Bhikkhu Sujato and Bhikkhu Brahmali. The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts. Eonic Press, 2015. 158 pp. ISBN 978-1-312-91150-5. Originally published in 2014 as a supplement to volume 5 of the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies.
Buddhist hermeneutics—from the Greek hermeneutikos, “of or for interpreting”—is still in its infancy in the West, as the Dharma Transmission to the West continues to take hold and proliferate. The most common Buddhist hermeneutic, especially among both traditional and modern Theravadins, is historicism, i.e., the belief that the authentic meaning of the Buddhist message is identical with, or most reliably recovered from, the teachings of Siddhattha Gotama (c. 440–c. 395 BCE), the historical Buddha. Although this hermeneutic may seem to many to be straightforward and self-evident, critical evaluation reveals it to involve numerous problems, including:
- Objective identification of the actual historical words of the Buddha (the Buddhavacana);
- Determination of the correct meanings of those words and the doctrines they imply;
- Resolution of apparent contradictions;
- Resolution of apparent nonsense, including the problem of what nonsense actually is in the context of cultural relativism (i.e., what may be nonsense to you may not be nonsense to me, and what may be nonsense to us may not have been nonsense 2,500 years ago); and
- The question of whether the Buddhavacana is comprehensive, complete, and exclusive, even if it is accurate and true.
A strongly traditionalist conception of Theravada holds that the Pali Canon, including the Vinaya, Suttas, and Abhidhamma, faithfully preserves the teachings of the historical Buddha, remembered pre-eminently by Ananda and verified by the arhants of the First Buddhist Council and their successors. The authority of this transmission is reinforced by the traditional conception of the arhant as one who has eradicated ignorance and the defilements and attained irreversible liberation. Indeed, the perfection of the arhant was a point of controversy among the early Buddhist schools. The Kathavatthu (I.2, II.2–3) defends the Theravadin position against claims that an arhant may fall from arhantship, lack knowledge, or experience doubt.
However, spiritual perfection does not necessarily imply infallibility in memory, historical recollection, linguistic expression, or textual transmission. Nor is the arhant necessarily omniscient concerning ordinary matters. The presumed spiritual perfection of the earliest transmitters therefore cannot, by itself, establish the literal accuracy of everything attributed to the Buddha. We in the West are familiar with analogous claims of scriptural authority among Jews, Christians, and Muslims, although their respective doctrines of revelation, inspiration, and textual preservation differ considerably.
The state of knowledge in this area has been usefully summarized by Bhikkhus Sujato and Brahmali in their monograph The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts, originally published in 2014 as a supplement to the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. Rhys Davids and Pande (Studies in the Origins of Buddhism, 4th ed., 1995) have also made significant contributions.
Sujato and Brahmali represent an approach commonly associated with Early Buddhism, which seeks to distinguish the earliest recoverable teachings from subsequent doctrinal and institutional developments. Their principal conclusion is that the Early Buddhist Texts (EBTs), which they identify primarily with the four great Nikayas and their parallels in other early Buddhist traditions, together with portions of the Vinaya and other early collections, are substantially authentic.
Their general argument is that the descriptions of political geography, social and economic conditions, trade, and religious culture correspond to the historical period in which the Buddha lived and taught; that the oral transmission of the texts was sufficiently conservative to preserve their essential content; that their remarkable doctrinal consistency and distinctive literary characteristics point towards a common historical source; that archaeological and comparative research supports their antiquity; and that differences between earlier and later strata reveal patterns of ideological development familiar from the histories of other religions.
These are substantial arguments, and I do not dispute their value in establishing the antiquity of the early Buddhist tradition. Nor do I deny that the EBTs preserve important historical information concerning the Buddha, his contemporaries, and the religious movement that arose around him.
Nevertheless, the authors’ conclusions extend considerably beyond the proposition that the EBTs are ancient or that they accurately reflect the historical circumstances of early Buddhism.
In their abstract, Sujato and Brahmali maintain that the majority of sayings attributed to the Buddha in the EBTs were probably spoken by him. Their formal thesis asserts that most of the EBTs are authentic, that subsequent editing generally affected their arrangement and expression rather than their doctrine or substance, and that inauthentic passages can usually be identified. They regard the denial of substantial authenticity as an expression of excessive skepticism rather than a reasonable interpretation of the evidence.
In their conclusion, the authors go so far as to claim that we know what the historical Buddha taught with a degree of certainty exceeding our knowledge of almost any comparable ancient historical figure.
These are remarkably confident assertions. The question is whether the evidence presented justifies such confidence.
To their credit, Sujato and Brahmali explicitly acknowledge that the EBTs underwent redaction, editing, and adaptation to the requirements of oral transmission. They do not maintain that the surviving texts reproduce the precise diction and syntax of the historical Buddha. Rather, they contend that these processes generally preserved the substantive teachings of the Buddha and his immediate disciples, notwithstanding modifications of literary form and arrangement.
Their theory of authenticity (TOA) thus makes a much stronger claim than the mere antiquity of the texts. It maintains that the principal body of teachings attributed to the historical Buddha substantially originated with him, rather than being the product of subsequent doctrinal development.
