Dīgha Nikāya (The Long Discourses)
The discourses of the Dīgha Nikāya this site translates, chosen where the Pāḷi and the Dīrgha Āgama agree most closely, each introduced by its own summary: the Mahāpadānasutta (7D/1) in ten parts and the Saṅgītisutta (8D/10) in eleven.
The suttas chosen
Section titled “The suttas chosen”The Dīgha Nikāya’s closest relative is the Dīrgha Āgama preserved in Chinese, the 長阿含經 (CBETA T01, no. 1): thirty discourses in twenty-two fascicles, translated at Chang’an in 412–413 by Zhu Fonian from a text recited by Buddhayaśas, in all likelihood a Prakrit text of the Dharmaguptaka school (Anālayo, 2014, pp. 5–6; Bareau, 1966). Twenty-seven of the Dīgha’s thirty-four suttas have a counterpart in it, and the Chinese collection stands closer to the Pāḷi than the Sarvāstivāda Dīrgha Āgama recovered from Sanskrit fragments does (Anālayo, 2014, pp. 7–9). Where two recensions carried apart for centuries still agree in the order of their events and in their lists, the agreement points to material older than either school, and such suttas are translated here first. The collections themselves grew: comparing the Pāḷi with the Sanskrit Dīrgha Āgama of the Sarvāstivādins recovered at Gilgit, Bucknell argues that both descend from one ancestral Long Collection, each enlarged since by blocks of discourses moved in from its Middle-length Collection, ten of the Dīgha’s thirty-four among them, so that an ancestral core of about twenty-four suttas remains, the Sīlakkhandhavagga and eleven others (Bucknell, 2014, pp. 96–97). Seven of the nine below belong to that core; the Mahānidāna and the Sakkapañha do not, and are chosen for their closeness to the Chinese alone. The nine are the initial set; others may be added later where a comparison shows the same closeness and the text warrants it.
| Dīgha Nikāya | Dīrgha Āgama parallel | What the comparison shows |
|---|---|---|
| 7D/1 Mahāpadānasutta | 大本經, fascicle 1 (CBETA T01, no. 1, p. 1b) | The same frame and the same life of Vipassī from the Kareri pavilion to the gods of the Pure Abodes; the Chinese adds summary verses and the Buddhas’ sons, and gives dependent origination twelve links where the Pāḷi gives ten (its Parallels). A Sanskrit Mahāvadānasūtra is the third witness (Fukita, 2003; Waldschmidt, 1953); it opens the Sarvāstivāda collection together with the Daśottara, Saṅgīti and Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtras, the “six sūtras” section that holds four of the suttas chosen here (Bucknell, 2014, p. 62). |
| 7D/3 Mahāparinibbānasutta | 遊行經, fascicles 2–4 (p. 11a) | The same course of events from Vassakāra’s visit at Rājagaha to the relics, in six versions that differ in detail and arrangement (Waldschmidt, 1944). The text has not always been a sutta: the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya keeps it inside the Vinaya, at the close of a biography of the Buddha, and Frauwallner argued that this was its original place, the biography, the Parinibbāna and the councils being one narrative by the author of the Skandhaka about a century after the Buddha’s death, which the other schools later moved into their long-discourse collections (Frauwallner, 1956, pp. 28, 43–49, 159–164); see Motivation and the Khandhaka translated here. The Mahāsudassana story, a sutta of its own in Pāḷi (7D/4), is told inside the Chinese text (Anālayo, 2014, p. 7); the Buddha’s last meditation in both is studied in (Anālayo, 2017, pp. 203–248). |
| 7D/2 Mahānidānasutta | 大緣方便經, fascicle 10 (p. 60a) | The same opening, Ānanda’s remark that dependent origination seems plain to him and the Buddha’s rebuke, and the same tracing back from ageing and death (p. 60a–b); the Chinese counts twelve links and keeps the six sense bases, which the Pāḷi’s chain passes over. The Sarvāstivādins kept their version in the Middle-length collection (大因經, 中阿含經 fascicle 24, T01 no. 26 p. 578b), and on Bucknell’s analysis the sutta reached the Dīgha from the Majjhima; the agreement of the two texts does not depend on where they stand (Bucknell, 2014, pp. 65, 96). |
| 7D/8 Sakkapañhasutta | 釋提桓因問經, fascicle 10 (p. 62b) | Sakka’s visit and the same chain of questions, from the fetters that set gods and humans at war back through envy to what is dear and not dear (p. 62b); two of its miracle passages are compared with the parallels in (Anālayo, 2017, pp. 249–294). Like the Mahānidāna it stands in the Sarvāstivāda Middle-length collection (釋問經, 中阿含經 fascicle 33, T01 no. 26 p. 632c) and, on Bucknell’s analysis, reached the Dīgha from the Majjhima (Bucknell, 2014, pp. 65, 96). |
