theravadins don't like to hear this, but to put it rather crudely, most of the Pali suttas are as fake as the Mahayana sutras -- they were just faked a bit befoe the Mahayana ones.

You claim an authentic oral tradition for the Pali canon with no evidence apart from inference based on presupposition. One could easily apply the same logic to the Mahayana sutras, with the same level of proof.

You say, "Mahayana Buddhism recognizes the teachings of the Pali Canon and the Agamas as older". No, it doesn't in any meaningful way. The account of the three turnings relates to sutras expounded in the Buddha's own lifetime.

You say, "It is interesting to see the history of those schools: they did not make arguments about the Sutta-pitaka or the Vinaya-Pitakas". This is wrong -- not a lot of literature survives from these schools, but they certainly did argue about the interpretation of Sutra and Vinaya topics. It was also well-known that different schools had some sutras in the Agamas which others did not, Vasubandhu mentions this problem in his Abhidharmakosa-bhasya.--Stephen Hodge 01:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Until now, your 'evidence' just concerns the fact that it is not written down until that time. Current scholars have long since moved on to the scripture itself, and focuses on the language used as a method of dating, and comparisons between the agamas and the pali canon. Using this, dating can be done and has been done, and I am familiar with the results. The results of this largely are responsible for the authority that the Pali Canon and the Agamas hold in the scholarly tradition as the most authaurative. The Mahayana suttas do not have this authority, this is a common understanding amongst scholars. The fact is was written down in 30 BC doesn't negate the existence of the older version at all, and this whole issue was abandoned a long time ago. I know nobody who believes the Pitakas were invented in Sri Lanka in 30 BC. Are you the first one, maybe?

And you are right: the arguments only concern interpretations of the actual Sutta-pitaka, often based on the respective Abhidhammas. They are not about variations in the actual Sutta-pitaka, which were very similar or maybe even identical. The existence of suttas which are not present in the other version concerns only a very small number; it doesn't concern the main body of the tenthousands of suttas which are in communion with eachother. Remember, it is not stated they were the same, just very similar, and pointing to a common source, which is both cases is referred to as the First Buddhist Council.

This whole discussion seems like moving back into time, frankly. These things are old and resolved a long time ago. greetings, Sacca 02:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Sacca, either I have not expressed myself clearly enough or you have misunderstood my position. I am, of course, well aware of current dating methodologies -- I imagine that you too have read the relevent research by von Hinuber, Sasao, Norman, Pande, Gombrich, Meisig, Kingsbury, Allon. Hence, I too am aware of the dating results that these various scholars have proposed, as well as the methodological drawbacks. I have also done quite a lotof comparative Agama/Nikaya research myself -- I just have spent the last three years comparing most of the SA and SN. However, valuable though all this recent work is, you will note that they all merely propose a relative chronology -- an absolute chronology is probably impossible. Kingsbury's results are easy to understand when one looks at the various chronological distribution graphs he has produced.

So what is my position ? Well. first I do not give the traditional accounts of the Councils much credence. Even the word "council" seems somewhat grandiose. Doubtless, there were some such meetings, but I do not believe that they compiled the Nikayas then as traditionally claimed. The relative chronologies the above scholars and others have proposed, using various methodologies, does not allow for this.

I also think, in company with most scholars, that the Nikayas do not represent the ipsissima verba of the Buddha. In fact, along with others, I think that a number of key Buddhist doctrines do not datwe back to the Buddha himself. I am thinking of the skandhas (cf Kingsbury, Vetter et al) and the 12-fold pacciya-samuppada. Looking at other religious corpora, such as the Christian Gospels or the Confucian Analects, it has been well demonstrated recently that the percentage of actual teachings of the founder is fairly low -- around 20%. This seems to be a fairly universal pheomenon -- and in the case of the Nikayas, I suspect the percentage of authentic "word of Buddha" teachings is even lower.

Hence, if one takes the relative textual chronologies, backed up by ideological chronologies, it would seem that the Nikayas were compiled over a period of several centuries after the Buddha's death. Extrapolating from Kingsbury's data (and taking Agama parallels into account), the bulk of the Nikaya suttas he examined seem to have come into existence about 200 years after the Buddha. This would place us around the Asokan period, which when I think the evidence points for the complilation of the Vinaya as well as the core of the Nikaya collections (cf Frauwallner "Earliest Vinaya").

So the upshot of all this is quite simple. If the bulk of the suttas/sutras do not date from the 1st Council, they must have been compiled later by monks who put those words into the mouth of the Buddha, unless you are suggesting divine revelation. This is exactly the same situation as claimed by people such as yourself for Mahayana sutras. But there is no absolute difference: as I said before, the Nikaya/Agama authors just made their creations a bit earlier than the period Mahayanis began to compose their sutras. Indeed, on might even argue that there is evidence that the Mahayanis were just taking a leaf out of the Nikaya/Agama author's book. Given this situation, one cannot, if one is scientifically honest, say that the Nikayas/Agamas are necessarily more authorative than the Mahayana sutras. I imagine that this is a hard pill for you to swallow, but that is where objectivity and intellectual honesty will lead you, I'm afraid. You can't apply one set of criteria to Mahayana Sutras and not expect to have the same criteria applied to the Nikayas. Does that help make things clearer ? --Stephen Hodge 21:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latest edit

The latest edit (02:05) by Stephen is acceptable to me, it seems we have reached a solution on this subject. Maybe I will add some more details (sources) later. greetings, Sacca 02:49, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. I was just getting the Katyushkas ready :)--Stephen Hodge 21:18, 19 July 2006 (UTC)