Saṃyutta Nikāya (The Connected Discourses)

The suttas chosen

The Saṃyutta Nikāya’s closest relative is the Saṃyukta Āgama preserved in Chinese, the 雜阿含經 (CBETA T02, no. 99): 1,362 discourses in fifty fascicles in the Taishō’s count, translated from 435 by Bǎoyún from a text recited by Guṇabhadra, a Sanskrit text of a Mūlasarvāstivāda line that the pilgrim Fǎxiǎn appears to have brought back from Sri Lanka (Anālayo, 2015, pp. 1–2; Bingenheimer, 2011; Bucknell, 2011; Glass, 2010). The Taishō text is in disorder and two of its fascicles are lost; Yìnshùn’s reconstruction recovers an arrangement on the same plan as the Pāḷi collection’s, and more than two thirds of its discourses have a Saṃyutta counterpart (Anālayo, 2015, p. 2). Choong’s comparison of the two collections’ doctrinal core, taken saṃyutta by saṃyutta, is the measure used here: for the collections and the sense spheres “most of the teachings covered are shared”, for feeling there are “only minor disagreements”, for the components the unshared teachings are “widespread”, and for causation the accounts of the chain are shared by the two versions, so that the shared material “existed already” before the Sarvāstivāda and Vibhajjavāda traditions parted (Choong, 2000, pp. 72, 107, 129, 147, 204–205). The twenty-two below are the initial set: the suttas with a close Saṃyukta parallel that carry a teaching this site turns on, dependent origination, the five collections, the sense spheres, feeling and the four truths, seven of them the discourses on which Choong’s comparison leans most; others may be added later on the same terms.

