The History of Buddhist Thought c5.6

c5.6

fault of these investigators if they were satisfied that here we have the earliest known form, or even the primitive form, of Buddhism and that all that followed was degeneration. For Mrs. Rhys Davids even the earliest known form was degeneration. But other scholars have been at work, and we now know of other schools with an equal right to claim that they were holding the primitive teaching. The problem about the primitive teaching now becomes actual.