Re: What's does the "anta" in Suttanta mean?

Dear Petra,

I have had a quick look at the Klaus article. I can't really assess
whether he is  right about the original usage of sūtra in Vedic
literature. I will have to ask around for the opinions of Vedicists.

But if it is true that sūtra did not refer to short statements
originally, then I see no reason for ever interpreting sutta in the
Nikāyas as referring to  the Pātimokkha. The list of kinds of dhamma
later referred to as Aṅgas do not seem to me to require this. The
context at M III 115 where we have sutta, geyya and veyyākaraṇa only
does not seem at all related to Vinaya matters. And this may be the
earliest reference.

I suspect that if the idea that sūtra originally refers to short
statements had not been accepted, no-one would have argued that sutta in
these contexts referred to the Pātimokkha.

The fact that the names of texts vary does not prove that the usage of
sutta as part of the names of texts is late. It seems clear that they
were happy to give multiple names to the same text from an early date. I
think it is only in written literature that we want a single separate
name. Oral literature does not work that way. In any case some names
with sutta at the end are embedded into the texts (e.g. in the Mahāvagga).

Lance Cousins
>> He, therefore, assumes that sūtra in the sense of short text is a
>> later development, whereas originally it referred to texts which were
>> compiled out of various sources, and are thus comparable to a thread
>> spun from individual fibres .
>> The Patimokkha or Sutta is like a thread or string consisting of
>> fibres of many short rules, which, like the Brahmanical suttas need
>> to be explained by a commentary, the Suttavibhanga. It makes good
>> sense to call it a sutta.
>
> Agreed.
>>
>>> Thus there would be no problem for using sutta (derived from sūtra,
>>> not sūkta) for Buddhist dhamma texts.
>>
>> Yes, there is no problem, but it is good to be aware that the word
>> /sutta /in the Pali Canon, except perhaps for the general designation
>> /sutta /as one of the nine angas of the Buddhavacana, was used with
>> reference to the Patimokkha, while the individual discourses of the
>> Buddha in the Nikayas were referred to as /suttanta/. In commentarial
>> Abhidhamma texts there are the /suttantabh///ā/janiya /method and the
>> /abhidhammabh///ā/janiya /methods of analysis.
>>
>>> according to Klaus the word sutta in the beginning probably was used
>>> for a collection of Dhamma texts,
>>
>> Does he take sutta as one of the nine angas to be referring to this
>> collection?
>
> He discusses that. von Hinüber thinks that sutta in the list of nine
> stands for the Pātimokkha. Klaus accepts  this interpretation
> eventually  for the list of 4 (1-3, and 8 of the list of nine), but
> rather thinks that sutta in the list of nine also refers to the Suttas
> in the Suttapiṭaka (here he is not completely convincing to my
> opinion). The single reference for sutta outside the list of nine
> aṅgas, where sutta definitely does not refer to the Pātimokkha (DN II
> 123,30ff.; AN II 167,33ff.), but to the discourses, according to
> vHinüber is late, i.e. ca. 30 or 50 years after the death of the
> Buddha. This is refuted by Klaus, because he thinks this passage (the
> four mahāpadesas) does not make sense as a text compiled after the
> death of the Buddha.
>