As a “newbie” here I resisted the temptation to reopen several fraught discussions that might have occurred in the past - or to cause repetitions.
My question relates to the known works (academic/non-academic) which date the layers of the Pali canon, esp. what are called EBTs here. So, I am not looking for the ages of the texts themselves, but what several reputed authors and academics term, rather blithely, as the “earlier/later layers” of the nikayas, for instance.
I have read Ven. Sujato’s opinions on the supposed “earliness” of the Sutta Nipata etc and the text-critical method of looking for internal references to determine age.
I have also read various discussions on early/late suttas etc on this forum.
But if someone can point me to papers/pieces which seem to reflect on the composition, layering, structure of the Pali texts (the EBTs), I would be obliged. I assume these would be largely philological exercises, on the lines of the scholarship of K.R. Norman, Oskar von Hinuber etc.
Maybe also passages in one of the “Pali Language & Literature” books such as those by Winternitz, Geiger, Law etc?
An example discussed here -
On the use of internal references to date the Sutta Nipata
My purpose is to understand what I find is a rather large field of studies that seek to demonstrate the Vedic (incl. Brāhmaṇas/Upāniṣads etc) influence on Buddhism.
Sutta Central relevant threads -
How much of Buddhism is Uniquely Buddhist?
The early Upanishads: a nice introduction to the pre-Buddhist tradition
Background reading for the EBTs
I know that even the “The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts” has a section titled “Vedic influence on the EBTs.”
A considerable body of works - not in the least by scholars such as Joanna Jurewicz, Richard Gombrich, Ch. Lindtner, Lauren Bausch, M. Witzel, Toshifumi Goto et al - attempts to show some kind of direct continuation between the Vedic traditions/philosophic-concerns and the early Buddhist analyses (Buddha as a ‘Vedic muni’ etc). I have serious reservations about such claims…
So, if someone can point me to the research articles that seek to establish the layers of (or within) the EBTs, I would be much obliged. Then I can see for myself how those “earlier layers” are claimed to be continuations of Vedic material (I am not denying influence and the diffusion of earlier ideas; just the claims of derivative-ness of the Buddha-vacana).