ABSTRACT
Dating and establishing chronologies for Buddhist manuscripts from ancient India pose problems in ways that differ from those associated with the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Near East. Two chronologies exist for the Buddha, one assigning his death to the first quarter of the fifth century BCE, the other about a hundred years later to the fourth (cf. Bechert 1991-97); more precise dates are not available. Except for the still undeciphered Indus Valley Script of the third and second millennia BCE, there is no evidence of writing in India prior to the third century BCE, and the oldest presently known manuscripts date from the first century CE, as we will see in the following section. This indicates an oral transmission of the Buddha’s teachings for at least a hundred years and probably for a much longer period. The initial orality is also reflected in the semihistorical reports preserved in the various Buddhist traditions. In the Therava¯da, the Buddhism of Sri Lanka and South East Asia, this development is described as collecting and structuring orally transmitted pieces: a few months after the death of the Buddha, his words, hitherto preserved in individual discourses, were recited by eminent monks and then collected in order to establish and confirm them as the “authentic” message of the Buddha (buddhavacana). They were arranged according to a structured scheme of classification, which was the system of the Tripit.aka-the “Three Baskets,” and from then on faithfully transmitted within groups or schools of reciters. For several centuries, the transmission remained oral, until it was decided to adopt the medium of writing and to preserve and transmit the Tripit.aka not only through learning it by heart, but also through writing it down. This is how the Therava¯da presents the transmission of the word of the Buddha, and the reports of other Buddhist schools, although differing in many points, agree at least with regard to the structured collection of oral discourses.1 For all we know, this picture is, at least in part, not likely to be true.
