Once the great indologist and eminent writer Govind Chandra Pande remarked that in a way Buddhism can be considered the most universal of all the historical forms of spiritual culture. In the long history of Buddhism its followers did not hesitate to adopt the linguistic and material modes of culture prevalent in the societies where it happened to spread. Thus Buddhist literature was readily created, for instance, in Central and East Asia and was considered fully authoritative. The historical Buddha himself did not favour the notion of any originally authentic language or of an absolutely sacrosanct canon of Holy Scripture. He wanted his disciples to accept his words only after duly testing and critically examining them.

On the strength of this rational message, says G.C. Pande, "even Buddhist mysticism depends on the scientific analysis of psychic and parapsychic phenomena and a system of moral and mental training depending on this analysis and testable by personal experience".

Borne out by G.C. Pande’s observations it can certainly be maintained that also scholarly Buddhists by confession and likewise such members of Buddhist monastic orders can be expected – in a strictly scientific sense – to do solid research on the canonical and paracanonical texts of their various dharma traditions.

For over a decade now a good example of admirable scholarship on the part of saṅgha members is set by Bhikkhu Anālayo. In 2007 he successfully defended his D.Litt. dissertation at Philipp’s University Marburg and published the same in 2011 (Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation, Taipei), entitled A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya in two vols. In this comprehensive textual study the author compares the Pāli discourses of the Majjhima-nikāya with their parallels preserved in Chinese, Sanskrit and Tibetan. As he has shown convincingly, a meticulous comparative study together with judiciously handling the material dealt with does indeed go a long way towards clarifying many obscure places occurring in the canonical texts of Early Buddhism. When employing working hypotheses – indispensable, of course, in view of the numerous knotty textual and hermeneutical problems the buddhologist frequently is confronted with – Bhikkhu Anālayo always is circumspect and does not 'zoom' to conclusions. In the case of textual discrepancies between nikāya and āgama accounts, for instance, there is no need always to reconsider a given school affiliation; such discrepancies, as Bhikkhu Anālayo argues, are, more often than not, due to the "fluctuating nature of oral transmission".

As evidenced by quite a few articles that have appeared in various learned journals and by some monographs, alongside undertaking his D.Litt. dissertation and preparing it for publication Bhikkhu Anālayo has indefatigably been continuing his comparative studies, either focusing anew on topics already treated in his Habilitationsschrift or undertaking altogether new tasks of nikāya-āgama comparison by breaking fresh ground for the benefit of both the specialist and the cultured reader interested in early Buddhist canonical texts. I am very glad to see that nineteen out of his postdoctoral research papers have been singled out for a republication in one volume which will surely facilitate considerably accessibility to all those who are working or will be working in the respective area of Buddhist Studies and hopefully also to the general reader.

Bhikkhu Pāsādika 3rd May, 2012