Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Kinh điển Pali" in Vietnamese language version.
The idea that Buddhist texts were first written down in the first century bce has been widely current since the nineteenth century, but has never been much more than a guess. Its only basis is a short passage, two verses long, found in both the fourth or fifth-century Dīpavaṃsa and later Mahāvaṃsa,that states that the Tipiṭaka and commentaries were first written down at this time...however, it fairly clearly does not even intend to record the first time writing was ever used for Buddhist texts, but the first creation of a complete set of written scriptures in Sri Lanka.
