Theriya Networks and the Circulation of the Pali Canon in South Asia
The Vibhajjavadins Reconsidered
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.36762Keywords:
Pāḷi, Tipiṭaka, Aṭṭhakathā, Vibhajjavāda, Theriya, Mahāvihāra, NāgārjunakoṇḍaAbstract
This article offers further support for Lance Cousins’ thesis that the Pali canon, written down in the first century BCE in Sri Lanka, was based largely on a Theriya manuscript tradition from South India. Attention is also given to some of Cousins’ related arguments, in particular, that this textual transmission occurred within a Vibhajjavadin framework; that it occurred in a form of ‘proto-Pali’ close to the Standard Epigraphical Prakrit of the first century BCE; and that that distinct Sinhalese nikayas emerged perhaps as late as the third century CE.
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