[Buddha-l] A question for Jewish Buddhists

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

This chiasmic reasoning still has me confused, perhaps because the
distribution of sutras in the Chinese Agamas is quite different from the
Pali -- so that suttas in the Digha-nikaya end up in the Madhyama-agama or
Samyukta-agama, etc., and vice versa.

If we assume (and it would only be an assumption) that the Chinese
translations follow some source texts at least in terms of which sutras end
up in which Nikaya/Agama, then there are lots of disparities.

If you are looking more narrowly at the contents of particular suttas/sutras
in terms of Pali parallelisms, there are still plenty of disparities.

I think I would need to see a more detailed mapping out of the specific
parallels and affinities you are presuming before this would get any
clearer.

I assume, for instance, that you have from time to time taken a look at
http://www.suttacentral.net/

which has gone far beyond Chizen Akanuma's Comparative Catalog. If, for
instance, you do a parallel search for DN II 127 (where the sūkaramaddava
passage occurs), you will get a related parallel not only in the
Dirgha-agama, but in four other Chinese texts not packaged within any of the
four major agamas collections.

The Mahanidana sutta (DN II 55) has a parallel not only in the Digha-agama,
but in the Madhyama-agama as well, as well as two other independent Agama
translations. Similarly the Sakkapañha - DN II 263 - appears in both DA and
MA as well as two independent texts. The Suvaṇṇapāti - Janapadakalyāṇi - SN
II 233 - appear only in the Ekottara Agama, not the Samyukta. And so on...
The more carefully one compares, the more things look like a chaotic
reshuffling of the collections. Nonetheless there are many agamas that are
very close to the Pali versions. Hence I don't know what you mean by
"organizational" similarities.

There are many important Pali suttas that have no Chinese counterpart at
all.

I still prefer to be cautious about jumping to affinity conclusions based on
the spotty evidence.

Dan