Saṃyutta Nikāya	Saṃyukta Āgama parallel	What the comparison shows
12S2/1.1.1 Paṭiccasamuppādasutta	SA 298, fascicle 12 (CBETA T02, no. 99, p. 85a)	One Chinese discourse carries this sutta and the next: its “teaching of the principle” (法說) is the bare formula and the chain in origin only, without the Pāḷi’s cessation (its Parallels).
12S2/1.1.2 Vibhaṅgasutta	SA 298, fascicle 12 (p. 85a)	Its “teaching of the meaning” (義說) defines the twelve terms forward from ignorance, with a long definition of ignorance, the four formless collections for the Pāḷi’s “name”, three feelings and three cravings for the Pāḷi’s six, and a long description of old age (its Parallels).
12S2/1.2.5 Kaccānagottasutta	SA 301, fascicle 12 (p. 85c)	The same argument with its order reversed, right view stated first and the origin and cessation of the world given as its reason; the two extremes are not named, and Kaccāna attains the liberated state at the end (its Parallels).
12S2/1.2.10 Paccayasutta	SA 296, fascicle 12 (p. 84b)	The distinction of dependent origination from the dependently arisen phenomena is shared; the Chinese states the constancy of the principle twice, merely lists the phenomena, adds illness to the chain’s end and a passage on cutting off worldly views (its Parallels).
12S2/1.7.5 Nagarasutta	SA 287, fascicle 12 (p. 80b)	The same tracing of the chain to the mutual dependence of consciousness and phenomenal objects and the same ancient city; the Chinese carries the cessation on to mental constructions and ignorance, has no “Origin, origin!” refrain, and makes the ancient road the sages’ road (its Parallels).
12S2/1.7.7 Naḷakalāpīsutta	SA 288, fascicle 12 (p. 81a)	The same simile, but the roles reversed, Sāriputta asking and Mahākoṭṭhika answering, three reeds for the two sheaves, and thirty grounds for the Pāḷi’s thirty-six (its Parallels).
12S2/3.2.2 Sanidānasutta	SA 458, fascicle 17 (p. 117a)	The same series from component to pursuit and the same torch; the Chinese orders apperception, desire, thought, fever and pursuit, attaches the consequence to each series, treats ill will and harming under one component, and sets the simile after its application (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
12S2/1.7.10 Susimaparibbājakasutta	SA 347, fascicle 14 (p. 96b)	The same frame and the same “first the knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma”; the Chinese has the sects pick a clever youth, the Buddha read his intent, questions on the four jhāna instead of the psychic powers, the chain alone, Susima’s attainment of the Dhamma Eye, and a thief pierced with spears instead of beheaded (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S3/1.2.1.7 Anattalakkhaṇasutta	SA 34, fascicle 2 (p. 7c)	The same argument, catechism and formula; the Chinese adds to the learned disciple’s path that, taking up nothing in the world, he realises nibbāna by himself (its Parallels).
13S3/1.2.1.4 Upādānaparipavattasutta	SA 41, fascicle 2 (p. 9b)	The four turnings and the definitions of the five collections are shared, with the differences in detail set out on its page (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S3/1.2.5.3 Pheṇapiṇḍūpamasutta	SA 265, fascicle 10 (p. 68b)	The five similes in the same order, with verses in both (its Parallels).
13S3/1.2.3.9 Pālileyyasutta	SA 57, fascicle 2 (p. 13c)	The same departure, the same unspoken question and the same analysis of the views of self as mental constructions born of craving; the Chinese sets the scene at Sāvatthī, adds a reproach of lazy sons of good family, carries the chain on to the six sense bases, spells out all twenty views, and gives the “quickly attains” refrain once (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S4/1.1.3.1 Sabbasutta	SA 319, fascicle 13 (p. 91a)	The same all; the Chinese addresses it to the brahmin Jāṇussoṇi, who asks, and names it “the twelve sense bases” (its Parallels).
13S4/1.2.4.10 Dutiyadvayasutta	SA 214, fascicle 8 (p. 54a), a partial parallel	The pair, the consciousness and the contact correspond, but the Chinese abbreviates by reference to the preceding discourse and has none of the Pāḷi’s arguments from the impermanence of the cause (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S4/1.1.3.6 Ādittasutta	SA 197, fascicle 8 (p. 50b)	The fire sermon, the same at Gayāsīsa to the thousand; the Chinese makes it the third of three demonstrations, after psychic power and mind-reading, adds illness among the fires, and has no disenchantment, the thousand’s minds being liberated as they hear (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S4/1.4.3.8 Ādittapariyāyasutta	SA 241, fascicle 9 (p. 58a)	The same sequence of torments preferred to grasping at the senses’ objects; the Chinese sets it at Vesālī, names the foolish ordinary person as the one for whom the torment would be better, has him fall “like a sinking iron ball” where the Pāḷi names hell or the animal realm, and replaces the thoughts that split the Saṅgha with thoughts about forms (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S4/1.3.1.3 Dukkhasamudayasutta	SA 218, fascicle 8 (p. 54c)	The arising and the disappearance of suffering through the six senses; the Chinese runs the origin on past craving to the whole chain, begins the cessation one link earlier, at contact, and adds illness (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S4/2.1.6 Sallasutta	SA 470, fascicle 17 (p. 119c)	The two arrows, in the saṃyutta where Choong found “only minor disagreements”: the Chinese ordinary person is struck by two poisoned arrows at once, is driven rather than underlain by the tendencies, with delusion for the Pāḷi’s ignorance, and the verses are four to the Pāḷi’s three (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S4/2.2.1 Rahogatasutta	SA 474, fascicle 17 (p. 121a)	Whatever is felt is within suffering, by the impermanence of mental constructions; the Chinese questioner is Ānanda, its grounds are two to the Pāḷi’s six, and it has two lists of the successive cessation and stilling where the Pāḷi has three, closing with a supreme stilling that is the mind’s liberation (Choong, 2000) (its Parallels).
13S4/2.3.1 Sīvakasutta	SA 977, fascicle 35 (p. 252c)	Not everything felt is the result of past action; the Chinese has seven causes to the Pāḷi’s eight, without the result of action, adds a teaching on the hindrances and the path, and ends with Sīvaka’s going forth and liberation instead of his refuge and the verse (its Parallels).
14S5/12.2.1 Dhammacakkappavattanasutta	SA 379, fascicle 15 (p. 103c)	The first discourse: the Chinese has the three turnings and twelve aspects alone, without the two extremes, the Middle Way and the definitions of the four realisations, gives the Dhamma Eye to Koṇḍañña and eighty thousand devas, has no earthquake, and names itself at the close; Anālayo compares the versions in the Saṃyukta and the Ekottarika (Anālayo, 2015, pp. 347–388, 2016, pp. 267–299) (its Parallels).
14S5/12.4.1 Sīsapāvanasutta	SA 404, fascicle 15 (p. 108a)	The handful of leaves; the Chinese sets it between Rājagaha and Pāṭaliputta, takes the declared before the undeclared, and names the four truths only in its closing exhortation (its Parallels).