However, even if we grant the general validity of their historical arguments, it does not necessarily follow that the particular doctrinal formulations preserved in the EBTs originated with the historical Buddha rather than with his immediate successors. Evidence of antiquity, geographical accuracy, literary consistency, and conservative transmission establishes the historical character of a tradition, but does not automatically establish the historical origin of every doctrine within it.
The distinction between the faithful transmission of an established text and the historical authenticity of that text’s original composition is especially important. Evidence that a body of literature was accurately transmitted from the third century BCE onwards, for example, cannot by itself establish that its doctrines were formulated by the Buddha two centuries earlier. The reliability of transmission and the authenticity of origin are related but distinct historical questions.
Moreover, consistency is not necessarily evidence of authorship by a single individual. It may also result from collective formulation, editorial standardization, selective preservation, or the gradual consolidation of a developing tradition. The same evidence may therefore admit more than one plausible historical explanation.
The difficulty is especially apparent when we consider the processes through which a religious movement develops. A teaching may be interpreted, elaborated, systematized, and reformulated by its earliest adherents without losing its essential continuity. Indeed, such processes may begin during the founder’s lifetime. Consequently, a body of literature may be substantially authentic as the expression of an early religious community without being an equally authentic record of the particular formulations employed by its founder.
Perhaps it would be fair to say, then, that the EBTs preserve an overview or outline of the major doctrines associated with the historical Buddha, as interpreted by his successors and transmitted through the developing Buddhist community. Some passages may preserve his actual sayings, while others may reflect the interpretations, systematizations, and elaborations of his earliest disciples. The difficulty lies in determining which is which.
The problem then becomes how to identify and extract the utterances of the Buddha, such as they are, from the mass of material in which they are embedded, or whether this is even possible. The comparison with extracting gold or another metal from an aggregate ore is irresistible.
If one’s objective were to identify objectively the precise technical language employed by the historical Buddha, upon which alone strictly historical interpretations of particular doctrines could be based, I would submit that this state of affairs is so complex and uncertain that it is, practically speaking, impossible to resolve in a comprehensive analytical or reductionist way.
This does not mean that historical reconstruction is futile. On the contrary, the EBTs remain indispensable to any serious investigation of the historical Buddha. Comparative textual analysis can establish relative antiquity, identify subsequent developments, and sometimes support stronger conclusions about particular teachings. But such conclusions must remain proportionate to the evidence.
The general antiquity of the EBTs is not equivalent to the authenticity of every particular doctrine attributed to the Buddha, and the probability that a teaching derives from the earliest Buddhist community is not identical with the probability that it was formulated by the Buddha himself.
Three forms of the Theory of Authenticity may therefore be distinguished:
- The strong form: Where the early texts quote the historical Buddha, they do so accurately, with little or no variation from his actual diction and syntax. This represents an extreme literalist conception of textual authenticity.
- The semi-strong form: Where the early texts quote the Buddha, they preserve substantially the same doctrinal formulations, although the original diction and syntax may have undergone translation, editing, and standardization.
- The weak form: The early texts substantially preserve the historical setting, principal concerns, and general teachings of the earliest Buddhist community, including doctrines that probably originated with the historical Buddha. Some actual sayings of the Buddha may survive, and it is possible to trace elements of chronological development within the Canon. This form necessarily allows for a broader range of alternative doctrinal formulations.
Sujato and Brahmali reject the strong form insofar as it implies verbatim preservation. Their position nevertheless represents a particularly confident version of the semi-strong form: they maintain that most of the teachings attributed to the Buddha originated with him and that subsequent editorial activity generally left their doctrinal substance intact.
In my judgement, the evidence presented does not establish this conclusion with the degree of confidence that the authors claim. Their research strongly supports the antiquity of the EBTs and their continuity with the earliest Buddhist community, but the inference from such continuity to the historical origin of particular doctrinal formulations remains problematic.
As a general theory of the relationship between the surviving texts and the historical Buddha, the weak form therefore remains the more defensible position, although stronger conclusions concerning particular passages may sometimes be warranted.
Finally, the question of historical authenticity must be distinguished from that of doctrinal truth. Even if the precise words of the historical Buddha could be reconstructed, their authenticity would not necessarily establish their completeness, exclusivity, or philosophical validity. Conversely, the later emergence of a Buddhist teaching does not, merely by virtue of its historical lateness, establish its falsity.
Buddhism is not merely the preservation of a historical document. It is also a continuous tradition of interpretation, practice, and realization. The historical Buddha is its indispensable point of origin, but the question of the ultimate meaning and authority of the Dharma cannot be settled by historical reconstruction alone.
Historical criticism can illuminate the origins and development of Buddhism. It cannot, by itself, determine the limits of Buddhist truth.
Related reading: Buddhist Hermeneutics and the Problem of Tradition · The Early Buddhist Schools · The Historical Emergence of Theravada Buddhism. See also the Guide to Dharmata.
Also published on: Goodreads (my review on the book’s page).
