Perhaps my interest for this thesis is better described as surveying all of the early sources.
I think so.
I think a cursory, superficial evaluation for this particular thesis would suffice - the primary aim being to survey the scope of the early sources (as far as is known at this time).
Spending the rest of my life doing more in-depth evaluation of the full scope of the early sources (only) doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend the rest of my life lol
By evaluation, I mean evaluation of “authenticity,” initially just in terms of “internal consistency” between the various the various early sources - in other words, identifying obvious and subtle outliers in the texts.
No, MPhil, 40,000-60,000 word thesis.
But I do wish to build on this “survey of early textual sources” Master’s research in a PhD program, where I wish to spend time on more in-depth evaluations.
Maximum: ~1.5 years
The title has been evolving to the point where I am not sure how useful it would be to share it.
The primary thesis that I wish to defend is that “Buddhism” is “most accurately represented” by the “early Buddhist textual sources.”
So it is an attempt to make both a claim about “what Buddhism is (and isn’t)” (How would you define "Buddhism"?) and “what exactly the early sources are” (How to compile a list of all Early Buddhist Texts? - #28 by SeriousFun136) and perhaps the relationship between the two.
Thank you for asking these questions to help me clarify.
Please feel free to ask further questions, because as you rightly said, it can help more directly hone in and target exactly what I’m after.