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Buddhist studies 1984-1990 (J. W. de Jong) parts the original message of the Buddha. Some scholars, especially Hajime Nakamura, are of the opinion that the older verses such as those found in the Suttanipāta and in other parts of the canon contain the oldest form of the Buddhist teachings. An opposite view has been expressed by Shinkan Murakami who remarked: "we pointed out that the Buddhist canon has some of his verses in common with the Mahābhārata and the Jaina Sūtras. Considering also, that, in most cases, verses are not likely to convey a teaching in an accurate way and that the verse portions can not be said to contain the whole of the early Buddhist teaching, one may question the attempt to recover the original teachings of the Buddha from the verses only.” The picture which Nakamura sketches of early Buddhism on the basis of the older verses in the canon is indeed entirely different from the one presented, for instance, in the above mentioned article by K.R. Norman. It is a misconception to assume that the oldest form of the doctrine is to be found in verses which in their literary form are older and more archaic than other parts of the canon. Many of these verses have parallels in nonBuddhist texts and belong to collections of verses current among wandering groups of ascetics. These verses were much later incorporated into the Khuddaka nikāya, the fifth and last collection of the Suttapitaka of the Theravādins. The doctrines found in these verses became in this way part of the Buddhist teachings but this does not mean that they reflect the oldest form of the Buddha's message.
Another frequently found misconception is that a shorter version of some doctrinal development is necessarily more original than a more expanded one and that an enumeration of a few items is likewise more primitive than one in which there are more items mentioned.
Probably much can be said in favour of the second position as outlined by Schmithausen. There is no reason to doubt that the Buddha preached for many years and that many of his utterances are to be found in the canonical texts. However, how can the teachings of the Buddha himself be distinguished from those preached in later times?
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