From the forward to The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism:
Briefly put, Yin Shun’s claim is that the distribution of the sutras into four nikāyas/āgamas did not take place at the First Council; initially the sutras were grouped in a single collection, whose structure is largely preserved in the extant SN and SA. The other three principal nikāyas/āgamas were developed subsequently, probably at the Second Council, in response to a substantial increase in the number and size of the remembered sutras that had taken place during the intervening century. These conclusions are based in large part on a demonstration that the contents of SN/SA fit the first, second, and third categories in the traditional aṅga classification (sūtra, geya, vyākaraṇa), i.e. that SN/SA is structurally archaic. It follows that SN and SA are of special significance both historically and doctrinally—which helps explain why the author of the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra saw fit to include in his great treatise a lengthy commentary on the sūtra-aṅga portion of SA.
There are also some passages from northern sources that state that the SA served as the basis for the other three āgamas. Yin Shun held that not only was the SA the first āgama, but even that the sūtra-aṅga section of it was the earliest and most authoritative portion of that collection. The sūtra-aṅga is entirely based around the framework of the Four Noble Truths. Yin Shun maintained that the MA, DA, and EA were later collections that originated at the Second Council.
Some of this perceived similarity may be because the Pali nikāyas sometimes have extra sūtras that make each nikāya more representative. For example, the large sūtra on the Four Bases of Mindfulness in the DN is considered late by many, and does not exist in the DA. If we compare the topics and themes, though, the collections are not so uniform. For example, the SA has quite a lot about ānāpāna, but the MA has practically nothing about it. The MA has a lot about impurity contemplations, but the SA has practically nothing about it.
I agree it’s best to consider views like this as hypotheses when considering their history. Otherwise preconceptions may dissuade people from studying the particularities of each text or collection.
Not in Pali, but I think amṛta also occurs in the Ṛgveda, is cognate to the Greek ambrosia, and has PIE roots.
This is actually a really interesting point that I had not considered before: leaks can be inward too. In general, though, the Chinese term is used mostly for outward or downward leaks, but literally it does just mean “leak.”
is: "_SA 810 has awareness of all bodily formation_s “. In the Pali, the term is ‘sabba-kaya’. ‘Sabba’ is generally translated as ‘all’ (rather than ‘whole’ or ‘entire’/‘kevala’). MN 118 does state: “in & out breathing is a kaya amongst other kaya” thus the translation: “all bodily sankhara” is consistent with the idea of 'long, short, warm, cold, etc” breathes.
is the following verse from EA 17.1 about how the mind affects the breath since if the Buddha was concerned exclusively with the physical body at stage 3, he would have likely have used the term ‘experiencing kaya-sankhara’ (instead of ‘sabba-kaya’), similar to ‘experiencing the citta sankhara’ at stage 7: