Pre-sectarian Buddhism

• 1. Pre-sectarian Buddhism

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  Pre-sectarian Buddhism is what scholars call the earliest form of the faith, before distinct schools took shape around 250 BCE. Lambert Schmithausen defines it as "the canonical period prior to the development of different schools with their different positions." No text from that era survives in unrevised form.

  Every Buddhist canon that exists was compiled and edited by a particular school. Those schools did not exist during the Buddha's lifetime. They emerged over time. The first documented split in the sangha occurred during or after the reign of Ashoka, who ruled from around 268-232 BCE.

  Eighteen different schools eventually came into existence. The Sthavira Nikaya and the Mahasanghika are described as the first post-schismatic groups. What came before all of them is what scholars have tried for more than a century to recover.

  What did that original teaching contain? Were the Four Noble Truths part of it, or added later? Did liberation hinge on meditation, on insight, or on something combining both? And can any reliable answer be found in texts that are all, by definition, already products of the schools? These questions run through every debate in the field.

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• 2. Wanderers Against the Vedas

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  The time of the Buddha was a period of urbanisation in India. Wandering philosophers known as sramaṇas were spreading across the subcontinent, rejecting the authority of the Vedas and the Brahmanical priesthood. Their shared aim was escape from saṃsara, the endless cycle of birth and death.

  The sramaṇa movement was intellectually diverse. It gave rise to Yoga, Jainism, the Ajivika school, the Ajnana tradition, and the materialist Carvaka philosophy, as well as Buddhism. Key concepts that would eventually pervade all major Indian religions crystallised within this broader ferment. Saṃsara and moksha, liberation from the cycle, took their defining shape here.

  Vedic ritual, which aimed at entrance into heaven, may have catalysed the sramaṇa search for something deeper. The realisation that sacrifice could not produce permanent freedom pushed these thinkers toward ascetic practices and ethical self-discipline instead. Orthodox Brahmanical schools labelled the sramaṇas "heterodox" (nastika), because they refused to accept the Vedas as an authoritative source of knowledge.

  Ideas of saṃsara, karma, and rebirth showed a distinctive development within Indian thought during this period. Early conceptions involved a single existence followed by reward or punishment. Later, that gave way to the idea of multiple existences in an endless series. Then came the attempt to gain release from the series entirely.

  Pre-sectarian Buddhism may have incorporated Vedic and Jain ideas and practices alongside ideas from other sramaṇic traditions. That cross-pollination would make recovering a purely original Buddhism considerably harder still.

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• 3. Comparing the Canons

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  Samuel Beal launched the comparative study of Buddhist scriptures in 1859, when he published translations of the Pali Patimokkha alongside the Chinese Dharmaguptaka Pratimoksa. The two texts, from entirely different traditions and regions, were virtually identical. Beal then compared Chinese sutras with Pali suttas in 1882. He predicted that when the Vinaya and Agama collections were "thoroughly examined," most Pali suttas would be found in Chinese form as well.

  Subsequent scholars, including Anesaki, Akanuma, Yin Shun, and Thich Minh Chau, proved that prediction accurate over the following decades. Akanuma composed a complete catalogue of parallels. More recent work by Analayo, Marcus Bingenheimer, and Mun-keat Choong has confirmed that the essential doctrinal content of the Pali Majjhima and Samyutta Nikayas closely matches the Chinese Madhyama and Samyukta Agamas. As Analayo notes, the agreement holds with only "occasional divergence in details."

  The Theravadin Pali Canon, compared against surviving scriptures from the Sarvastivada, Mulasarvastivada, Mahisasaka, and Dharmaguptaka schools, forms the backbone of the comparative method. Chinese agamas and surviving portions of other early canons, including Gandharan texts, also feed into the comparison. Early proto-Mahayana texts like the Salistamba Sutra, which contain material nearly identical to the Pali Canon, add another layer of evidence.

  Rupert Gethin and Peter Harvey concluded that the oldest recorded teachings are in the first four Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka. These appear alongside their parallels in other languages and the main body of monastic rules in the Patimokkha. Within that material, some scholars have identified an even earlier core: certain poems and phrases appear to be the oldest parts of the Sutta Pitaka of all.

  Yet Tillmann Vetter cautioned that comparing the oldest extant texts does not straightforwardly reveal the oldest nucleus of doctrine. At best, he argued, the method leads to a common pre-schismatic layer, not to the original teaching.

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• 4. Optimists and Skeptics

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  Lambert Schmithausen identified three positions that scholars hold on whether earliest Buddhism can be extracted from the texts. One group stresses "the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity" of much of the Nikayic material. A second is deeply skeptical that any such reconstruction is possible. The third takes a position of "cautious optimism."

  Etienne Lamotte wrote in his History of Indian Buddhism that it is "impossible to say with certainty" what the historical Buddha taught. Even so, he held that the agreement between the Nikayas and the Agamas is the "only valid evidence" we possess. Hajime Nakamura agreed that no word can be traced "with unquestionable authority to Gotama Sakyamuni." He nonetheless argued that scholars could search the early scriptures critically for the oldest layer. Nakamura identified some of the earliest material as the Gathas in the Sutta Nipata and the Sagatha-vagga of the Samyutta Nikaya. He also pointed to the Itivuttaka and the Udana.

  Richard Gombrich went further. He argued the four Nikayas and the monastic rules show "such originality, intelligence, grandeur and coherence" that a composite origin is hard to credit. He concluded this material is the work of one genius. Alexander Wynne built a case for authenticity on internal textual evidence, archaeology, and inscriptions. Wynne noted that the Pali texts depict a pre-Asokan north India. He argued they reached Sri Lanka by 250 BCE, preserving fifth-century geographical details. One such detail is that Uddaka Ramaputta lived near Rajagrha.

