Lanka-Centric Attitude and Southern Theravāda Buddhism

The authenticity of Pali Tipiṭaka has been unquestionable among Theravāda Buddhists within the South and Southeast Asia. Indeed, Theravāda Buddhists themselves are responsible for establishing such absolute authority on their Buddhist canon based on Lanka-centric attitude easily seen among Buddhist academia in the South and Southeast Asia. What is Lanka-centric attitude? It is a kind of tendency to put too much role in Sri Lankan Buddhism in terms of understanding Southern Theravāda Buddhism. Within this attitude, Pali tipiṭaka has been of the ultimate warrant that the entire Pali Tipiṭaka was regarded as the words of the Buddha (Buddha-vacana). For them, Mahāvihāra ordination lineage could be among the most pure and be understood as the uninterrupted continuation from Mahinda around the third century BCE to present days in the South and Southeast Asia. The side effect of this Lanka-centric attitude tends to be appeared among contemporary Buddhist scholarship that there is no interest at all in the locally developed Buddhist texts within Southeast Asia while there is so much weight on Pali Tipiṭaka to do their research on Early Buddhism. In this paper, I am going to deal with Lanka-centric attitude within Southern Theravāda Buddhist tradition in terms of studying its origin and regional as well as historical development and of clarifying the value of Southeast Asian origin Buddhist materials, so that I hope to show the true face of Southeast Asian Buddhism through locally developed Buddhist texts and to reevaluate the value of Pali Tipiṭaka within the Buddhist scholarship among the South and Southeast Asia.