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LECTURE IL
THE PALI PITAEAS
The belief of the orthodox Buddhists assigns the
whole of the existing canonical books to the period
immediately following the death of Gotama, and claims
for them the sanction and authority, if not the author-
ship, of the immediate disciples of the Buddha himself.
It would be strange indeed if such a belief had not
arisen. Many of the books purport to record the very
words of the Master, or events in his life witnessed by
his personal followers. There is no absolute statement
in the books as to their date or authorship. Historical
criticism was quite unknown in the early centuries of
Buddhism, when men were concerned with matters
they held to be vastly more important than exact state-
ments of literary history. The tendency of the more
devout minds among the early followers of Gotama
would inevitably lead them to attach great importance
to the books that had been handed down, and to assign
to them therefore the highest possible antiquity. And |
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