Dear Rett & fellow angophiles



I was

> wondering whether the word anga in the title
> might not refer to the factors in the various
> lists (as one would expect), but might instead
> refer to the collection as a whole. The word
> could be being used in the same sense as in the
> Jaina canon (which apparently uses the word anga
> for its major subdivisions).

I have also wondered along the same lines, but think it is unlikely.
There is, of course, the scheme of 9 or 12 angas that constitute
the 'Buddhavacana'(navangasatthusasana, etc.). This system has been
treated a little dismissively by modern scholars, but i think it
deserves more careful consideration to ascertain whether there might
not have existed an actual collection divided into angas. The
organizing principle clearly pre-dates the 'nikaya/agama' system. Is
it possible that the term 'anguttara' constitutes a memory of this
system: 'beyond the angas'?

It is used side by side

> with Ekuttara, cf. CPD s.v.(§47), which means
> "one more".

Ekottara is the standard rendering in Sanskrit, and as noted here
occurs occasionally in Pali also. This would seem to weigh against
the connection between 'anguttara' and the 'navangadhamma'.

> ///
> 78. Structuring texts on numerical principles was
> a widespread practice in ancient India: The third
> Anga of the Jaina canon .Thaa.na.mga/Staananga is
> arranged as AN, from one to ten, and the fourth
> Anga Samabaayanga, from one to one million.

So the Jains, as apparently the Buddhists, used the term 'anga' to
refer both to any collection of texts, and also in the 'one-up'
sense of a numerical series.

> Similar structures are found in the
> Mahaabhaarata, such as the Viduraniitivaakya in
> the Udyogaparvan, Mhbh 5,2,33.

Also in smaller scale in the suttas: for example, the series of
questions in ascending order, 'what is the one? sabbe satta
aahaara.t.thitikaa....'. And occasionally in the Vinaya, also. Even
the abhidhamma echoes the numerical approach in some places, eg
the 'twos' and 'threes' of the Dhammasangani.

So the Anguttara Nikaya is perhaps the largest working out of an
important and widespread organizational principle in Indian
literature. One also wonders whether there is any numerological
significance in this, with each number having a range of associated
connotations. (The PTS Dict has some notes on this in some of its
entires on the various numbers.)


in Dhamma

Bhante Sujato