  On the skeptical side, Edward Conze held that there was an "absence of hard facts" about the first period of Buddhism. He regarded scholarly reconstructions as "all mere guesswork." The problem, Conze argued, was that the texts we possess "may have been composed at any time during the first 500 years." Gregory Schopen argued that nothing definite can be known about the doctrinal content of the nikaya/agama literature before the fourth century CE. Schopen traced even the oldest Pali Canon only to the Alu-vihara redaction. That redaction cannot be taken back further than "the last quarter of the first century BCE." He regarded Buddhist epigraphy, not textual scholarship, as the earliest reliable evidence.

  Stanislaw Schayer (1899-1941), a Polish scholar who pursued a different kind of reconstruction, argued that the Nikayas preserve elements of an archaic Buddhism close to Brahmanical beliefs, surviving in the Mahayana tradition. His conclusion was that the Theravada and Mahayana might be "divergent, but equally reliable records of a pre-canonical Buddhism which is now lost forever." Constantin Regamey found Schayer's general position cogent.

  Jean Filliozat and other post-war Franco-Belgian scholars settled into a moderate skepticism. They focused on what the sectarian texts actually say, without hypothesising about a lost pre-canonical original. A. K. Warder staked out a more concrete position. "We are on safe ground only with those texts," he wrote, "the authenticity of which is admitted by all schools of Buddhism."

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• 5. The Path Before the Path

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  Tilmann Vetter argued that the description of the Buddhist path may originally have been as simple as the term the Middle Way. Over time, this single phrase was elaborated into what became the Noble Eightfold Path. Vetter and Bucknell both noted that longer descriptions of the path can be found in the suttas. These longer sequences can be condensed into the Eightfold Path, which functions as a shorthand.

  One of those longer sequences appears in the Culahatthipadopama Sutta, the Lesser Discourse on the Simile of the Elephant's Footprints. It begins with a layman hearing the Buddha teach, developing faith, and taking ordination as a monk. It continues through the adoption of moral precepts, guarding the six sense-doors, mindfulness, and the attainment of the four jhanas. It ends with the destruction of the asavas and the perception of liberation. Vetter argued that dhyana, the practice of meditation at the heart of this sequence, constituted the original liberating practice.

  Lambert Schmithausen and Vetter both concluded that the Four Noble Truths were a later addition. K. R. Norman concluded that the earliest version of the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta did not contain the word "noble." Tradition regards this sutta as the Buddha's first discourse. Carol Anderson, following Schmithausen and Norman, noted that the Four Truths are missing in critical passages of the canon. She concluded they were "probably not part of the earliest strata" of Buddhism. They "emerged as a central teaching in a slightly later period."

  Bruce Matthews noted that there is no cohesive presentation of karma in the Sutta Pitaka. That gap may be significant. Schmithausen has questioned whether karma played a role in the earliest theory of rebirth at all. Bronkhorst disagreed, arguing that the Buddha introduced a distinctive concept of karma. In his view, what drove rebirth was not physical or mental activities as such, but intentions and desire.

  Bronkhorst, drawing on Frauwallner, Schmithausen, and Bhattacharya, raised a question about the soul. He noted that "it is possible that original Buddhism did not deny the existence of the soul." K. R. Norman put the uncertainty about awakening itself in plain terms: "It is not at all clear what gaining bodhi means."

  Norman suggested that bodhi, at its most basic, may have meant the knowledge that nirvana had been attained through dhyana. It was not necessarily insight into a doctrinal system.

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• 6. The Nature of Nirvana

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  Rupert Gethin, Richard Gombrich, and Paul Williams hold that nirvana in early Buddhism means the "blowing out" or "extinguishing" of greed, aversion, and delusion. As Gethin explains, this is "not a thing but an event or experience" that frees one from rebirth in samsara. Gombrich has argued that the metaphor of blowing out refers specifically to fires kept by Brahmanical priests, symbolising life in the world.

  Thomas Kasulis notes that in the early texts, nirvana is described mainly in negative terms. It appears as "cessation," "the absence of craving," "detachment," "the absence of delusion," and "the unconditioned." There is little discussion in those texts of nirvana's metaphysical nature. Donald Swearer describes the journey to nirvana as a move not toward a separate reality, but toward calm, equanimity, and nonself.

  The Malunkyaputta Sutta poses a sharp limit on speculation. It declines to take any position on whether the Buddha exists after final death. All four possibilities, that he exists, does not exist, both, or neither, are rejected. The sutta AN II 161 has Sariputta say that asking "Is there anything else?" after someone attains nibbana is distorted thinking. The sutta calls such questioning a proliferating of what is, in its own terms, "without proliferation."

  Edward Conze argued that nirvana was a kind of Absolute. He pointed to a passage in Digha Nikaya XI 85 describing "invisible infinite consciousness, which shines everywhere." He also cited traces of a belief in consciousness as "an absolute element in this contingent world." M. Falk, influenced by Schayer, argued that the early Buddhist view of nirvana is that it is an "abode" or "place" of prajna. This nirvanic element, as pure consciousness, is immanent within samsara itself.

  Christian Lindtner also argued that in pre-canonical Buddhism, nirvana was an eternal realm at the peak of existence. It showed similarities to ancient Vedic cosmology. In his reading, nirvana was a place one could reach by wisdom, "closest to akasa and vijñana," stable and pleasant. From there, there would be no falling back. Alexander Wynne assessed this view and found no evidence in the Sutta Pitaka that the Buddha held it. At best, Wynne concluded, it shows that "some of the early Buddhists were influenced by their Brahminic peers."

  Lindtner saw the work of Nagarjuna as a product of these contradictions. Unable to harmonise the competing views, Nagarjuna took what Lindtner calls a "paradoxical" stance, rejecting any positive description of nirvana.

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