Demonstrates how the four noble truths are used thorughout the Pali canon as a symbol of Buddha's enlightenment and as a doctrine within a larger network of Buddha's teachings.

Demonstrates how the four noble truths are used thorughout the Pali canon as a symbol of Buddha's enlightenment and as a doctrine within a larger network of Buddha's teachings. Their unique nature rests in their function as a proposition and as a symbol in the Theravada canon.

'The book's contribution to our knowledge about the four truths may lie in the author's bringig together some new propositions of recent researches which claim to revise views about certain topics such as the language of the canon, the dating of the Buddha's life, the construction of his biographies, the shaping of the Tipitaka and its formulations, or the disparity between the doctrine ant the practice in Buddhist countries. useful to read as a stimulant' - Karel Werner, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society