ABSTRACT
If the concept of skilful means is of such central importance in early Mahayana Buddhism the question inevitably arises as to what role it played in early Buddhism or even in the teaching of the Buddha himself. As far as the latter is concerned it must be stated forthwith that there is no evidence whatever that the Buddha himself ever used the terminology of skilful means. On the other hand, it is very difficult to make any definite statement in any case about what the Buddha taught in person and what belongs to later explication and schematisation. Even if there were more information than is in fact available about the pedigree of the terms ‘means’ and ‘skill in means’ it would probably still remain a matter of judgement as to whether the idea should be associated with the person of the Buddha or not. The fact of the matter is that we cannot say that the Buddha himself used these terms, while at the same time the terms themselves say something about the nature of his teaching which it would be very difficult to dissociate from the initiator of the Buddhist tradition.
