Such a situation presents difficulties of its own, but such difficulties are
mercifully absent from the study of Buddhism. Here we are faced with a situation where
the founder of the religion lived approximately 2½ millennia ago. There is a large body
of material in an assortment of languages which is ascribed to the founder and much of it has been edited and published in a form which makes it easily accessible and available to investigators. Those wishing to know about Buddhism can consult these ancient sources, and there is a battery of ancillary material—dictionaries, grammars, translations, etc.—which enables them to do so.