An Overlooked Pali Sutta

Extract

It will one day be considered curious—the prejudiced and partial way in which the Pali Suttas, up to the present time, have been exploited. Buddhists, for instance, both Hīnayānists in their way and Mahāyānists in their way, had let it be known, that for them both the reality of the “man”, as an entity over and above body and mind, was illusory. He was but a name for a complex of fleeting dhammā. European writers on Buddhism, taking this assertion at its face-value, and not at its historical value, selected passages from the Suttas endorsing it. They made no search for passages which seemed to throw doubt, at least at some period, on the dogma. These passages remained overlooked by adherents and by external commentators alike. When are we going to develop a better historic flair ?