Re: Standards in Sutta numbering

Dear Ven. Yuttadhamma,

for what it's worth, my way of working with this, although it may seem
cumbersome and pedantic, is, whenever I record a reference to any sutta or
part of a sutta, I make sure I provide all the main 'co-ordinates', so to
speak, that anyone is likely to use to locate a text or passage.  So, e.g.,

AN 3.2.5.10 Paṃsudhovakasutta (AN 3.100 (i-x), PTS AN i.253); but in the
case of MN, I prefer:

MN 143 Anāthapiṇḍikovādasuttaṃ* *(MN 3.5.1, PTS MN iii.258), although MN
3.5.1 (MN 143, PTS MN iii.258) would be more consistent.

Anyway, the point, in my humble opinion, is making it as easy as possible
for others (and myself) to locate suttas / passages under any system.  I
think a single system is impractical, given what is already set in place in
the bulk of the primary, secondary, and tertiary printed literature.

What *would *be very interesting and useful, I feel, is not a 'standard
system' online, but rather, a comprehensive, detailed and accurate *concordance
*between all the main systems that have ever been and are now being used.
That way, someone who wants to quickly locate a scholar's reference to an
otherwise unspecified passage at SN iii.5, but isn't lucky enough, e.g., to
have a tool like DPR, can consult the concordance to discover that this
passage can be found in the WTE under 3.1.1.1.1 Nakulapitusutta.  (But here
again, e.g., one can see how the PTS volume and page number system can be
useful for quickly zeroing in on a specific section of the text.)

So, my thought is not trying to force some impractical and impossible Single
System, but to produce an elegant and comprehensive, easy to use Concordance
between systems.

With best wishes,
Khristos

The first system, which is very logical and orderly and perhaps arguably
sort of organic to the Nikaayas, is of course the one used, e.g., by the
World Tipitaka Edition and DPR.  Personally, I find it very useful including
the PTS volume and page number co-ordinates (it seems that some scholars in
recent years have taken to including line numbers as well), not because they
have any absolute value, but just as a convenient way of pinpointing starts
of suttas or particular passages in longer suttas (just as degrees of
longitude and latitude bear absolutely no relationship at all to the
geography of the Earth, but can help you find a particular spot,
nonetheless).




On 31 January 2011 13:54, Noah Yuttadhammo <yuttadhammo@...> wrote:

>
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> Just wanted to get your thoughts on the numbering systems used in the
> various versions of the tipitaka out there. I just found out that
> accesstoinsight.org uses the PTS system, which is causing problems for
> the DPR, since, well, to put it simply, the PTS system is silly. Take,
> for example:
>
> http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.100.01-10.than.html
> http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.100.11-15.than.html
>
> Clearly these are two different suttas, but Woodward has them as one.
> This is not the only example; it looks like other versions are united
> against the PTS's mistakes. So, I guess my question is, is there any
> rationale for favouring one system over another? Any good reason for
> Woodward's decision?
>
> It would be nice to have a webpage somewhere with a standard system we
> could refer to.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Yuttadhammo
> 
>


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