Majjhima Nikāya (The Middle-length Discourses)

The suttas chosen

The Majjhima Nikāya’s closest relative is the Madhyama Āgama preserved in Chinese, the 中阿含經 (CBETA T01, no. 26): 222 discourses in sixty fascicles and eighteen chapters, translated towards the end of the fourth century under the Kashmirian Gautama Saṅghadeva from a written Indic original read out by Saṅgharakṣa and taken down by Dàocí, in all likelihood a Prākrit text of the Sarvāstivāda tradition (Anālayo, 2007). By Anālayo’s reckoning ninety-five of the Majjhima’s 152 suttas have counterparts among ninety-six of its discourses, but the two collections arrange them so differently that their shared order is at most “the remnants of a common starting-point” (Anālayo, 2007). Thich Minh Chau’s comparison of the two collections found them to agree closely in doctrine (Minh Chau, 1991), a conclusion Anālayo’s re-examination keeps while correcting its inferences about the schools (Anālayo, 2008, pp. 16–17); his comparative study of every Majjhima discourse against its parallels is the measure used here (Anālayo, 2011). The five below are the initial set, chosen where the Madhyama parallel is complete and the text carries a teaching this site turns on; others may be added later on the same terms.

Majjhima Nikāya	Madhyama Āgama parallel	What the comparison shows
9M/3.2 Alagaddūpamasutta	阿梨吒經, fascicle 54 (CBETA T01, no. 26, p. 763b)	The same frame and sequence: Ariṭṭha’s view, the bhikkhū’s rebuke and the Bhagavā’s, the similes of sensual pleasures, the water snake wrongly grasped and the raft. The Chinese names the obstructive things as sensual pleasures (欲), gives eight similes for the Pāḷi’s ten and twelve limbs of the teaching for its nine, has the snake seized by the middle with the outcome “suffers in vain” rather than death, states the six grounds for views only as they are rightly regarded and has no catechism on impermanence, and ties the liberated bhikkhu’s release to the absence of fear (Anālayo, 2011; Minh Chau, 1991) (its Parallels).
9M/3.6 Pāsarāsisutta	羅摩經, fascicle 56 (p. 775c)	The same two quests and the same account of the Bhagavā’s own, from the going forth to the liberation of the five. The Chinese has no hesitation to teach and no request of Brahmā, passing from the awakening to “whom shall I teach first?”, and it carries the first discourse of the two extremes that the Pāḷi omits; Anālayo reads the request of Brahmā as a later addition to the account (Anālayo, 2012, pp. 11–38) (its Parallels).
9M/3.7 Cūḷahatthipadopamasutta	象跡喻經, fascicle 36 (p. 656a)	The same simile completed in the same way, with the gradual training in both. The Chinese opens with Pilotika’s own visit to the Buddha, treats the four classes of debaters alike, has three tall female elephants where the Pāḷi’s first is dwarfish, and passes from the fourth jhāna straight to the knowledge of the destruction of the defilements, without the recollection of past lives and the divine eye (Anālayo, 2011; Minh Chau, 1991) (its Parallels).
9M/4.8 Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhayasutta	嗏帝經, fascicle 54 (p. 766b)	Sāti’s view of consciousness, its correction and the catechism on dependent origination are shared. The Chinese reads “the Tathāgata” where the Pāḷi’s catechism has “that food”, asks eleven further questions where the Pāḷi asks five, states the conception once with 香陰 for the gandhabba, lacks the whole gradual training that the Pāḷi carries, and closes with an earthquake and the name “liberation by the destruction of craving” (愛盡解脫) (its Parallels).
11M/3.1 Cūḷasuññatasutta	小空經, fascicle 49 (p. 736c)	The same graded emptiness from the apperception of the forest to the signless focus of the mind, but the Chinese has three formless bases where the Pāḷi has four, the Pāḷi standing alone with the base of neither apperception nor non-apperception (Anālayo, 2012, p. 350); its refrain lacks “pure” and “appearance”, and the practitioners of the past, the future and the present are Tathāgatas, not wanderers and brahmins (its Parallels).

