Dear Natalie,

My personal favourites are:

For the beginning study (overview) of the Paali Canon

A Handbook of Paali Literature by Oskar Von Hinüber
Berlin, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1996

another popular source for an overview of the Paali Canon is part 1
of

Paali Literature and Language by Wilhelm Geiger,
English translation by Batakrishna Ghosh
Calcutta, Calcutta University, 1943

For the different schools in ancient India

Indian Buddhism by A.K. Warder
Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 3rd ed. 2000

Prof. Warder is accomplished in both Sanskrit and Paali and so you
can be sure that he has read the sources he is talking about :)
His analysis seems pretty even, perhaps a small affection for the
Sarvaastivaadins :)

Good Luck! Maybe some of the academics will de-lurk and really give
you some good advice!

With Metta,
Sumana



--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "natalie_indeed" <natalie_indeed@...>
wrote:

> Dear lovely bickering members,
>
> I am in the process of both deepening my practice and beginning to
> study the Pali Canon as an academic. My question regards the

latter.

> Does anyone have any recommendations for scholarly books and/or
> articles that trace the historical development of the Theravada

Canon,

> i.e., older sections, newer sections, and so on? Also, I still

need to

> get a firm grasp on the historical development of the different

Nikaya

> schools in India and their respective doctrinal positions. I'm
> currently reading Hirakawa/Paul Groner's _History of Indian

Buddhism_,

> but it's not quite as in-depth as I had hoped and it's probably

also a

> bit dated.
>
> Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
>
> Kindness,
> Natalie Fisk
> Graduate Theological Union