The History of Buddhist Thought c28.13

c28.13

This scholar pointed out that the Pāli scholars relinquished the examination of Northern sources, and took no account of them. “They are passionately attached to the exegesis of the Southern [i.e. Pāli] Scriptures, which are in appearance more archaic and better documented. The results of these labours are of the highest importance, both for the history of religions in general, as well as for that of Buddhist and Indian ideas. Oldenberg’s book is a perfect exposition : Pāli Buddhism cannot be better described, or the intellectual and moral factors more artistically demonstrated, and the idea which a Sinhalese doctor makes of his religion and destiny more precisely set out. Oldenberg’s error was to entitle his book : *Buddha, his life, his doctrine, his community*. He should have added, ‘according to Pāli sources and the principles of the Sinhalese Church.’ Now by commenting on the Sinhalese traditions without exactly fixing their date and character there is a risk of falsifying the history of Buddhism in its general spirit and in its very signification. . . . Too easily persuaded that they know primitive Buddhism, European [Pāli] exegetes regard the different Canons of the Churches of the North as almost modern compositions, in which heretical, adventitious, and heterogeneous doctrines have become definite in the course of centuries.” ¹