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

Saṃyutta Nikāya (The Connected Discourses)

12S2/1.1.1 Paṭiccasamuppādasutta (The Discourse on Dependent Origination)

At Sāvatthī the Bhagavā states paṭiccasamuppāda (dependent origination) to the bhikkhū: the twelve causes from ignorance to ageing and death, by which this whole mass of suffering originates, and their cessation in turn with the remainderless fading away of ignorance. It is the first discourse of the Nidānasaṃyutta and gives the formula bare; the Vibhaṅgasutta that follows defines its terms.

12S2/1.1.2 Vibhaṅgasutta (The Discourse on the Analysis)

The Bhagavā states the chain of dependent origination and then analyses it, defining each of its twelve terms in turn from ageing and death back to ignorance: what ageing and death, birth, existence, fuel, craving, feeling, contact, the six sense bases, phenomenal objects, consciousness, mental constructions and ignorance each are. The sutta closes with the chain in origin and in cessation.

12S2/1.2.5 Kaccānagottasutta (The Discourse to Kaccānagotta)

Asked by āyasmā Kaccānagotta how far there is right view, the Bhagavā answers that the world mostly depends on a duality, existence and non-existence, and that one who sees the origin and the cessation of the world as they really are holds neither; such a one takes no stand on a self and knows for himself that only suffering arises and ceases. “Everything exists” and “everything does not exist” are the two extremes; the Tathāgata teaches by the middle, which is dependent origination.

12S2/1.2.10 Paccayasutta (The Discourse on Causes)

The Bhagavā distinguishes dependent origination from the dependently arisen phenomena. Dependent origination is the causal relation itself, which remains whether or not Tathāgatas arise, specific causality, which the Tathāgata awakens to and makes clear. The dependently arisen phenomena are the twelve members themselves, each impermanent, constructed and subject to cessation. A disciple who has seen both as they really are does not run to the questions of what he was, will be or is.

12S2/1.7.5 Nagarasutta (The Discourse on the City)

At Sāvatthī the Bhagavā recounts his search before his awakening: asking what ageing and death depend on, he traces each link to its cause until consciousness and phenomenal objects are found to condition each other, then the cessation of each with the cessation of its cause. He likens the discovery to a man who finds an ancient road to an ancient city and has the king rebuild it: the road is the path of the liberated in eight parts, by which he understood each link and taught it, so that the optimal life has spread.

12S2/1.7.7 Naḷakalāpīsutta (The Discourse on the Sheaves of Reeds)

At Isipatana, āyasmā Mahākoṭṭhika asks āyasmā Sāriputta whether ageing and death, birth and the other links down to phenomenal objects and consciousness are made by oneself, by another, by both, or arise by chance. Sāriputta answers that each has its cause, and that consciousness and phenomenal objects cause each other, like two sheaves of reeds standing by leaning on one another. Mahākoṭṭhika applauds the statement on thirty-six grounds: for each of the twelve links, a bhikkhu who teaches, practises or is liberated for its disenchantment, detachment and cessation earns a fitting name.

12S2/3.2.2 Sanidānasutta (The Discourse on What Has a Source)

At Sāvatthī the Bhagavā teaches that the thoughts of sensual desire, ill will and harming arise with a source, not without one: from each component comes an apperception, then an intention, a desire, a fever and a pursuit, in which the unlearned ordinary person acts wrongly by body, speech and mind. The thoughts of renunciation, goodwill and not harming arise in the same way, and in their pursuit the learned disciple of the liberated acts rightly. A burning grass torch dropped in dry grass and not quickly put out shows what comes of leaving an unbalanced apperception unchecked.

12S2/1.7.10 Susimaparibbājakasutta (The Discourse on the Renunciant Susima)

Susima, a renunciant sent by his assembly to learn the Dhamma so that they may win back their gains, goes forth under the Bhagavā and questions bhikkhū who have declared final knowledge: they have none of the psychic powers or formless attainments, and call themselves liberated by wisdom. The Bhagavā tells him that the knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma comes first and the knowledge of nibbāna after, leads him through the five collections and the chain of dependent origination, and accepts his confession of having gone forth as a thief of the Dhamma.

