Theravada means "the way of the elders," and the school's self-understanding is conservative in the exact sense: it holds that it preserves what was actually taught, in the language closest to what was actually spoken, without the later additions. Scholars generally agree it is the closest surviving thing to early Buddhism while noting it is not identical to it — it is one of eighteen or so early schools, the one that survived, with its own commentarial tradition layered on top.