ABSTRACT
Buddha taught by word of mouth and by personal example. So far as we know, he didn’t commit anything to writing. Thus, all that we know of Buddha’s teaching has come down to us from others. From the very beginning, though, an oral tradition existed, and eventually a written tradition developed as well. Approximately four centuries after Buddha’s death, a great effort was made to gather together the existing sources and determine, insofar as was possible, the true record of Buddha’s life and teaching. That scholarly and thoroughgoing work came to be known as the Pali Canon. We shall examine it in detail in Chapter 11. The Pali Canon is the scriptural core of the first great organized movement in the evolution of Buddhism. For our purposes, that can be equated with the tradition known as Theravada.
