Oskar V. Hinūber argues that early Buddhist texts contain "historical memory" which can be used for dating and cautious historical analysis, challenging the notion that ancient India lacked a sense of history. By examining the evolution of sutta opening formulas, he identifies an archaic syntactical structure, traceable to Indo-Iranian, that refers to obscure market towns (*nigamas*) and Brahmin villages (*brāhmaṇagāmas*), representing an older textual layer than the more common references to major cities and monasteries. Applying this critical method to the *Mahāparinibbānasuttanta*, he posits a pre-Mauryan composition date (c. 350-320 BC) based on its description of Pātaliputta as a future commercial hub rather than a political capital and its downplaying of the Moriyas, which contrasts with later Buddhist texts that actively incorporated contemporary rulers like Aśoka and Kaniṣka. This early dating suggests that while the text is primarily hagiography replete with mythology, it may preserve genuine historical details from the decades immediately following the Buddha's death.