Each sutta is translated on a page of its own, with its parallel compared at the foot of the page.

Majjhima Nikāya (The Middle-length Discourses)

9M/3.2 Alagaddūpamasutta (The Discourse on the Simile of the Water Snake)

The bhikkhu Ariṭṭha insists that the things the Bhagavā has called obstructive do not obstruct one who indulges in them, and no one can dissuade him. From his wrong grasp the Bhagavā teaches that a badly grasped teaching harms like a badly caught water snake and that the Dhamma is a raft for crossing over, not for holding on; he then sets out the six grounds for views and the not-self reflection on the five collections, answers the charge that he teaches annihilation, since he teaches suffering and its cessation, and closes with the fruits of the well-proclaimed Dhamma.

9M/3.6 Pāsarāsisutta (The Discourse on the Heap of Traps)

At Rammaka the brahmin’s hermitage in Sāvatthī the Bhagavā tells the bhikkhū of the two quests: the unliberated’s, for what is liable to birth, old age, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, and the liberated’s, for nibbāna (extinguishment). He recounts his own: the going forth, the attainments learnt under Āḷāra Kālāma and Udaka Rāmaputta and left behind, the awakening at Uruvelā, Brahmā’s request, Upaka on the road and the teaching of the group of five. The deer and the heap of traps close it: a bhikkhu in the jhāna (mental dispositions) is beyond Māra’s reach.

9M/3.7 Cūḷahatthipadopamasutta (The Shorter Discourse on the Simile of the Elephant’s Footprint)

The brahmin Jāṇussoṇi hears from the renunciant Pilotika why he is confident in the Bhagavā: four “footprints”, the wise of four classes who come to refute Gotama and leave as his disciples, as a tracker infers a great elephant from a footprint. The Bhagavā completes the simile: a skilled tracker does not conclude from a footprint alone, since large-footed female elephants leave them too, but only on seeing the elephant; so the disciple of the liberated concludes that the Bhagavā is perfectly awakened only when the gradual training ends in the destruction of the defilements. Jāṇussoṇi goes for refuge.

9M/4.8 Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhayasutta (The Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving)

The bhikkhu Sāti, the fisherman’s son, holds that it is one and the same consciousness that runs on through the round of births. The Bhagavā corrects him: consciousness arises dependent on conditions and is named after them, as a fire is named after its fuel. He takes the bhikkhū through the four nutriments, the chain of dependent origination in its origin and its cessation, the conception and growth of a being, the gradual training to the end of the defilements, and the liberation that is the destruction of craving.

11M/3.1 Cūḷasuññatasutta (The Shorter Discourse on Emptiness)

At Sāvatthī āyasmā Ānanda asks whether he heard the Bhagavā rightly: that he often dwells in suññatāvihāra (contemplation on emptiness). The Bhagavā confirms it and sets out a graded practice: attending to one apperception at a time, from the forest through earth and the four formless bases to the signless cetosamādhi (focus of the mind), a bhikkhu regards what is absent as empty and knows what remains as present, until the defilements end and only this body with its six sense bases remains. This is the pure, supreme, unsurpassed appearance of emptiness, in which Ānanda is to train.

References

Anālayo, B. (2007). Comparative Notes on the Madhyama-āgama. Fuyan Buddhist Studies, 2, 33–56.

Anālayo, B. (2008). The Chinese Madhyama-āgama and the Pāli Majjhima-nikāya: In the Footsteps of Thich Minh Chau. Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies, 9, 1–21.

Anālayo, B. (2011). A Comparative Study of the Majjhima-nikāya. Dharma Drum Academic Publisher.

Anālayo, B. (2012). Madhyama-āgama Studies. Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation.

Minh Chau, T. (1991). The Chinese Madhyama Āgama and the Pāli Majjhima Nikāya: A Comparative Study. Motilal Banarsidass.