Early Buddhist texts

[citation needed] Different genres comprise the Early Buddhist texts, including prose "suttas" (Skt: sūtra, discourses), monastic rules (Vinaya), various forms of verse compositions (such as gāthā and udāna), mixed prose and verse works (geya), and also lists (matika) of monastic rules or doctrinal topics.

A large portion of Early Buddhist literature is part of the "sutta" or "sutra" genre, these are usually placed in different collections (called Nikayas or Agamas) and constitute the "Sutta Pitaka" (Skt: Sūtra Pitaka, "Basket of sutras") section of the various early Buddhist Canonical collections called Tripitakas ("Three Baskets").

[13] As noted by von Hinüber, these collections also contain the first ever Indian texts to commemorate historical events, such as the Mahāparinibbānasuttanta, which recounts the death of the Buddha.

The early suttas also almost always open by introducing the geographical location of the event they depict, including ancient place names, always preceded by the phrase "thus have I heard" (evaṃ me sutaṃ).

[16] An important feature that marks the Early Buddhist texts are formal characteristics which reflect their origin as orally transmitted literature such as the use of repetition and rhetorical formulas.

Also, the EBTs are always historically situated in ancient Indian locales, unlike many later Mahayana works, which depict themselves as being taught by the Buddha in heavenly realms or other supernatural circumstances.

The Buddhist community was full of Brahmins who knew that the Vedic educational system had transmitted a mass of difficult texts, verbatim, in an increasingly archaic language, for more than a thousand years.

[27]As noted by von Hinüber, the omission of any mention of the Mauryas in EBTs such as the Mahāparinibbānasuttanta, in contrast to other later Buddhist texts which do mention them, is also evidence of its pre-Mauryan date: Given the importance of the rise of the Maurya empire even under Candragupta, who is better known for his inclination towards Jainism, one might conjecture that the latest date for the composition of the Mahāparinibbānasuttanta, at least for this part of it, is around 350 to 320 BC.

[13] According to Alexander Wynne,The corresponding pieces of textual material found in the canons of the different sects... probably go back to pre-sectarian times.

It is unlikely that these correspondences could have been produced by the joint endeavour of different Buddhist sects, for such an undertaking would have required organisation on a scale which was simply inconceivable in the ancient world.

"[29] Sujato also notes that the RE 5 (Kālsī) edict states: “Good deeds are difficult to perform,” “bad acts are easy to commit”, which could be a quote from the Udana (5:8).

[30] A. Wynne notes that Minor Rock Edict #3 mentions some Buddhist texts which have been identified and which might show that at the time of Ashoka (304–232 BCE) these were already fixed.

In 1882, Samuel Beal published his Buddhist Literature in China, where he wrote: The Parinibbāna, the Brahmajāla, the Sigalovada, the Dhammacakka, the Kasi-Bhāradvadja, the Mahāmangala; all these I have found and compared with translations from the Pali, and find that in the main they are identical.

[36][37] Over time this comparative study of these parallel Buddhist texts became incorporated into modern scholarship on Buddhism, such as in the work of Etienne Lamotte (1988), who commented on their close relationship: However, with the exception of the Mahāyanist interpolations in the Ekottara, which are easily discernable, the variations in question [between the Nikāyas and Āgamas] affect hardly anything save the method of expression or the arrangement of the subjects.

[38]Bhiksu Thich Minh Chau (1918– 2012) conducted a comparative study (1991) of the contents in the Theravada Majjhima Nikaya and Sarvastivada Madhyama Agama and concluded that despite some differences in technical and practical issues, there was a striking agreement in doctrinal matters.

Andrew Glass has compared a small number of Gandhāran sutras with their Tibetan, Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese parallels and concludes that there is a unity in their doctrines, despite some technical differences.

[39] According to some Asian scholars like Yin Shun, Mizuno Kogen and Mun-Keat Choong, the common ancestor of the Samyutta Nikaya and the Samyukta Agama is the basis for the other EBTs.

[2] The Pāli Canon of the Theravada school contains the most complete fully extant collection of EBTs in an Indic language which has survived until today.

The EBTs preserved in the Chinese Buddhist canon include the Āgamas, collections of sutras which parallel the Pali Nikāyas in content as well as structure.

[46] There are also some differences between the discourses and collections as modern comparative studies has shown, such as omissions of material, additions and shifts in the location of phrases.

[48] Some of the Agamas have been translated into English by the Āgama Research Group (ARG) at the Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts.

Buddhist Chinese also shows a significant number of elements which derive from the source language, including calques and phonological transcriptions.

[50] Scholarly analysis of these texts have shown that they were translated from Middle Indic Prakrit source languages, with varying degrees of sanskritisation.

[57] According to Mark Allon, the most recent major finds include the following collections:[55] According to Mark Allon, an important recent find is "a substantial portion of a large Sanskrit birch bark manuscript of the Dirghagama, the division of the canon containing long discourses, belonging to the (Mula)-Sarvastivada school, which dates to the seventh or eighth centuries AD".

[58] The Arthaviniścaya Sūtra is a composite text which is mainly made up of early Buddhist material organized into an Abhidharma type list.

[59] Sanskrit fragments of different early Buddhist Agamas also survive from various sources, including from the archaeological finds in the Tarim Basin and the city of Turfan.

[67] There are also various Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya texts which contain early material, including their Prātimokṣa monastic code, which is almost identical with Sthavira pātimokkhas.

According to Etienne Lamotte, the Dà zhìdù lùn cites "about a hundred sūtras of the Lesser Vehicle; the majority are borrowed from the Āgama collections.

[81] The Tibetan canon also includes a large Mūlasarvāstivāda text called The Application of Mindfulness of the Sacred Dharma (Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna, Toh 287).