The composition and transmission of early Buddhist texts with specific reference to sutras
By: Mark Allon
Series: Hamburg Buddhist studies -- 17; Hamburg Buddhist studies -- 17.
Publisher: Projekt Verlag
Published: 2021
Place of publication: Bochum/Freiburg
Language: eng
Number of pages: 142
ISBN-13: 9783897335523
Copyright date: 2021
Subjects: Buddhism; Sacred books; History; Transmission of texts; Bouddhisme; Livres sacrés; Histoire; Transmission de textes
Description: This study discusses the composition and transmission of early Buddhist texts with specific reference to sutra (sutta/sutra) texts. Based on an initial overview of the stylistic and structural characteristics of these texts and the principles employed in the creation and organization of sutra and verse collections that, I argue, indicate that they were oral compositions that were intended to be memorized and transmitted verbatim, the study focuses on the types of changes that these texts underwent in the course of their transmission, both intentional and unintentional, and the reasons such changes occurred. It then gives an account of the challenges that change, particularly intentional change, must have posed to the oral transmission of fixed texts.
Notes: "Numata Center for Buddhist Studies"--Cover

Includes bibliographical references (pages 125-142)
Table of contents: title: 1. Introduction; title: 2. The stylistic features of sutra prose and what they reveal about the composition and transmission of these texts; title: 3. References within canonical texts to tests being memorized and recited communally; title: 4. The formation of sutra and verse collections and the samgitikaras and bhanakas; title: 5. The main differences between parallel versions of early Buddhist texts and accounting for these differences; title: 6. Recent scholarship on the composition of early Buddhist texts, and initiating and adapting to change.