User:Spasemunki/techings section

According to Schmithausen, three main positions held by scholars of Buddhism can be distinguished regarding the historicity and internal chronology of the earliest teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha :
 * 1) "Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials;"
 * 2) "Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism;"
 * 3) "Cautious optimism in this respect."

Among scholars who believe it may be possible to reconstruct the historical teachings of the Buddha from the surviving sources, one method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest extant versions of the Theravadin Pali Canon and other texts. The reliability of these sources, and the possibility to draw out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute. According to Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies.

Within the Buddhist tradition, teachings attributed to the Buddha by traditional sources are referred to as Buddhavacana.