Thanks! I knew MA70 was available in BDK MA vol I. But didn’t know about DA nor this analysis. B. Analayo is so prolific it is hard to find what specifics are out there sometimes! I know what I will be reading today 
!
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I’ll need to look at the length of these texts, but I’ll add them to my queue. Thanks for pointing them out.
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Ah, yes. Perhaps this was a more coherent version. The six abodes in SA 35.1 and the Snake Parable Sutra are kind of arbitrarily counted as six. It looks more like 4 items in Chinese, with one of them counted as three. In Pali, we can count the three kandhas, but in Chinese it’s more confusing. The SA version lists all five skandhas, and the MA version only lists two of them. So, it’s confusing. I should look at the Yogâcārabhūmi commentary to see if it’s explained at all.
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Thank you so much for your work in translating these suttas!
I noticed what I think is a typo in EĀ 43.5: fist instead of first
35. “How is that called the parable of riding a raft? It refers to relying on conceit to cease conceit. Once conceit is fully ceased, there are no more thoughts of vexation and confused ideas. It’s like a jackal skin that’s hard to work with. When it’s hit with a first, there’s no sound, and the leather lacks toughness. This is likewise. When a monk’s conceit is gone, there’s nothing to uplift or lower [his mind].
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Fixed. Thanks for reading and reporting the typo!
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Since my last update, I’ve been focusing on translating Chinese parallels to MN 12.
This is the complete parallel to MN 12 that we have in Chinese. It’s clearly a later version of the same sutra preserved in Pali. The two texts have almost identical structures with only a couple substitutions like the nine successive concentrations in T757 instead of the psychic powers in MN 12. Aside from a couple variations like these, T757 is essentially an expanded version of MN 12. Despite the fact that MN 12 has a different title, both versions include the “naming of the sutra” section at the end and agree that it’s a hair-raising discourse.
EĀ 27.6 Four Kinds of Fearlessness
The four kinds of fearlessness became closely associated with the ten powers of the Tathāgata in later texts, but we can find independent sutras like this one that present this list by itself. The direct parallel for this sutra is AN 4.8 in Pali. This version is very similar to the Pali list except for the third item, though the upshot is similar in both sutras.
EĀ 31.8 The Bodhisattva’s Austerities
This is an interesting sutra because it appears to be the source of some of the material we find in larger sutras like MN 12, MN 36, and T757. It collects together various stories about the extreme austerities the Buddha had practice prior to discovering the right way to enlightenment. Many of these stories, like exposing himself to extreme weather, eating cattle dung, and nearly starving himself to death with an extended fast reappear in MN 12 and T757. It also includes the story of the Buddha finally achieving awakening, which is included in T757 but not MN 12.
This is the Ekôttarika version of the ten powers list as an independent sutra. It’s direct parallel in Pali is AN 10.21, although it lacks the simile of the lion at the start. I plan to create a comparative table of various versions of the ten powers when I have more versions translated, but a pattern has already emerged that I wrote about on SC’s forum. Most versions agree completely on the first two and last three powers, but the five powers in the middle are all different. This suggests to me that the Tathāgata’s powers began as five and then later were expanded to ten. Each Buddhist tradition seems to have a different version of those added powers.
This is another EĀ sutra that’s surprising in that it presents a large chunk of what we find in MN 12 and T757 about the knowledge of rebirth as an independent sutra. It includes Nirvāṇa as a non-destination of rebirth as a contrast to the five forms of rebirth. We also find the parables illustrating how rebirth is directly observed by the Buddha in remarkable agreement with what is included in MN 12 and T757. Clearly, then, this section of MN 12 had circulated as an independent text.
The simile of the archer shooting at the shadow of a tree is found in this brief SĀ sutra, which is about how the Buddha’s teachings are endless without anything to block them, like that archer’s arrow. This simile was included in MN 12 and T757. In T757, though, the same story has evolved into something almost unrecognizable about the disciples of the previous Buddhas of the present kalpa.
SĀ 684 (11.41) The Tathāgata and the Arhat
This is the SĀ version of the ten powers. Again, we see the pattern I mentions earlier, but the five middle powers do match fairly well to the Theravada list (but in a different order). We see here another example of how close the Theravada and Sarvâstivāda canonical lineages were. Another interesting thing about this sutra is that the ten powers are offered as a direct contrast to the five training powers that are part of the 37 factors of the path.
This sutra repeats the ten powers we find in SA 684 (as an abbreviation). It’s a simpler presentation that’s a direct parallel to AN 10.21.
I also translated the second chapter of EĀ, which covers the ten recollections. These ten sutras are direct parallels to the ten recollection suttas found at AN 1.296-305 in a slightly different order.
Lastly, I translated a few other SĀ sutras when time allowed, including:
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It is interesting that in this text we don’t find the recollection of the meditative experience the bodhisatta had as a child found in MN36.
Do we find that story elsewhere in the Agamas, maybe EA 31.8?
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Similar stories do occur in Agamas. In EA 31.8, he remembers sitting under a tree in his father’s garden, so that suggests it was before he left home. In T757, the Buddha remembers meditating right after he left home, which would put it later in life.
