[Buddha-l] Lance's Remarks on Attan.com

[L.S. Cousins]

Brad,

If we are talking about the Pali Canon as a whole, then we can 
certainly distinguish some late material:

the latest material:

 From the Khuddakanikaaya, the Apadaana, Buddhava.msa and 
Cariyaapi.taka - three works which the commentaries tell us were not 
accepted by all.
 From the Vinaya, the Parivaara.
 From the Abhidhamma, the last additions to the Kathaavatthu.

It is hard to give these an absolute (as opposed to a relative) 
dating. It is clear that they belong somewhere in the period from the 
second century B.C. to the second century A.D. I personally would 
think of around the first century B.C. but my views could easily 
change if we got some solid evidence !

the later material:
 From the Khuddakanikaaya, Petavatthu and Vimaanavatthu
 From the Abhidhamma, Pa.t.thaana and Yamaka, much or all of the rest 
of the Kathaavatthu
 From the Vinaya, the Khandhakas

The Niddesa and Pa.tisambhidaamagga (date very disputed) presumably 
belong to one of these two periods.

Scholarship certainly (for me) convincingly separates out these as 
later strata. I am not myself convinced that we can separate out 
layers in the remaining period. Many scholars think they can. Part of 
the problem is that we do not know what was there before the Buddha 
and we know particularly little of the situation in Eastern India 
before the Mauryan period.

Much of what I said before in my summary was derived as much from 
conversations with different scholars at conferences and elsewhere as 
from published material. European scholars who have recently proposed 
different kinds of laying would include Lambert Schmithausen, Tilman 
Vetter, Johannes Bronkhorst, Konrad Meisig and Richard Gombrich. 
There are many incidental references in monographs and articles by 
other scholars.

Does that make my position sufficiently clear ?

Lance

>Brad now replies:
>
>Oh yes, I'm aware of the important works on anatta/anatman. What I 
>was inquiring about had to do with an observation I thought you made 
>(I may have misunderstood you here) about scholarship that 
>convincingly separates supposedly early from supposedly later strata 
>of the "Pali canon." If you indeed were implying this, I'd love to 
>see references on that topic, but of course would understand if the 
>spirit that might move you to do this is currently in remission...