Is the Sutta Pitaka the teaching of Gautama Buddha or Venerable Ananda?
The Suttas were indeed compiled by the Buddha as well as his close disciples…whether any one can be attributed to the Buddha or not it is not possible to say…the Suttas themselves and the Teachings they hold are the gems which should be contemplated as opposed to who wrote this or that one…. Don’t worry about whether or not a sutta contains the actual words uttered by the historical Buddha.There is no way to prove it one way or the other. Just read the suttas, put the teachings into practice as best you can, and see what happens…. 🙂 Please pardon me as I take an excerpt from a paragraph from “Befriending the Suttas” … a chapter from the Access to Insight website which may help you as you read them… “If you’re interested in a solid grounding on the basics of the Buddha’s teachings, three suttas are widely regarded as essential reading: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion (SN 56.11), The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic (SN 22.59), and The Fire Sermon (SN 35.28). T
