Criteria for deciding if a text is an EBT

[dayunbao]

@Ceisiwr

Over that time, they’ve been disordered, miscopied, edited, reformatted, had material inserted into them, and so forth that changed them.

In relation to the Pali cannon isn’t that speculation? Unless of course you are aware of some substantial differences between the different retentions?

Bhante Sujato talks about this in a few of his books/papers. One example is the comparison of the structure of the Pali SN and Chinese SA. Yinshun himself did this research, and both Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhante Sujato agree that the Chinese SA is most likely closer to the original ordering. The SA/SN seems to have originally been structured to mirror the 4 Noble Truths, but the Pali has lost this structure. I quoted Bhante’s book and took a screenshot of the comparison in another thread, but I forget which thread that was. Off the top of my head, I also forget which of Bhante’s books that appeared in.

Edit: Ah, here it is Discourses Structured According to the Four Noble Truths? - #20 by dayunbao