The Earliest Recorded Discourses of the Buddha

Anandajoti Bhikkhu

The earliest recorded discourses of the Buddha are found in narratives detailing his early career, not long after the Awakening. We have three main sources for a record of this period, they are the Lalitavistara, the Mahākhandhaka, and the Mahāvastu, which apparently formed the substance of the Vinaya of the Lokottaravāda sect. Embedded into these narratives there are certain teachings, which now form the earliest recorded discourses of the Buddha, and it is those that are presented here.

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