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Āgama (Buddhism)
Collection of Early Buddhist Texts, related to Pali Canon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Buddhism, an āgama (आगम Sanskrit and Pāli, Tibetan: ལུང་ (Wylie: lung) for "sacred work"[1] or "scripture"[2]) is a collection of early Buddhist texts.
The four āgamas together comprise the Suttapiṭaka of the early Buddhist schools, which had different recensions of each āgama. In the Pali Canon of the Theravāda, the term nikāya is instead used for these collections, counted as five.
Meaning
In Buddhism, the term āgama is used to refer to a collection of discourses (Sanskrit: sūtra; Pali: sutta). In its usage in Pāli discourses, the term āgama occurs in the singular as a referent to the entire body of discourses.[3] This reflects the time before the discourses in circulation were divided into four collections, which reportedly happened at the first saṅgīti or communal recitation,[4] at times somewhat less fittingly referred to as the first Buddhist council.
The Pāli Vinaya account of the first saṅgīti or communal recitation speaks instead of the five nikāyas, whereas parallel versions of the same first saṅgīti in other Vinayas continue to speak of āgamas, still counted as four.[5] Notably, the usage of the term āgama for individual collections continues in Pāli commentaries, which speak of the dīghāgama or aṅguttarāgama for example,[6] alongside the use of nikāya.The term āgama is thus a synonym for the meaning of nikāya. The equivalence in meaning can be seen when the commentary on the Saṃyutta Nikāya describes its content by listing its five chapters but refers to the collection comprising these five chapters as Saṃyuttāgama.[7] This confirms that the term āgama here functions as an equivalent to nikāya. Skilling explains that "Pāli tradition also recognized and used the synonym āgama. Thus, when we refer to the collections as a whole, regardless of their school affiliation, we can refer to them as Āgamas on the understanding that this includes the Nikāyas."[8]
Counterparts to the first four Nikāyas (and parts of the fifth) of the Sutta-Pitaka of the Pali Canon in the form of the four Āgamas are preserved primarily in Chinese translation, with substantial material also surviving in Prakrit/Sanskrit and lesser but still significant amounts surviving in Gāndhārī and in Tibetan translation. The content of both collections, the āgama and the nikāya, are dissimilar to an extent, and several sutras/suttas are dissimilar in content.[9]
In the 4th century Mahāyāna abhidharma work Abhidharmasamuccaya, Āsaṅga refers to the collection which contains the Prakrit/Sanskrit āgamas as the Śrāvakapiṭaka, and associates it with the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas.[10] Āsaṅga classifies the Mahāyāna sūtras as belonging to the Bodhisattvapiṭaka, which is designated as the collection of teachings for bodhisattvas.[10]
History
Jens-Uwe Hartmann writes,[11]
According to tradition, the Buddha's discourses were already collected by the time of the first council, held shortly after the Buddha's death ... Scholars, however, see the texts as continually growing in number and size from an unknown nucleus, thereby undergoing various changes in language and content ...
It is clear that, among the early schools, at a minimum the Sarvāstivāda, Kāśyapīya, Mahāsāṃghika, and Dharmaguptaka had recensions of four of the five Prakrit/Sanskrit āgamas that differed. The Āgamas have been compared to the Pali Canon's Nikāyas by contemporary scholars in an attempt to identify possible changes and root phrasings.[9] The Āgamas' existence and similarity to the Sutta Pitaka are sometimes used by scholars to assess to what degree these teachings are a historically authentic representation of the Canon of Early Buddhism.[12] Sometimes also the differences between them are used to suggest an alternative meaning to the accepted meaning of a sutta in either of the two recensions.
The various āgamas
There are four extant collections of Āgamas, and one for which we have only references and fragments (the Kṣudrakāgama). The four extant collections are preserved in their entirety only in Chinese translation (āgama: 阿含經), although small portions of all four have recently been discovered in Sanskrit, and portions of four of the five āgamas are preserved in Tibetan.[13] The division into four is based predominantly on textual length: One collection of long discourses, one that has middle-length discourses, and two comprising short discourses. The latter two are further distinguished according to assembling such short discourses based on a shared topic or else based on a shared number ranging from one to eleven. The resultant Āgamas are:
Dīrgha Āgama
The Dīrgha Āgama ("Long Discourses," Cháng Ahánjīng 長阿含經 Taishō 1)[14] corresponds to the Dīgha Nikāya of the Theravada school. A complete version of the Dīrgha Āgama of the Dharmaguptaka (法藏部) school was read out by Buddhayaśas (佛陀耶舍) and translated into Chinese by Zhu Fonian (竺佛念) in the Later Qin dynasty, dated to 413 CE. It contains 30 sūtras in contrast to the 34 suttas of the Theravadin Dīgha Nikāya. A "very substantial" portion of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Dīrgha Āgama survives in Sanskrit,[15] and portions survive in Tibetan translation.