13S3/1.2.1.7 Anattalakkhaṇasutta (The Discourse on the Characteristic of Not-self)

At Bārāṇasī the Bhagavā teaches the group of five bhikkhū that each of the five collections is anattā (not-self): were any of them a self, it would not lead to affliction and could be made to be as one wishes. Through the catechism of impermanent, suffering and subject to change, and the formula for regarding all form, feeling, apperception, mental constructions and consciousness as not mine, not I, not my self, the learned disciple is disenchanted, detached and liberated. While the exposition was spoken, the five were liberated from the defilements.

13S3/1.2.1.4 Upādānaparipavattasutta (The Discourse on the Turnings Regarding Fuel)

At Sāvatthī the Bhagavā grounds his claim to perfect awakening in having experientially understood the five collections of fuel in four turnings: each collection, its origin, its cessation and the path leading to its cessation. Form, feeling, apperception, mental constructions and consciousness are each defined, with food, contact or phenomenal objects as their origin and the eightfold path as the way to their cessation. Those who practise for disenchantment with them find a footing in the Dhamma and Discipline; those liberated without grasping are perfected, with no round by which to describe them.

13S3/1.2.5.3 Pheṇapiṇḍūpamasutta (The Discourse on the Simile of the Lump of Foam)

On the bank of the Ganges at Ayujjhā the Bhagavā likens the five collections to a lump of foam carried by the river, a bubble in the autumn rain, a mirage at noon, a banana trunk without heartwood and a magician’s illusion: examined properly, each proves empty, hollow and insubstantial. The learned disciple is disenchanted, detached and liberated. Seven verses restate the five similes, describe the body abandoned by life, heat and consciousness, and urge the bhikkhu to regard the collections day and night, give up all bonds and live as if his head were on fire.

13S3/1.2.3.9 Pālileyyasutta (The Discourse at Pālileyya)

The Bhagavā leaves Kosambī alone, without telling his attendants or the Saṅgha, and settles at Pālileyyaka, where āyasmā Ānanda brings a group of bhikkhū to hear him. Knowing one bhikkhu’s unspoken question, how one must know and see for the defilements to be destroyed at once, he answers that every way of regarding the five collections as self, the eternalist and annihilationist views, and doubt itself are mental constructions, born of craving from a feeling touched by ignorance, and so impermanent, constructed and dependently originated; seeing this, the defilements end.

13S4/1.1.3.1 Sabbasutta (The Discourse on the All)

At Sāvatthī the Bhagavā teaches the bhikkhū what the all is: the six senses and their objects, from the eye and forms to the mind and mental phenomena. Anyone who would reject this all and declare another would be making a groundless statement, unable to answer when questioned and meeting with trouble, because such an all lies outside his domain.

13S4/1.2.4.10 Dutiyadvayasutta (The Second Discourse on the Pair)

The Bhagavā explains to the bhikkhū how consciousness arises dependent on a pair: for each sense, the organ and its objects give rise to the corresponding consciousness, and the meeting of the three is contact. The members of the pair, the consciousness, the reason and cause of its arising, and the contact are all impermanent, changing and becoming otherwise, so nothing arisen from an impermanent cause could be permanent; touched, one feels, intends and apperceives, and these too are unsteady and changing. The sutta closes the Channavagga, whose summary verse follows it.

13S4/1.1.3.6 Ādittasutta (The Discourse on Burning)

At Gayāsīsa, to a thousand bhikkhū, the Bhagavā declares that all is burning: each sense, its objects, its consciousness, its contact and the feeling that arises from that contact, burning with the fires of passion, hatred and delusion and with birth, ageing, death, sorrow and despair. The learned disciple who sees this is disenchanted, detached and liberated, and while the discourse was being spoken the minds of the thousand bhikkhū were liberated from the defilements.

13S4/1.4.3.8 Ādittapariyāyasutta (The Discourse on the Exposition of Burning)

The Bhagavā teaches the exposition on burning: better that the eye, ear, nose, tongue and body be lacerated by a burning iron spike, stake, nail-clipper, razor or spear than that one grasp at the representations and details of their objects, since a consciousness tied to their gratification leads at death to hell or the animal realm; and better to sleep than to think the thoughts that split the Saṅgha. The learned disciple sets the torment aside, attends instead to the impermanence of each sense, its objects, consciousness, contact and feeling, and is disenchanted and liberated.

