I'm familiar with the work of Gombrich, less so with Vetter. Where does Gombrich do whatever you think is "throwing out of the window" the Four Noble Truths? In What the Buddha Thought, he presents them as dovetailing into the Buddha's other teachings with impressive coherence. Could you give a quote from him demonstrates this conceptual defenestration? The same from Vetter would be appreciated. And any other "Buddhologists" that you can recall.Layt wrote: ↑Mon May 07, 2018 5:42 pmDo you seriously not know who Gombrich or Vetter are ? They, like other indologists, are specialized in buddhist studies, they know Paali and Sanskrit, they studied the Tipitaka and found many inconsistencies and incoherences, in both the doctrine of the Theravaada and in the way the sutta were made... though that's not all, they try to understand the thought process of the Buddha by analyzing the other schools of thought that existed during his lifetime.
Well of course it's hard to prove anything since the Paali canon is all we have, but some of their theories have more than 90% chance to be true, like the 12 nidana for exemple, the first four nidana are taken directly from the Vedic cosmogony, their meaning entirely depends on it, the whole thing is a parody... either invented by the Buddha himself or later, anyway the nidana weren't originally 12, some were added later by bhikkhu who didn't understand their satirical aspect.
With regard to the Nidanas, you appear to be referring to Jurewicz's thesis which she presented in her paper on the cosmogony of the Rg Veda. If so, what does this have to do with the Four Noble Truths?