Bhikkhu Sujato, a young Australian monk with a background in philosophy, is one of my heroes because of his ability to think critically about the Buddhist tradition, and especially for his thinking on the relation between samatha and vipassana approaches to meditation. I admire his geekiness.
Anyway, here he is on the question of the authenticity of Mahayana sutras:
One of our commenters asked about whether the Lotus Sutra was considered authentic according to the Theravadin view.
To answer this from the traditional Theravadin point of view, all the Mahayana Sutras are inauthentic in the sense that they were not spoken by the Buddha. Historically, Theravada has tended to take a dim view of Mahayana, regarding it as a mere degeneration of the pure teachings.
That the Lotus Sutra and other Mahayana Sutras were not spoken by the Buddha is unanimously supported by modern scholarship. I don’t know of a single academic in the last 150 years who has argued otherwise. The basic historical background is given in Wikipedia. The upshot is that the Lotus Sutra was composed over a period of time, or in a number of stages. The oldest sources probably stem from a little before the common era, and it was finalized around 200 CE. This makes it one of the earliest Mahayana Sutras (and it is even argued that the earliest form of the sutra may not have even been Mahayana).
So there is no doubt that the Lotus Suta and other Mahayana sutras are historically late, dating from many centuries after the Buddha. When reading them as historical documents, rather than seeing them as spoken by the Buddha, we should see them as the response and articulation by Buddhists of the past to the conditions that they were in. They were addressing matters of concern for them, asking how the Dhamma is to be applied in these situations. Of course the same is true of many Theravadin texts, although in the case of the early Suttas and Vinaya there is still a core that probably stems from the Buddha himself.
Why were the Mahayana Sutras phrased as if spoken literally by the Buddha? This is a difficult question, and there is unlikely to be one answer. Partly it was just how the literary form evolved. But I suspect, given the visionary nature of many Mahayanist texts, that they often stemmed from meditation experiences; visions of the Buddha, memories of ‘teachings’ received while in samadhi. Perhaps the authors of these texts believed that the Buddha was really present to them in some sense – and this is indeed the theme of many Mahayana sutras. Or perhaps they more humbly believed that they had gained insight into the Dhamma in some direct way.
This has obvious relevance for those interested in Fake Buddha Quotes. From a certain point of view, all Mahayana Sutras are Fake Buddha Quotes. But this doesn’t undermine their spiritual relevance or usefulness. I’ve never claimed that the message of any Fake Quote is diminished because it the words don’t happen to stem from the Buddha. In saying that a quote isn’t from the Buddha, I am not automatically saying that the quote isn’t valid. The validity of the quote is a separate matter.
Here’s a link to Bhikkhu Sujato’s blog. It’s worth a visit.
All authentic quotes will, of course, be empty because: “If you can see the signless nature of signs, then you can see the Tathagata” – but then that is from the Diamond Sutra
I also like what Richard Gombrich has said – that jokes and irony in the sutras are a sign authenticity because committees just don’t have a sense of humour.
So, are you taking “a certain point of view” and considering Mahayana Sutras to be fake Buddha quotes?
Well, yes. Anything that purports to be the word of the Buddha, but which was composed hundreds of years after he died is, by my definition, a Fake Buddha Quote. But as I said, that doesn’t affect the spiritual value of those teachings. That’s a separate matter.
I really appreciate the interesting philological work you are doing here. I am not an expert on Buddhism but I am a philologist of ancient Greek texts. I just want to point out that the question of a “real” or “fake” quote is really just a matter of whether it authentically goes back to an ancient text. Whether the ancient text was an accurate representation of the original speaker is really a totally different issue. In most cases, it’s unverifiable. For example, we can prove whether someone is quoting the gospel of John or not, but there is no way to be sure that “John” was quoting Jesus accurately. I practice in a Mahayana tradition, and while I certainly accept that historically speaking the Theravada canon is more likely to go back to the historical Buddha, it is reasonable to assume that there was at least some evolution in the memory of the Buddha’s words before they were written down in the form we know them. I have watched similar debates about the historical Jesus for many years now and have observed that there is a danger when people get too worked up over who has access to the most authentic historical information. All Buddhist traditions have taken on a life of their own ever since Gautama first spun the wheel of the dharma.
