On the authority of Buddhist Scripture

I recently had a debate with one of my senior Buddhist friends in regard to the authority of Buddhist scripture. As you may know, Buddhists are not one of the “people of the book.” Outsiders might expect that the Buddhist scripture occupies a much less central position to Buddhists than the Bible to Christians or Muslims. Theoretically, there should not be Buddhist fundamentalists or dogmatists. In reality, however, Buddhists are just as human as their theist brothers and sisters. Many Buddhists treat the Buddhist scripture very reverentially and exhibit dogmatist/fundamentalist tendencies. The Chinese term for Buddhist scripture is 聖言量. Literally, it means the sayings of sages and saints. What should be the appropriate Buddhist attitude toward Buddhist scripture according to what Buddha taught?

The Sanskrit term for 聖言量 is Pramana. It means “theory of knowledge.” The Chinese translation is very misleading because it suggests that what is recorded in the scripture are the words spoken by saints and sages — this gives the words special weight and authority. I did some research on this topic. As it turns out, different schools of Indian thought have different takes on what would constitute valid knowledge. Overall, there are six criteria:

1. Perception (pratyaksa): empirical evidence; sensory data
2. Inference and reasoning (anumana)…