ABSTRACT
Somewhat inevitably, de Jong concludes: ‘We will never be able to know the contents of the teachings of the Buddha himself.’5 A slightly earlier, and simpler, version of this claim is found in A.B.Keith’s statement that any attempt to ascribe texts to the Buddha is futile: ‘All that we can do is to indulge in the legitimate, if somewhat useless, exercise of conjecturing what part of the doctrines which pass later as Buddhist is most likely to have been his own.’6