Hi, Jason.
I agree completely with everything you write. Although it’s possible to identify fake quotes (for example because they can be identified as coming from another source) it’s not possible with absolute certainty to say that any words found in the original scriptures are genuine.
The question of the spiritual value of texts also has nothing to do with whether they come from the Buddha. In the end it comes down to whether they are spiritually useful when put into practice. Very little, if anything, in the Mahayana Sutras will have been uttered by the Buddha, but that’s beside they point. In many cases they are of great spiritual depth and presumably were composed by practitioners with a great deal of spiritual insight.
Actually, I just read your “About” section for the first time and see that you address many of these points there. You also mention that the historical or factual accuracy nonetheless matters, and I agree with that as well. Any religious tradition that emphasizes historical individuals and sacred texts will be better served if its practitioners have a more factual and accurate understanding of their tradition’s past. But in order to do this honestly and critically, we have to relinquish the assumption that spiritual validity is confirmed exclusively by antiquity (i.e the older and more original the more spiritually valid). I am also involved in the world of Ashtanga yoga and a similar problem has recently emerged there. For many years Ashtanga practitioners have practiced the traditional sequence of postures under the assumption that the postures were thousands of years old and were preserved on an ancient text called the Yoga Karunta. However, recent scholarship (see Singleton’s The Yoga Body) has shown almost without doubt that the Karunta was not real and the postures are a relatively modern invention. Now many Ashtanga yogis feel that the integrity of their practice is threatened and are either refusing to accept the objective scholarship with a lot of evidence or are feeling disheartened that they are no longer practicing something that is sufficiently ancient to make it authentic. Personally, I find the news exciting because it is a reminder that we are taking part in living traditions that are ever evolving.
There’s a sectarian bias in this item. Yes, scholars agree that the Mahayana sutras [as we have them] were composed centuries after the Buddha. But they also agree that the Pali canon, as we have it, was written down even later than the earliest Mahayana sutras, and that the Pali canon is layered. Don’t allow your cogent observations fall into fundamentalism.
If your comment is for Bhikkhu Sujato, Mark, I’d suggest posting it over on the original blog post: http://sujato.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/is-the-lotus-sutra-authentic/
The date of the earlier writing of suttas/sutras is, I’d imagine, impossible to determine. It’s possible that the earliest Mahayana Sutras were composed about the same time as the writing down of the first Pali (and other) nikaya suttas, but there’s a difference, surely, between the first writing of something that has been passed down orally for a long time, and the composition of a new text.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with Bhikkhu Sujato’s work, but it would be odd to describe him as a fundamentalist in any sense. He’s pro marriage equality, pro Bhikkhuni ordination, does work on how the Pali texts have been manipulated for sectarian ends, etc. In other words I think you’re perhaps jumping to conclusions.
Intriguing blog post you have. I am practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism for three and a half years and this is the first I have ever heard of the Buddha’s words being falsified. As my spirit continues to seek enlightenment, I have an gained an understanding that out of the fifty years the Buddha shared his teachings, the last eight years in which he spoke of the mystic law were lost because most of the bodhisvattas left his side, prior obtaining the remaining sutras, to share this enlightenment with as many people as they could.
Humbly I ask where or what parts of the lotus sutra you are suggesting are not authentic?
Thank you
If your comment is for Bhikkhu Sujato, Mark, I’d suggest posting it over on the original blog post: http://sujato.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/is-the-lotus-sutra-authentic/
From considerations of literary style, language, and spiritual content, it’s pretty certain that none of the Lotus sutra was taught by the Buddha himself — if that’s what you mean by “authentic.” That doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually inauthentic, though. That’s a separate question, and the authors of the Lotus Sutra may well have been highly realized individuals.
