Dear Bhante,

> But the Mahasunnata Sutta has a Tibetan counterpart, too (P957; P
> XXXVIII 279). I wonder if this also mentions the 3 angas? Could
> someone look this up?

Ha ! How many "someone"s do you think are subscribing to this list who can
read Tibetan ?
The Mahaa-'suunyataa-suutra (P 956) is one of the small group of the
mahaa-suutras translated into Tibetan. Not sure about the provenance of
these texts -- they may be SV or MulaSV. I'll try and look for you but
can't do this before the weekend -- unless, of course, one of the many
Tibetan readers in this group beat me to it :)

While talking about Tibetan materials, I have often wondered why the
Tibetans and their Indian pandit supervisors never translated any of the
agamas, given that they were so keen and assiduous in translating just about
everything else they could lay their hands on. I wonder if by that period
(C8th CE onwards), familiarity and interest in the agamas had pretty much
waned to disappearing point in northern India -- this may be so, given that
Samathadeva (c 7th / 8th century) felt it necessary to write a compilation
of agama texts used by Vasubandhu in his Abhidharma-kosa, when previously
they would probably have been immediately recognized by most readers from
the short quotes given by Vasubandhu himself three or four centuries
earlier.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge