ABSTRACT
We are accustomed to talking loosely of Buddhist texts being canonical or non-canonical. Perhaps we ought to try to define what precisely we mean by “canonical”, because when discussing the period of early Buddhism to which these lectures have been mainly devoted, scholars tend to use the terms in different, and therefore confusing, ways. For example, Étienne Lamotte asserted that there was no question of there being either a canon or a before the end of the Mauryan period, and he stated categorically that there was no canon, Magadhan or otherwise, before the period of Aśoka.1 Since it has been pointed out that a western term such as “canonical”, although convenient, must nevertheless be used with circumspection,2 we must recognise, when considering Lamotte’s statement, that much hinges upon the definition of “canon”, because there is a danger that we may be perpetrating an anachronism by trying to read the wrong concept of the word “canonical” into the period immediately preceding and following the time of the Buddha’s death.