Madhyama Āgama
The Madhyama Āgama (traditional Chinese: 中阿含經 "Middle-length Discourses")[14] corresponds to the Majjhima Nikāya of the Theravada school. A complete translation of the Madhyama Āgama of the Sarvāstivāda school was done by Saṃghadeva (Chinese: 僧伽提婆) in the Eastern Jin dynasty in 397-398 CE. The Madhyama Āgama of the Sarvāstivāda school contains 222 sūtras, in contrast to the 152 suttas of the Pāli Majjhima Nikāya.[16] Portions of the Sarvāstivāda Madhyama Āgama also survive in Tibetan translation.
Saṃyukta Āgama
The Saṃyukta Āgama ("Connected Discourses", Zá Ahánjīng 雜阿含經 Taishō 2.99)[14] corresponds to the Saṃyutta Nikāya of the Theravada school. A Chinese translation of the complete Saṃyukta Āgama of the Sarvāstivāda (說一切有部) school was done by Guṇabhadra (求那跋陀羅) in the Song state (宋), dated to 435-443 CE. Portions of the Sarvāstivāda Saṃyukta Āgama also survive in Sanskrit[17] and Tibetan translation. In 2014, The Collation and Annotation of Saṃyuktāgama (雜阿含經校釋, Chinese version), written by Wang Jianwei and Jin Hui, was published in China.
There is also an incomplete Chinese translation of the Saṃyukta Āgama (別譯雜阿含經 Taishō 100) of the Kāśyapīya (飲光部) school by an unknown translator, from around the Three Qin (三秦) period, 352-431 CE.[13] A comparison of the Sarvāstivādin, Kāśyapīya, and Theravadin texts reveals a considerable consistency of content, although each recension contains texts not found in the others.
Ekottara Āgama
The Ekottara Āgama ("Numbered Discourses," Zēngyī Ahánjīng, 增壹阿含經 Taishō 125)[14] corresponds to the Anguttara Nikāya of the Theravada school. A complete version of the Ekottara Āgama was translated by Dharmanandi (曇摩難提) of the Fu Qin state (苻秦), and edited by Gautama Saṃghadeva in 397–398 CE. Some believed that it came from the Sarvāstivāda school, but more recently the Mahāsāṃghika branch has been proposed as well.[18] According to A.K. Warder, the Ekottara Āgama references 250 Prātimokṣa rules for monks, which agrees only with the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, which is also located in the Chinese Buddhist canon. He also views some of the doctrine as contradicting tenets of the Mahāsāṃghika school, and states that they agree with Dharmaguptaka views currently known. He therefore concludes that the extant Ekottara Āgama is that of the Dharmaguptaka school.[19]
Of the four Āgamas of the Sanskritic Sūtra Piṭaka in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, it is the one which differs most from the Theravādin version. The Ekottara Āgama contains variants on such standard teachings as the Noble Eightfold Path.[18] According to Keown, "there is considerable disparity between the Pāli and the [Chinese] versions, with more than two-thirds of the sūtras found in one but not the other compilation, which suggests that much of this portion of the Sūtra Piṭaka was not formed until a fairly late date."[20]
Kṣudraka Āgama or Kṣudraka Piṭaka
The Kṣudraka Āgama ("Minor Collection") corresponds to the Khuddaka Nikāya, and existed in some schools. The Dharmaguptaka in particular had a Kṣudraka Āgama.[21] The Chinese translation of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya provides a table of contents for the Dharmaguptaka recension of the Kṣudraka Āgama, and fragments in Gandhari appear to have been found.[22] Items from this Āgama also survive in Tibetan and Chinese translation—fourteen texts, in the latter case.[21][23][24] Some schools, notably the Sarvāstivāda, recognized only four Āgamas—they had a "Kṣudraka" which they did not consider to be an "Āgama."[23][25] Others—including even the Dharmaguptaka, according to some contemporary scholars—preferred to term it a "Kṣudraka Piṭaka." As with its Pāḷi counterpart, the Kṣudraka Āgama appears to have been a miscellany, and was perhaps never definitively established among many early schools.
Additional materials
In addition, there is a substantial quantity of āgama-style texts outside of the main collections. These are found in various sources:
- Partial āgama collections and independent sutras within the Chinese canon.
- Small groups of sutras or independent sutras within the Tibetan canon.
- Sutras reconstructed from ancient manuscripts in Sanskrit, Gandhari, or other ancient Indic languages.
- Passages and quotes from āgama sutras preserved within Mahayana Sutras, Abhidharma texts, later commentaries, and so on.
- Isolated phrases preserved in inscriptions. For example, the Ashoka pillar at Lumbini declares iha budhe jāte, a quote from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra.