Religions and Accuracy of teachings

By Prof. Kapila Abhayawansa, Thailand

(March 28, Bangkok,Sri Lanka Guardian)With reference to the letter of Dr. S. Abeyesundara on March 23, 2009 where a question appeared as "Is Buddhism, as we are taught today, the authentic preaching of the Enlightened One?" originally raised by Mr. Jayatissa perera in his letter on March 20, 2009, I would like to present the following observations.

It should be mentioned here that the question given above is ambiguous for the term Buddhism in the question is qualified by the phrase "as we are taught today". There are preachers of Buddhism today who think whatever they know and say is Buddhism. Without understanding even for themselves the teachings of the Buddha, they try to make others understand Buddhism. Their sole aim is to gain fame and popularity. There is another type of preachers, disguised as Buddhist scholars, interpret Buddhism in the wrong way with the intention of distorting real Buddhist teachings. There are still others who present the teaching of the Buddha as they understand them going through Buddhist canonical scriptures known as Tripitaka. As there are different preachers of Buddhism with different purposes of their own, the question above may be clearer if the particular kind of preachers was specified.

Dr. S. Abeyesundara’s question as it was phrased and the context given in effect refers to the teachings included in the Tripitaka for he mentioned that "I therefore, ask how could such a deep and complex philosophy, as that was preached by the Buddha, have been accurately recorded after a considerable lapse of time…". The writer accepts that the Buddha preached deep and complex philosophy as contained in the Tripitaka. There is no other way to know the teachings of the Buddha other than from the Tripitaka. Then the question remains as to what amount or which part of the content of the Tripitaka is accurate, authentic and authoritative.

It is true that the present Tripitaka as it came down to us passed through several stages of development up to the time that it was written down in the 1st century A.D. After that, it is certain that there were no major changes made to the Tripitaka except for minor writing or spelling errors. Those minor errors in no way alter the contents of the Tripitaka.

The Tripitaka, the content of which is believed to be the teachings of the Buddha by the Theravadians, no doubt contains not only the original stuff recorded immediately after the passing away of the Buddha but also some later additions. The whole Abhidharma Pitaka is a doctrinal synthesis-cum-analysis based on the discourses of the Buddha presented in the Sutta Pitaka. The Vinaya Pitaka, consisting five books, contains not only the Vinaya rules promulgated by the Buddha to regulate the conduct of the monks and the nuns but also their analyses and some historical events in the dispensation of the Buddha. The Sutta Pitaka contains discourses which are considered to be more authentic teachings of the Buddha and also some discourses which give rise to the doubt in the mind of the critical readers about their authenticity as the original teachings of the Buddha.

Though there are later additions to the teachings of the Buddha as now contained in the Tripitaka, there is no sustainable evidence to show that there were attempts to distort the original teachings of the Buddha other than to highlight them. One who is interested in the original and accurate teaching of the Buddha should look for it in the discourses presented in the Sutta Pitaka as there is no other way to do so. We are given the criteria to determine the true teachings of the Buddha in the discourses. The Buddha expressed in a discourse in Anguttara Nikaya, "I advocate now and in the past as well only two things, namely, suffering and the cessation of suffering." It is unanimously accepted by all the Buddhist schools without a single doubt that the Buddha’s sole purpose is to show to mankind the truth of suffering and the path leading to the cessation of suffering.

Another criterion given in the discourses is that whatever is leading to enlightenment, mental appeasement, cessation of defilement and liberation is the doctrine of the Buddha. Depending on these criteria, one can easily determine and define what the true teachings of the Buddha are. It should be noted here that it can be done only by one who is familiar with the discourses.

To determine the authenticity of the teachings of the Buddha, the verbal structure is not so important. What is important is to know what is said through the verbal structure of the discourses. Discourses of the Buddha in the Sutta Pitaka are believed to be presented by Venerable Ananda at the first Buddhist council which took place three months after the Buddha’s Parinibbana. It is our fault to accept the word by word of the discourses as the Buddha’s own words. In reality, Venerable Ananda presented the teaching of the Buddhist formulas as he remembered them using his own method of memorising. This does not affect the authenticity of the doctrine. The authenticity of the Dhamma and the Vinaya presented at the 1st Buddhist synod as the true doctrine and discipline was attested by the five hundred immediate disciples of the Buddha present in the synod. It is important to consider that those five hundred monks were not the mere simple monks but were well versed in Dhamma and Vinaya (Dhammadhar?, Vinaya dhar?).

The task of the first Buddhist council was to collect the teachings of the master, categorise them into Dhamma and Vinaya and to appoint suitable teachers to protect them through the generations to come. The starting point of the appointment of the Bahnakas (those who were responsible for protecting the Dhamma-Vinaya by memorising by heart and keeping them in their mind) can be traced back to the 1st Buddhist council. This was the way how the Buddhist canonical scriptures came down to us until their written form.

