Studies in the Origins of Buddhism c8.22

c8.22

Sutta 1: its late features.—The very first sutta makes the difficulties in the way of a clear-cut stratification apparent: it is a long and unitary composition, full of repetitions. It elaborately enumerates in a systematic manner sixty two speculative theses (Vatthus). The formular expressions appear long fossilized. Many of them recur identically in other parts of the canon. The Buddhists have here developed cosmological speculations of their own, which are in the same state as in the Pāṭika-suttanta. Further, the majjhima° and mahāsīlas are clearly inflated forms of the cūla°. The “eel-wrigglers”, it is possible, have been made to vascillate over more problems than they ever knew: the list of these problems appears to have attained its present length through the mechanical addition of further items taken over from other contexts.