A Note on the PΔli Canon
(Originally posted on April 27. Major revisions on June 3, 2022.) In chapter 5 of A Buddha Land in This World, I wrote that until the sΕ«tras in the PΔli canon were written down they were recited in periodic meetings of monks, but we have no consistent evidence about the nature, form, and frequency of these meetings, nor about how reliable this process was. However, when I reread this, I wasnβt entirely happy with this sentence because it seems to suggest that I think that oral transmission is the biggest problem for the authenticity of the content of the PΔli...