Re: Dirgha Agama ( Bhante Sujato)

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen Hodge" <s.hodge@...> wrote:

> Dear Bhante Sujato,
>
> A follow-up to an earlier message of yours.
> > [snip] but also from the list of contents of the Sarv and Mula

Sarv DA as

> mentioned in later
> > texts. These have only 16 texts (=silakkhandhavagga, M Pari, M

Apadana,

> Sangiti, Dasottara,
> > Catusparisat (=first chapter of Vinaya Mahavagga), and

Arthavistara

> (?proto-abhidhamma?))
>
> As I have not done any detailed or wide ranging research on the

DA, I am

> interested that you mention the existence of lists of contents for

the

> SarvDA and the MSarvDA. Can you give me any references please ?

My info comes from Rod Bucknell's unpublished work on the structure
of the Nikayas/Agamas. He refers in fact to the
Abhidharmakosopayika. Rod does not know much Tibetan, but he refers
this to Honjo(?) Yoshifumi, presumably a Japanese study. I only have
a couple of chapters of rod's book, so i can't trace the reference
further. however, i will take the matter up with Rod. For the sake
of precision and comparison i'll indulge in some repetition from the
previous message. Rod's book says that:

The AKO indicates that the Sarv Dirgha comprised just two groupings,
the Silaskandhanipata and the satasutrikanipata. The first = the
Silakkhandhavagga of DN; the 'six sutra group'= Dasottara,
Arthavistara, Samgiti, Catusparisat, Mahavadana, Mahaparinirvana.
(The note here says that certain Skt fragments from Turfan (SHT Kat.
Nr. 32, 33)point to a collection with exactly the same structure,
but the sectarian affiliations are unclear.) The same two nipatas
(without, however, any listing of component sutras) are mentioned in
the Mula-S vinaya, in reference to DA- presumably the Mula-S version.
(Y 24:35a3 & 57a26-7. Form 720-725).

Rod also mentions that a broadly similar conclusion had been reached
independently by Yin Shun on the basis of reasoning: the texts that
are in the Sarv MA were probably not in the Sarv DA; this would
reduce the Sarv DA by ten or so suttas in comparison with the Ther &
dharmaguptaka. None of these ten are in the Silakkhandhavagga or
the 'six-sutta group'. Obviously this analysis, while broadly
similar, differs substantially from what you have below. May the
experts resolve this issue!!


Although I

> have not, as I mention above, done any detailed research on the

DA, I have

> been revisiting my notes on Shamathadeva's Abhidharma-

ko'sopaayika, which as

> you will be aware, is a large compilation of Agama material

surviving in its

> Tibetan translation. It is a feature of Shamathadeva's method

that he often

> gives a varga and uddaana to locate the sutra he is reproducing

from the

> Agamas. The DA (and MA, for that matter) he quotes is interesting

as its

> structure can partially be reconstructed -- I believe, for several

reasons,

> that it is the MulaSarvDA.

I still don't quite get the distinguishing features between Sarv and
Mula-Sarv. There seem to be some quite different theories around.
Rod, in his recent article on SA for the Encylopedia of Buddhism,
says that some scholars (i think Japanese) think that SA is in fact
Mula-S. Sometimes i think it's just that Sarv is a bit stale and
ordinary and Mula-S is a sexier theory! Of course, it is not at all
unlikely that within one school there may be several different
versions of the canon. After all, even within the arch-orthodox
Theravadins the Burmese Tipitaka today differs substantially from
the Sinhalese and Thai. Even within the four Nikayas we witness the
movement of the Maha Satipatthana Sutta from the Digha to the
Majjhima, probably in the fifth (Burmese) council.


It is quite different to the surviving

> Dharmagupta version in Chinese as well as the Pali version. It

seems to

> have three vargas, as one might expect and I have identified the
> following -- I give the Pali titles for convenience where they

exist:with

> the Dharmagupta sutra numbers:
>
> 'SIILA-SKANDHA-VARGA
>
> 1. Tri-da.n.da-suutra DA12 ? No Pali version

=tevijja??

> 2. Keva.t.ta DA24
> 3. Lohicca I DA29
> 4. Lohicca II DA29 (S states that there are two Lohicca sutras

which he

> calls the "Lohitya-vyakara.na"
> ?. Sama~n~na-phala DA27
> 9. Po.t.thapada DA28
> ?. Brahma-jala-sutra DA21 [But last sutra in this varga]
>
> SAMAADHI-SAMYUKTA-VARGA
> 1. Title unknown but something that contains a passage identical

to one

> found in MA72 (MN128)

Other refs to this: EA 24.8, T 152.10, T161, T1428.28

> Nothing else identifiable for this varga.
>
> .SA.T-SUUTRA-VARGA
> 1. Sa'ngiiti DA9 [location tentative]
> 2. Udumbarika-sihanada DA8 [location tentative]
> 3. Dasottara DA10.
> 5. Mahaa-apadaana DA1
> 6. Mahaa-parinirvaa.na DA2 [Last sutra in this varga and in DA as

a whole]

>
> It will be very interesting to see how the structure of the new DA

ms

> relates to the data we already possess.
>
> Shamathadeva also quotes from a MA -- also different in structure

to the

> Pali MN and to the Chinese translation of the Sarvastivadin MA.

As a

> considerable percentage of this MA is quoted, often entire sutras,

much

> useful reserach could be done with this material. If I ever get

the time, I

> hope to digitize the entire work

I want to make a website that will function as a resource base for
all this kind of stuff. Hopefully can get it running next year.


as a basic resource to widen people's

> knowledge of this extremely significant work -- nobody seems to

have done

> much with it apart from the Japanese.
>
> Finally, regarding the SA, you will possibly be interested to note

that

> Shamathadeva's source Agama places the Buddha [=Tathaagata]-

vyaakara.na and

> the 'Sraavaka-vyaakara.na in a K.sudraka-pit.aka and not in his

SA !

!!!indeed. The model i'm working on sees sutta/vyakarana, not as
what we find today as distinct samyuttas (as in Asanga, followed by
YinShun, etc) but as discrete vaggas within each main samyutta. I
have had some very promising results from this kind of analysis of
the Sacca and Satipatthana Samyuttas, but need to learn Chinese
before taking it much further.

The

> ommission of these two collections of vyaakara.nas is also implict

in

> Asanga's treatment of the SA in the YBS. Likewise, the Saagathaa-

varga

> seems to have circulated independently of the SA in some schools --

as

> corroborated by a separate Chinese translation of it.
>
> Hope this is of interest.
>
> Best wishes,
> Stephen Hodge