there was the buddhas original sangha, they had their suttas, then this sangha split off into many other sanghas. each kept some texts and omitted others and added new ones and then decided when to stop this process and keep it consistent, once this decision is made it's called "canonizing" the texts. a finalization of a set of texts is canonizing.danieLion wrote:Which split, and what, exactly, do you mean by sangha?alan... wrote:the canon has existed as long as other schools existed since the split of the sangha
or a different example, if there are star wars books that lucas films agrees should be in the star wars story line, they are "canon". side stories by random authors that lucas films does not like are "not canon". same with the suttas, one school picks suttas 1-95 but leaves out 95-100, they stop there and don't make any more changes, they have "canonized" their texts. another school picks suttas 1-99 and adds another 50 suttas the other school doesn't include in their texts and stops there and they don't make any more changes, now they have their own, different "canon".
not sure if you really don't get this or if you're just trying to trip me up and catch me off guard to make it seem i don't know what i'm talking about or what?
the sangha split, this is a well known fact, every school had it's own texts called "canons" in todays english. they would have been called something else back then but still a similar word to differentiate between each others texts, otherwise there would be no way to differentiate between each schools texts. this is not a western imposition. canonizing existed before the west was a "thing".