If this is so, how then additions came into the Tripitaka? It is generally believed that the additions such as Abhidhamma and some books of Khuddaka Nikaya crept into Tripitaka during the 1st three hundred years after the passing away of the Buddha. It should be remembered that those additions were accepted into the Tripitaka by the common consent of the Sangha as they really provide some expositions to the teachings of the Buddha. In addition to these expository treaties, there are some discourses in the Nikayas which are also supposed to be later additions. These discourses do not speak much about the doctrine of the Buddha. Most of them include the legends. ?t?n?tiya, Mah?samaya, Dhajagga, Aggañña, K?tadanta and the like can be considered as belonging to that category. Antiquity of these sutras goes far back to the period between 6th and 3rd century B.C.. Authenticity of these discourses is questioned as they do not have much relevance to the original doctrinal teachings of the Buddha. The inclusion of those sutras into the Tripitaka can be ascribed to different reasons other than the doctrinal analysis. It is important to point out that such discourses have nothing to do with the genuine doctrinal teachings of the Buddha.

If we set aside those discourses in question regarding their authenticity, we have more than enough discourses in the Sutta Pitaka, which refer directly to the original and accurate teachings of the Buddha. As pointed out earlier, it is obvious that the most important teachings of the Buddha were presented by him in relation to the nature of suffering and cessation of suffering. The doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths, Noble Eight-fold Path, theory of Dependent Co-Arising, three characteristics of the existence, five aggregates of grasping, Kamma, Punnabhava, and Nibbana are teachings on the truths of sufferings and cessation of sufferings, teachings unanimously accepted by all the Buddhist schools as the true and accurate teachings of the Buddha. There is a huge collection of discourses in the Sutta Pitaka which describe those doctrines in various ways.

The Buddha not only presented his doctrinal points but also attempted to bring people to the correct path by criticizing different illnesses and wrong paths that existed then . Therefore there is another category of discourses which deal with philosophical, ethical, social, political and economical aspects of the people. When we compare the teachings presented in these discourses with the other contemporary ones in India, there is no question regarding their authenticity.

When we have such a huge collection of discourses which refer to the true teachings of the Buddha, is there room for questioning their authenticity? According to Dr. Abeyesundara, authenticity and accuracy of the teachings of the Buddha, as we are taught today, are questionable because of the inability to recollect word by word the preaching of the Buddha by the compilers. Dr. Abeyesundara’s simple test is really insufficient to prove the capacity of recollection of the students in the ancient system of education. In the ancient education system, complete attention was focused on remembering or memorising what was said by the teacher. Different methods of memorizing were adopted by the students to remember what they were taught. One of the methods was to memorize by heart and repeatedly recite what was memorized. Therefore, there is this difference value and training in emphasis and learning in memorizing in the ancient system of education that is not commonly found in the present system.

We have to accept the fact that there are some people who have the marvelous capacity and capability for memorizing and recollecting. In this respect, there is not only the example of the capacity of Venerable Ananda who recited the discourses at the first council and who is said to be the foremost disciple among the monks who have well- heard (Bahussuta) and well-remembered the Dhamma (Dhammadhara), we can think of the great Pali commentator, Venerable Buddhaghosa and his extraordinary power of keeping the Dhamma in his mind and the recollecting it. Venerable Buddhaghosa lived in a much later time than Venerable Ananda. Visuddhimagga, a book of Buddhaghosa is a living example to show his enormous ability of keeping the discourses in his mind. One would be amazed at the huge number of references to the different discourses of the Buddha given in the Visuddhimagga by Buddhaghosa.

There is an interesting story in the commentary of Anguttara Nikaya on an attempt taken by the monks to protect the Dhamma. During the famine of Brahmana tissa (Beminitiya? s?ya) in Sri Lanka, there was a scarcity of monks who remembered the Dhamma. A group of monks gathered together and discussed how to preserve the Dhamma in this difficult period. One part of the group decided to go to India with the intention to come back when the famine was over while the other part remained in Sri Lanka. The monks who remained in Sri Lanka spent the time reciting the Dhamma day by day up to the end of the famine. Knowing the famine was over, the monks who went to India returned to Sri Lanka and met their colleagues. In their meeting, they recited the Dhamma together. At their recitation, there was not even a slight difference of the recitation of the two parties.

As the story reveals, the monks attempted to preserve the purity of the teachings of the Buddha from generation to generation. Their dedication to the teachings was so strong that they paid more attention to the teachings of the Buddha than to their own life. That there was room for human error to creep in when the teachings were recorded was skepticism without understanding the extent of effort and method and how the teachings were preserved.

Dr. Abeyesundara further mentions that there is a room for human interpretation of the original material to undoubtedly creep in. There is no evidence to show that the monks who collected the original teachings of the Buddha, the monks who recited what was collected at the first council or the monks who were assigned to protect the Dhamma tried to insert their own interpretations of the original teachings of the Buddha. There are some discourses in the Nikayas originally designed for interpretation. But these discourses were ascribed either to the Buddha or to some other disciples well versed with the teachings of the Buddha, such as S?riputta, Moggall?na, Mah?kacc?na or Theri Dhammdinn?. Their names were given in the discourses concerned. If any interpretation was needed for further clarification of the teachings of the Buddha, it was not done in the discourse itself. For that purpose, the ancient monks created another type of literature for the interpretation, clarification and exposition in commentaries (Atthakath?), distinct from the discourses. Therefore, as far as Buddhist canonical scriptures are concerned there was no room for non-accepted human interpretation to creep into the original teachings.

-Sri Lanka Guardian