[Buddha-l] A question for Jewish Buddhists

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

>The Sanskrit version of the Rājasūtra (=Sāmaññaphalasutta) in
> the Dīrghāgama is virtually identical to the version included in the
> Sanskrit (Mūla-)sarvāstivādin Vinaya texts. (I have personally compared
> parts of them.) A number of suttas in the Pali MN which are missing in
> the Chinese version of the Madhyamāgama are precisely found in the
> Sanskrit Dīrghāgama. And so on. I don't believe there is any doubt in
> this case.

This is confusing. Either the Chinese MA is the same as the Sarvastivadin
version or it isn't. If the the Sanskrit Mulasarvastivadin version contains
sutras missing from the Chinese, then they are not the same. In which case
the Chinese version reasonably could be attributed to a different school
that omitted those sutras. One could imagine various scenarios by which they
came to be left out of the Chinese version, which would include scenarios
where they might have been in the original Indic version but neglected by
the translators, but that would be imagining. Attribution remains open.

Dan