Just poking in to say thank you for this conversation! So many Theravadins all the time are like, “Pali texts are the most reliable and authoritative because they’re the oldest” and I’m like:
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Look on the bright side: a decade or two ago, almost no-one had even heard of the Agamas. The only reason Theravadins can even have an opinion about the Agamas is because there are those who took an interest.
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Very true. And, it’s natural to stick to one’s own canon, and classical Chinese bedevils everyone who tries to translate it. It’s amazing how easy it is to read it as we’d like it to read because it leaves so much to the reader to decide.
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And I found what Bhante @sujato wrote years ago, which I have read it but I forgot it, this is the answer of question “why we bother studying the Chinese Agamas?” raised in this topic:
Perhaps another reason for the relative neglect of the Āgamas is their very closeness to the Nikāyas. We have to go to a lot of effort to discover what we think we know already: the core Buddhist teachings really are the four noble truths, the eightfold path, dependent origination, and so on. Although there are occasional instructive variations, the main fruit of this study is not in the content of the teaching, but in the method. Rather than assuming that the scriptures of just one school are the first and last word on what the Buddha taught, we are searching in the root teachings shared in common between the schools. Such an approach will not only help us to get ‘back to the Buddha’, but it will provide the best platform for an improved understanding between the Buddhist schools we find alive today.
I started out this essay by criticizing ‘Pali fundamentalism’; but we must also beware of becoming ‘pre-sectarian’ fundamentalists! The teachings of the various schools are not just a sheer mass of error and meaningless corruption, any more than they are iron-clad formulations of ‘ultimate truth’. They are the answers given by teachers of old to the question: ‘What does Buddhism mean for us?’ Each succeeding generation must undertake the delicate task of hermeneutics, the re-acculturation of the Dhamma in time and place. And in our times, so different from those of any Buddhist era or culture of the past, we must find our own answers. Looked at from this perspective, the teachings of the schools offer us invaluable lessons, a wealth of precedent bequeathed us by our ancestors in faith. Just as the great Theravādin commentator Buddhaghosa employed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Nikāyas, many of the greatest ‘Mahāyāna’ scholars, such as Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, and Asaṅga, based themselves securely on the Āgamas. By following their example and making the effort to thoroughly learn these Teachings we can understand, practice, and propagate the living Dhamma for the sake of all sentient beings.
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Last night I read Kuan’s Legends and Transcendence: Sectarian Affiliations of the Ekottarika Āgama in Chinese Translation, and it reminded me of how much we owe to the translations that exist in Chinese. Being able to compare the different sectarian vinayas, as one good example, makes it clear just how much sharing and cross-sectarian influence must have taken place in the ancient Buddhist world. The firewall that the Theravada seem have built to pretend that never happened aside, Buddhists were really very open about what constituted the “Buddha’s teaching” as they struggled to maintain it as best they could.
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Whilst the age of the Pali suttas and the aṭṭhakathā is attractive and does add some weight to their authority, that isn’t the only reason for accepting them. Personally, for me, it’s because all I see outside of the Mahāvihāra is a tragic lapse into heresy.
My simple strategy having failed, please would you mind expanding your use of ‘Mahāvihāra’ for the general readers of this site?
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Sorry, yes. By Mahāvihāra I was refering to the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya, the old centre of Theravādin orthodoxy. Mahāvihāravasin (Dwellers in the Great Monastery) being another name for Theravāda. By saying I see doctrinal error outside of the Mahāvihāra what I mean is that all of the other early schools bar Theravāda adopted what I consider to be anti-Dhamma views. Another way of putting it would be that only Theravāda remained true to the Buddha’s word.
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I think this is out of topic, please @moderators to split it into new topic because the topic is not to discuss whether Theravadin is the one and only true Buddhist sect and others are corrupted.
Thank you 
Hi Seniya,
Ceisiwr was answering a question posed by Gillian as to the use of a specific term in a prior post. If discussion veers away from the original question we can revisit a possible topic split.
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The Vaibhasika heresiologist Venerable Saṅghabhadra is like your mirror-image oppositely. He takes the separatist Vibhajyavādins to task in ways they never really succeed in responding to, it seems.
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Not sure if that is a compliment or not 
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It was a complinsult.
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How about Mahayanist-influenced teaching like paramis? Or tradition which is not found in the suttas like pattidana (merit transfer)? This late doctrinal development is also found in nowadays Theravada…
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Or tradition which is not found in the suttas like pattidana (merit transfer)?
We do see this in the suttas:
“Sir, last night I rose at the crack of dawn and recited the verses of ‘The Way to the Beyond’, and then I fell silent. Then the great king Vessavaṇa, knowing I had finished, applauded me, ‘Good, sister! Good, sister!’
I asked: ‘But who might you be, my dear?’
‘Sister, I am your brother Vessavaṇa, the great king.’
‘Good, my dear! Then may my recital of the teaching be my offering to you as my guest.’
‘Good, sister! And let this also be your offering to me as your guest. Tomorrow, the mendicant Saṅgha headed by Sāriputta and Moggallāna will arrive at Veḷukaṇṭa before breakfast. When you’ve served the Saṅgha, please dedicate the religious donation to me. Then that will also be your offering to me as your guest.’
And so, sir, may the merit and the growth of merit in this gift be for the happiness of the great king Vessavaṇa.”
Nandamātā Sutta (AN 7.53)
How about Mahayanist-influenced teaching like paramis?
Or perahps it was Mahāyāna that adopted it.
This can be seen as mere someone ask you to do giving in his/her favor. There is no merit transfer indicated here as in pattidana tradition where the recipient can be only petas.
This is more like you agree that this later development is inherent in Theravada so they are not as pure as it claims to be.
Its a dedication of merit.
This is more like you agree that this later development is inherent in Theravada so they are not as pure as it claims to be.
I said perhaps it was Mahāyāna that adopted it, as in these concepts were already around when Mahāyāna was developing.
Even if they are less reliable, that doesn’t mean they are not worth studying at all!
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I agree. One of the major benefits to come from studying the Agamas is to see how successful the Sangha was in transmitting the Buddha’s core teachings. Putting everything else to the side, as long as we have the core teachings and practicing virtuous monastics then there is still hope for full awakening.
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