Since the same chief disciples of the Buddha are mentioned through out the early text and the Mahayana sutras. Can we be certain the later was copied. Doesn’t modern scholarship believe the early sutras were first. How can the Mahayana sutras depict stories about these same disciples years later if not fictionized?
Mahayana sutras included the disciples presumably to present themselves as happening during the Buddha’s lifetime. The type of introduction that lists arhats present for a teaching does occur a few times in EBTs, which probably indicates they were composed or redacted during the same period as Mahayana sutras IMO. We can tell the Mahayana texts were later by references to things we know come later in Indian history, like copying and distributing written scriptures or references to cults of other Buddhas like Aksobhya or Amitayus.
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