There are problems with the “authenticity” of the Pali suttas as well, of course. It was passed down orally for a long time, and as a result I’m sure a lot of the nuance, humor and personality became drained. And there was tampering and “improving” of the texts. Almost certainly some of the Pail texts will correspond to the words the Buddha actually used, but it’s impossible to say for sure which ones.
But in a way this doesn’t matter. As the Buddha said (or so we can assume!) the arbiter of what constitutes a “genuine” teaching is whether, when put into practice, it leads to the elimination of greed, hatred, and delusion.
To me, language is all problematic. It boils down to either our logic and our faith. Who has the ability to truly understand some dead languages, be it Sanskrit or Pali, anyway.
BTW, all English versions of suttas and sutras are nothing more than translated versions, and obviously, unauthentic by default! Gautama Buddha couldn’t speak English, I suppose.
Is Gautama Buddha the first and the last being who became enlightened? I don’t think so.
Was the compilation of Mahayana or Theravadin more subject to politics and/or other manipulation?
Remember, all sutras or suttas were compiled. To this end, I don’t think the scripts from South Asia or countries like Burma are more authentic.
Also, a lot of the scripts that appeared in the past were not included. Who had the right to compile the so-called “right” set of suttras or suttas? Perhaps only Gautama Buddha himself! Or perhaps anyone who was/is/will be enlightened!
Just by looking at the name “Teaching Of The Elders”, I see a lot of politics and hierarchy there! I don’t like this. Unless they change it to a more neutral name, I wouldn’t buy it! I can see why Mahayana broke away from this so-called Elders’ sect!
Last but not least, why did the emperor in Tang Dynasty send a representative to India to get something that was not authentic? Was the representative stupid? Didn’t he do any research about what was and what was not authentic? The representative sent to India was praised by many as a genius who probably had a smarter brain than many modern so-called scholars! Well, I also have a PhD and I know how sloppy the so-called modern research is about. History is not even a scientific subject.
So you’re arguing that there’s no way to establish that something is a genuine quote from the Buddha? That’s great, because it’s something I’ve said here many times. But that’s irrelevant to determining whether or not a particular quote is fake — that is, that there’s no evidence of that quote in the Buddhist scriptures. If a quote from, say, Marie Curie or Rabelais has been misattributed to the Buddha, then that’s not that hard to establish. If something has been translated so badly that it no longer represents the original language, then that’s also not that hard to establish.
If you agree, then why use the term ‘Fake’ for the Mahayana texts? Fake has a judgemental tone in it and it seems that Theravadins are trying to prove that what they have is authentic. Is this what one would expect from a few thousand years old tradition? Is this the kind of spiritual enlightenment one gains after following this tradition? Why even fall into this debate: Isn’t it Buddha kept quite when he had no answer for a question e.g. whether there is soul or not?
I’m not taking a pro-Theravada stance here. There’s no way to prove whether any of the Pali canon is the actual utterance of the Buddha. I rather suspect that some of is, but there’s no way to prove that. And it’s quite obvious that the Pali scriptures have been altered by making them repetitive (and thus easier to memorize) and sometimes altered for political reasons. Bhikkhu Sujato describes the Satipatthana Sutta, for example, as being the “Piltdown Sutta” (after a famous paleontological forgery). So I don’t take the standard Theravada stance that their scriptures are the actual word of the Buddha.
What I said about the Mahayana Sutras is that they are “fake” from a certain point of view — that is, they claim to be records of the word of the Buddha, but they’re not. That makes them not so different from the Pali canon, actually!
But when it comes to verifying purported Buddha quotes, I actually only describe them as “Fake Buddha Quotes” if they do not come from a canon. Whether it’s the Pali canon or one of the Mahayana collections isn’t important to me. So in practice I’m not going to start posting parts of the Heart Sutra and saying that they’re “Fake Buddha Quotes.”