ABSTRACT
If there is anything that seems to be taken for granted in modern representations of Buddhism it is that it is and always has been a religion marked by tolerance and acceptance in all areas. One example of this is the widespread notion that, unlike Christianity for example, Buddhism has always had an open-minded approach to doctrine and scripture, allowing and even encouraging the ongoing production of sacred text without the sort of closure – assumed of the Christian canon – that brands some texts as spurious, others as apocryphal, and still others as downright heretical. This is underscored by the further claim that Buddhism is a practice-centered religion rather than a belief- or doctrine-centered one – that is, Buddhism is about orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy, what one does, not what one believes.