| 6D/1 Brahmajālasutta | 梵動經, fascicle 14 (p. 88b) | The same frame, the brahmin Suppiya (善念) disparaging and his pupil Brahmadatta (梵摩達) praising the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Saṅgha as they follow behind, and the bhikkhū’s talk of it after the meal (p. 88b); the same moralities, and the same sixty-two views (六十二見, p. 89c) in the same order, eighteen about the past (十八見, p. 90a) and forty-four about the future (四十四見, p. 92b), each traced to feeling and to contact (彼因受緣 … 彼因觸緣, p. 93c), with the fisherman’s fine-meshed net over the pond (以細目網覆小池上, pp. 93c–94a) and the palm tree cut at the crown (p. 94a); it is the Sarvāstivāda versions that rearrange the themes (Anālayo, 2010). The Chinese has 1,250 bhikkhus and the king’s hall in the Bamboo Grove for the Pāḷi’s royal rest-house at Ambalaṭṭhikā, the great world system trembling thrice in six ways where the Pāḷi’s ten-thousandfold world system quakes once, and five names ending in “trembling” (義動、法動、見動、魔動、梵動, p. 94a) for the Pāḷi’s five names ending in “net”, the translator having read jāla as a word for shaking; a Sanskrit Brahmajālasūtra closes the Sarvāstivāda collection (Bucknell, 2014, pp. 62, 92). |
| 6D/2 Sāmaññaphalasutta | 沙門果經, fascicle 17 (p. 107a) | Ajātasattu’s question and the gradual path, the backbone shared by the whole Sīlakkhandhavagga, the Chinese collection’s matching chapter and all but one of the Sanskrit collection’s twenty-three (Anālayo, 2016; Bucknell, 2014, pp. 91–92); the six teachers’ doctrines, by contrast, are assigned differently from version to version (MacQueen, 1988; Meisig, 1987). |
| 6D/12 Lohiccasutta | 露遮經, fascicle 17 (p. 112c) | The same story: Lohicca of Sālavatikā, his view that one who has attained a wholesome state should tell no one, the barber who carries the invitation and reports the view, the three teachers who deserve reproach and the Tathāgata who does not, the argument that obstructing another’s hearing of the Dhamma bars him from the four fruits, and Lohicca’s refuge. The Chinese has 1,250 bhikkhus for the Pāḷi’s 500, lets Lohicca meet the Buddha first and conceive the view on his way home, names no barber, puts the three teachers before the similes of the kingdom and the fief and pairs them with the same three similes in a different order (pp. 113b–c), abbreviates the gradual path to its goal (p. 113c) (Anālayo, 2013, n. 24), and closes with the five precepts in place of the simile of the man pulled from the precipice (pp. 113b–114a); a Sanskrit Lohityasūtra stands in the Sarvāstivāda collection (Anālayo, 2014, p. 8). |
| 8D/10 Saṅgītisutta | 眾集經, fascicle 8 (p. 49b) | The same frame and the same plan from Ones to Tens, but 129 lists against the Pāḷi’s 230, 106 of them shared (Patton, 2021); editions and studies in (Anālayo, 2013; Behrsing, 1930; Stache-Rosen, 1968) (its Parallels). |
| 8D/11 Dasuttarasutta | 十上經, fascicle 9 (p. 52c) | Ten questions answered ten times over, a frame so fixed that it left little room for insertion (Patton, 2021); the Chinese collection’s two further list discourses are extracts from it (Anālayo, 2014); a Sanskrit Daśottarasūtra survives (de Jong, 1979). |
Of the other eighteen Dīgha suttas with a Chinese counterpart, the rest of the Sīlakkhandhavagga shares the gradual path with its parallels (Anālayo, 2016) and may follow on the same terms. Six suttas have no counterpart in the Chinese collection at all, the Mahālisutta and Jāliyasutta (6D/6, 6D/7), the Subhasutta (6D/10), the Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasutta (7D/9), the Lakkhaṇasutta (8D/7) and the Āṭānāṭiyasutta (8D/9), and fall outside this measure whatever their worth (Anālayo, 2014, pp. 7–8).
The Mahāpadānasutta and the Saṅgītisutta are translated below, each with its parallel compared on its own page; the other seven follow.
Dīgha Nikāya (The Long Discourses)
Section titled “Dīgha Nikāya (The Long Discourses)”7D/1 Mahāpadānasutta (The Great Discourse on the Life Stories)
Section titled “7D/1 Mahāpadānasutta (The Great Discourse on the Life Stories)”At Sāvatthī the bhikkhū fall to talking about former lives, and the Bhagavā recounts the six Buddhas before him and himself, then the life of Vipassī in full: the wonders of his birth and the thirty-two marks, the four sights and his going forth, his insight into dependent origination, Brahmā’s request, his first disciples and the sending out of his bhikkhū; the gods of the Pure Abodes confirm the account. Translated in ten parts, cut at the edition’s divisions.
8D/10 Saṅgītisutta (The Discourse on Communal Recitation)
Section titled “8D/10 Saṅgītisutta (The Discourse on Communal Recitation)”At Pāvā the Mallas have built a new assembly hall, Ubbhataka, and the Bhagavā is the first to use it. After teaching late into the night he lies down and asks āyasmā Sāriputta to speak to the bhikkhū. Sāriputta tells of the quarrels among the Jains after the death of Nigaṇṭha Nāṭaputta and proposes that the bhikkhū recite the Dhamma together and not quarrel, so that the optimal life may last long; he then recites it arranged by number, from one to ten, and the Bhagavā approves. Translated in eleven parts, cut at the edition’s own divisions.