Evidence That Traditions Ensured Their Own Continuance Rather Than Preserved The Word of The Buddha
The Category Error at the Heart of “Early Buddhism”
The entire “Early Buddhism” project rests on a category error: it treats oral transmission as if it were designed to preserve historical events, when its actual function was to serve a living institution. It’s like criticising a garden for not being a museum—the garden is alive, changing, growing, adapting, and that’s exactly what makes it successful. Blaming it for not being static fundamentally misunderstands what it is. There is an obvious mismatch in play here. Institutional requirements at the time were to establish legitimacy, unity, hierarchies, and ritual authority. It was a practice community wanting to continue into the future. Later historical expectations impose an alien purpose—the preservation of a fixed verbal record. That purpose suits a modern scholarly goal, not the traditions’ function–the continuation of its practice. These requirements are not commensurable because a modern projection is expecting “preservation” from a renunciant community that never had that objective at any time.The Competence Paradox: Why Oral Specialists Must Have Known
Those who hold that 500 years of oral tradition was nearly faultless overlook the repercussions of that belief. Either all changes happened after there were written texts, meaning that anyone could see those changes, or they were incorporated as one generation recited to the next but were not noticed. These scenarios are unlikely whereas it is more likely that changes were welcome. About 3 times per century, a memory monk would have to pass on to the next generation what he’d heard from the previous generation. Yes, errors could have been inadvertently introduced but these monks were trained to memorise and would have noticed the wholesale changes that mark the Early Buddhist pursuit. Big changes were purposeful and welcomed by reciters. If they were good enough to preserve vast amounts of material accurately, they were certainly good enough to notice when entire new sections appeared. So modern scholars face a choice between these uncomfortable options regarding those oral specialists:- They were incompetent (but then why trust anything they preserved?), or
- They were competent (but then they knowingly incorporated changes).
There Never Was a Single Version to Protect
It is a simple fact that any later version of a shared event will be recalled differently by different hearers. And given that the interval between the event and its recorded recall was so great, the discrepancy must increase markedly. The story of the First Council itself demonstrates this textual pluralism. The requirement for 500 arahants to confer in order to decide an agreed version indicates they were selecting between many versions. Purana’s refusal to accept their distillation confirms that acknowledged pluralism existed from the very beginning. There never was a single version to protect. The council of arahants was not aiming to preserve a pristine original—it was negotiating between living versions that had already diverged. The fact that the story requires 500 arahants also shows how diverse the pool of different versions was. If there was one correct version, there would be no selection and no need to confer.What the First Council Story Reveals About Institutional Priorities
Whether the First Council occurred is irrelevant; the Canon’s presentation of it already tells us what the tradition valued. The way it is presented in the Pali Canon is more revealing than its content. It tells us a number of things that privilege the continuation of the tradition over the continuation of what the Buddha actually taught.What the Parinibbāna Sutta Actually Says: Islands, Not Instructions
The Parinibbāna Sutta presents the Buddha refusing to appoint someone to continue in his place, giving the reason that he had never seen himself in that role when he was alive. He further tells the sangha to depend only on the Dhamma and Vinaya and to be islands unto themselves. This doesn’t sound like the establishment or continuation of a hierarchical tradition. Despite his physical presence in one location at a time, sangha were already scattered living in other locations, teaching in their own languages and unlikely to be following a rigid formula that matched the Buddha’s delivery. The “island” teaching suggests organic, decentralised continuity—not institutional preservation.The “Minor Rules” Anomaly
In spite of the later tendency to view his “Dhamma” as meaning formatted texts, and “Vinaya” to mean established rules, in DN16 the Canon has him allowing minor rules to be abandoned if seen fit. This brief and isolated passage would, on its own, imply that the other rules were not to be touched. That small passage seems to be the sole canonical support for the rules interpretation of “Vinaya”. But does the environment and background portrayed throughout the Canon support that reading?What Did “Dhamma” Mean?
What did he mean by “Dhamma”? He is unlikely to be referring to scriptures that did not exist at the time in any form. The Buddha is earlier recorded as rejecting the suggestion of formulating his teaching in chandas. There is no sign in the Canon that would suggest that –across 40 years of teaching– he favoured memorising his words. As far as we know, there was no form of memorised Suttas while was alive and, if he had wanted, he could have instructed they be recorded without there being any push back. There is no sign contradicting the view that he did not want scriptures.What Did “Vinaya” Mean?
“Vinaya” is likewise fascinating for if we take the view that he meant the rules in force at the time of his death, rather than the distinct process that was already in place, we have additional quandaries. Here was a man whose central message was impermanence, yet we are told he is locking his continuing message into Iron Age rules that are so specific that they forbade monks from having sex with monkeys. The Canon portrays that reactive rules were made at his say-so. Yet, there were elaborate, established, republican-style sanghakamma processes by which regional sangha could decide rules that fit their local circumstances — this alone contradicts a universal Iron Age set of rules that are plainly shown in the Canon as reactions to specific local issues, not in any way universal and more likely to have been decided by sanghakamma process than by the Buddha’s personal fiat.The Philosophical Impossibility of the “Minor Rules” Passage
If, as he claims in DN16, he never never saw himself as leader, the rules were never “his” —they were only ever the community’s. He had no leader’s position to pass on. So the “minor rules” passage is totally anachronistic. On his deathbed, his message going forward was simply a continuation, not a change: “You are already self-governing islands. You don’t need my permission to change rules because I never owned them. The Dhamma (Natural Law) is your only teacher”. The Canon portrays the Buddha as establishing self-governing, republican procedures through sanghakamma. In contrast, the Parinibbāna Sutta depicts him exercising ultimate authority over which rules may be altered. This anomaly functions as a corrective to the autonomy implied elsewhere, and that suggests a later institutional insertion —one that would have been neither relevant nor coherent during his lifetime. If he truly allowed self-government, he would not have contradicted that position by exercising control over it.The First Council: An Institutional Instrument That Contradicts Its Own Premises
The First Council narrative reveals itself as a later institutional creation through multiple internal contradictions. Most fundamentally, it immediately contravenes the sanghakamma rules it claims to uphold. It excludes ordinary sangha and has no recorded agenda; it obviously had an agenda but not one requested by the sangha in accordance with Vinaya rules. It was clearly a hierarchical decision that is itself hierarchically problematic.The Philosophical Impossibility of Arahants Judging Arahants
The treatment of Ananda at the First Council exposes a profound philosophical incoherence. Here we have an arahant—someone who has eradicated the conceit “I am” (asmimāna) and realised anattā—being criticised by other arahants, who have the same attainments, for actions taken before he attained arahantship. This scenario is philosophically impossible given the teaching itself. If anattā is true, who exactly is being blamed? The five aggregates that were configured as “Ananda-the-learner” no longer exist in the same form. To hold someone accountable across that transformation requires precisely the kind of continuous personal identity—ātman—that arahantship is supposed to transcend. The narrative can only function by presuming:- Personal continuity (the not-yet-arahant Ananda = the arahant Ananda)
- Moral responsibility spanning that transition (which would apply to all arahants)
- An enduring self that can be chastised by higher arahant authority