13S4/1.3.1.3 Dukkhasamudayasutta (The Discourse on the Arising of Suffering)

The Bhagavā teaches the origin and the disappearance of suffering through the six senses. Dependent on the eye and forms eye-consciousness arises, the coming together of the three is contact, with contact as cause feeling, with feeling as cause craving: this is the origin. With the remainderless fading away and cessation of that craving, fuel, existence and birth cease, and with them ageing and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure and despair: this is the disappearance, stated for the eye, the tongue and the mind and abbreviated for the rest.

13S4/2.1.6 Sallasutta (The Discourse on the Arrow)

The Bhagavā distinguishes the unlearned ordinary person from the learned disciple of the liberated by what a painful feeling does to each. The one sorrows and laments and feels two feelings, bodily and mental, like a man pierced by a second arrow after the first; he has aversion, seeks sensual pleasure, does not know the way out, the underlying tendencies lie dormant in him, and he feels every feeling fettered. The other feels the bodily feeling alone, as if pierced by one arrow, knows the way out, and feels every feeling unfettered. Three verses close the discourse.

13S4/2.2.1 Rahogatasutta (The Discourse on One Gone into Seclusion)

A bhikkhu, reflecting in seclusion, asks the Bhagavā how the saying “whatever is felt is within suffering” stands beside the teaching of three feelings, pleasant, painful and neutral. The Bhagavā answers that it was said of the impermanence of mental constructions and their liability to wear away, dissolve, fade, cease and change, and then sets out the successive cessation, subsiding and tranquillising of mental constructions through the four jhāna, the four formless bases and the cessation of apperception and feeling, ending with the bhikkhu whose defilements are destroyed.

13S4/2.3.1 Sīvakasutta (The Discourse to Sīvaka)

The renunciant Moḷiyasīvaka asks the Bhagavā about the view that whatever a person feels is caused by what was done before. The Bhagavā answers that feelings arise from eight causes, bile, phlegm, wind, their combination, change of weather, careless conduct, what is self-inflicted and the result of action, as one can know for oneself and as the world agrees, so that those who hold that view overshoot both. Sīvaka takes refuge as a lay disciple, and a verse lists the eight.

14S5/12.2.1 Dhammacakkappavattanasutta (The Discourse on Setting the Wheel of the Dhamma in Motion)

The Bhagavā’s first discourse, to the group of five bhikkhū at Isipatana: the two extremes not to be cultivated and the Middle Way, the eightfold path; the four realisations of suffering, its origin, its cessation and the path to it; the three phases and twelve aspects in which his knowledge of them was purified; and his claim to perfect awakening. Koṇḍañña gains the Dhamma Eye, the devas carry the news of the wheel of the Dhamma up to the Brahmā world, and Koṇḍañña receives the name Aññāsikoṇḍañña.

14S5/12.4.1 Sīsapāvanasutta (The Discourse in the Siṃsapā Grove)

Holding a few siṃsapā leaves in his hand at Kosambī, the Bhagavā asks the bhikkhū which are more, the leaves in his hand or those in the grove overhead. What he has experientially understood and not declared is likewise far more than what he has declared; he did not declare it because it is not beneficial and does not lead to nibbāna, and what he has declared is the four realisations, because they do, so that effort should be made to know them.

References

Anālayo, B. (2015). Saṃyukta-āgama Studies. Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation.

Anālayo, B. (2016). Ekottarika-āgama Studies. Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation.

Bingenheimer, M. (2011). Studies in Āgama Literature: With Special Reference to the Shorter Chinese Saṃyuktāgama. Shin Weng Feng Print Co.

Bucknell, R. S. (2011). The Historical Relationship Between the Two Chinese Saṃyuktāgama Translations. Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal, 24, 35–70.

Choong, M. (2000). The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism: A Comparative Study Based on the Sūtrāṅga Portion of the Pāli Saṃyutta-Nikāya and the Chinese Saṃyuktāgama. Harrassowitz.

Glass, A. (2010). Guṇabhadra, Bǎoyún, and the Saṃyuktāgama. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 31(1–2), 185–203.