SV: what does sutta denote?

Lance and Bhikkhu Nyanatusita,

A few notes on sutta and suttanta:

The occurrences of suttanta in the texts of the Pali canon are limited,
which would indicate that this usage was not particularly well established
The few examples I have been able to trace occur in S and A, which is
interesting in itself. However, suttanta appears frequently throughout the
Kathaavatthu. There are more than 200 examples accompanied by canonical
quotations. There are no examples in Kv where sutta is used to denote the
canonical texts. In fact, it does not occur at all in Kv. At some point the
distiction between sutta and suttanta may no longer have been of any concern
as appears from Pe.t and Nett as well as the commentaries. The semantics of
anta is not clear. Cf. ,for instance, the use of kamma and kammanta.

The term sutta is recorded in the cpd. suttaagata in Paac. 73, Vin IV 144
and is interpreted as sutte = Paatimokkhe aagata in Ka.nkhaavititara.nii.

I assume that the reason why sutta is mentioned first in the old list of
canonical lit. (in M III 104 it stops after veyyakara.na)is that it differed
from the other texts because it was important for ritual purposes and
because it was a real suutra of the kind we find in Sanskrit literature. The
few short suttas included in Paatimokkha are probably reflexes of this
particular style like, for instance, the use of the locative to denote the
nimitta of an action. The general form is "for x (loc.) y" (also found in
Sanskrit suutras). However, the suttas were evidently re-written as appears
from the fact that some of them contain not fully integrated traces of the
old formulation.

Ole