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**fiettariaps** · 08-29-2010, 02:16 PM

Sure, before they were written down they were faithfully passed on by monks.

The Theravadans in Burma (and l think Sri Lanka) recite the whole of the Abhidhamma from memory,this is done in relays,when the monk in front of you wants to rest you take over,(the point here is that they don't have set pieces that they have memorised) so each monk needs to know the whole Abhidhamma.
I don't know how often this feat is carried out.

I can't speak for all sects, but in the Thai forest tradition, each sizeable wat (temple/monastery) must have at least one monk who can recite the entire Patimokkha. I don't know of any tradition that recites the Abhidhamma, though they may exist. The Abhidhamma is huge and largely incomprehensible to all but the most dedicated scholars.

As to changes that may have taken place in the suttas over the years: A great deal of scholarship has been done on this question. I'm currently reading What the Buddha Thought, by Richard Gombrich. The author details quite a few convincing reasons to believe that many suttas have undergone relatively minor revisions.

I recommend this book not only for the author's insight into that area of study, but because the book also references quite a few other Buddhist scholars and their works on the same question. Furthermore, it looks at the development of the Canon, the suttas, language, concepts and imagery in their temporal and ideological contexts. The suttas are full of oblique references to concepts in the Upanishads, for example, and the ideas would have been easily recognizable to the Buddha's contemporaries, but are mostly lost on the majority of modern readers. When we read a sutta today, we get a much different message from the one the Buddha's contemporaries would have got.

That said, the internal consistency of the Canon is such that the core messages seem to have survived intact. That some key concepts in the Mahayana-only literature blatantly contradict some of the key concepts in the Pali is a matter of record. It's up to the individual to decide whether or not those latter adaptations to the message are justifiable, i.e, whether or not they actually represent an improvement on the ideas contained in the original suttas. One thing that's clear to western Buddhist scholars, however, is that the claim that the Mahayana suttas are the actual words of the Buddha is so weak as to be justifiably disregarded.

08-29-2010, 02:16 PM	#30
fiettariaps Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 419 Senior Member	Sure, before they were written down they were faithfully passed on by monks. The Theravadans in Burma (and l think Sri Lanka) recite the whole of the Abhidhamma from memory,this is done in relays,when the monk in front of you wants to rest you take over,(the point here is that they don't have set pieces that they have memorised) so each monk needs to know the whole Abhidhamma. I don't know how often this feat is carried out. I can't speak for all sects, but in the Thai forest tradition, each sizeable wat (temple/monastery) must have at least one monk who can recite the entire Patimokkha. I don't know of any tradition that recites the Abhidhamma, though they may exist. The Abhidhamma is huge and largely incomprehensible to all but the most dedicated scholars. As to changes that may have taken place in the suttas over the years: A great deal of scholarship has been done on this question. I'm currently reading What the Buddha Thought, by Richard Gombrich. The author details quite a few convincing reasons to believe that many suttas have undergone relatively minor revisions. I recommend this book not only for the author's insight into that area of study, but because the book also references quite a few other Buddhist scholars and their works on the same question. Furthermore, it looks at the development of the Canon, the suttas, language, concepts and imagery in their temporal and ideological contexts. The suttas are full of oblique references to concepts in the Upanishads, for example, and the ideas would have been easily recognizable to the Buddha's contemporaries, but are mostly lost on the majority of modern readers. When we read a sutta today, we get a much different message from the one the Buddha's contemporaries would have got. That said, the internal consistency of the Canon is such that the core messages seem to have survived intact. That some key concepts in the Mahayana-only literature blatantly contradict some of the key concepts in the Pali is a matter of record. It's up to the individual to decide whether or not those latter adaptations to the message are justifiable, i.e, whether or not they actually represent an improvement on the ideas contained in the original suttas. One thing that's clear to western Buddhist scholars, however, is that the claim that the Mahayana suttas are the actual words of the Buddha is so weak as to be justifiably disregarded.
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