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Yes, you are right, it is there! 
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Greetings Charles 
I hope you are well.
I was wondering if you had any plans to translate MA 56 Meghiya? I’ve had a look through Dhamma Pearls, and it isn’t listed. It’s not that important and I know you have a schedule It is a nice practical sutta about when meditation practice isn’t working and how to deal with it 
What catches my interest is in the final paragraph, that it is about (amongst other things) the cutting off of thoughts/proliferations, and that it directly states that mindfulness of breathing is to be used for this, and that the ending of all proliferations (with eradication of conceit of ‘I am’) is liberation. The resources I have access to have small variations on emphasis, and I was wondering how the Agama was flavoured.
Bhante Sujato has a translation, With Meghiya, AN9.3, and there is the Ud 4.1 by Bhikkhu Anadajoti, which includes a verse at the end, at SC. and there is a version of Ud4.1 that I have in the book ‘the life of the Buddha’ by Ven Nanamoli with a lovely version of the verse (Pg 131-132)
"Mean thoughts, trivial thoughts
Come tempting the mind and fly away;
Not understanding these thoughts in the mind,
The heart strays, chasing them back and forth.
A (man) person understanding these thoughts in their mind
Expels them with vigorous mindfulness
And one enlightened, has done with them all;
For no more temptation then stirs their mind."
https://suttacentral.net/search?query=meghiya
This is only an ‘icing on top’ wishful thinking sort of request 
, so please feel free to ignore
with much metta
It would certainly help this guy in the cartoon
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Thanks for the suggestion!
It’s not a long sutra, so I could add it to the list for maybe new years.
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December Update
Here’s a summary of the translations that have been added since November 12. I worked on parallels to SN 22.60, SN 22.79, SN 22.85, SN 36.6, SN 56.31, AN 3.37-38, and AN 10.21 in addition to added a couple sutras that I edited as time allowed.
MĀ 146 Parable of the Elephant’s Footprint
The Madhyama parallel to MN 27 matches it’s content fairly closely. The main difference is that the Sarvâstivāda version of a monk’s course of training is a little different, especially in it’s list of 20 precepts.
T780 The Ten Powers
T781 The Ten Powers
T802 Confidence in the Knowledge Powers
These three sutras are late Song dynasty era (10-11th c. CE) translations of the Dasabala sutras, being similar to AN 10.21.
This Sarvâstivāda parallel to SN 22.60 provides a Buddhist refutation to the Purana heresy that there’s no reason for people to be defiled or purified. The Buddhist uses the five aggregates to demonstrate the conditions that lead to both.
SĀ 1.158 Past, Future, and Present Aggregates
This parallel to SN 22.79 is provides definitions of the five aggregates along the lines of Sarvâstivāda Abhidharma thinking. In particular, we see the classic definition of matter as what occupies space and resists other things that touch it and that’s divisible.
This parallel to SN 36.6 matches it fairly closely in drawing a distinction between physical suffering and the mental suffering that occurs in reaction to it. Someone who isn’t attached to conditions avoids the psychological torment that ordinary people suffer.
Yamaka decides that the Buddha must hold that arhats cease to exist when they die. Sariputra sets him straight by teaching him that the Tathagata doesn’t have a relationship with any of the five aggregates. The line of reasoning is similar to what we find in later texts like the Diamond Sutra that argue that the Tathagata is not a physical body. It’s parallel to SN 22.85.
This is the Sarvâstivāda version of SN 56.31, the text used to refute Pudgalavadins in the same school’s Abhidharma. The Buddha makes clear that he taught what he needed to teach, but that isn’t the limit of his knowledge.
SĀ 19.15 The Sabbath Days
SĀ2 3.14 The Eighth Day
EĀ 24.6 The Three Sabbath Days
These texts are three different versions of AN 3.37 and 38. While the SA sutras match the Pali closely, the Ekottarika text fuses the story about the four god kings keeping on eye of humans in the world with an introduction to the practice of the eight sabbath precepts.
SĀ 1.18 Cause and Condition (2)
SĀ 1.143 Impermanent
These two sutras were edited in spare time as I slowly work on SA 1 in between parallel translation work.
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Dear @cdpatton,
Can you translate SA 560 which is a parallel of AN 4.170 Yuganaddha Sutta where Ananda explained 4 ways of attaining Arahantship? I’m curious whether the Chinese Agama version is same as the Pali version, especially on the fourth way (which I have questioned years ago about it)
Thank you
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Sure, I’ll try and release a translation around New Year’s.
The Chinese has four different paths, but it’s a bit different than the Pali. The first two are not so clearly about śamatha and vipaśyanā (though they are mentioned), and the second pair are reversed compared to the Pali, but much closer in meaning.
Your old question about the meaning of “dhamma agitation” (dhammuddhacca) in the Pali is somewhat cleared up by the Chinese, I think: It just mentions being agitated in general without reference to the Dharma in particular. So, it just means that the practitioner ends up needing to practice śamatha first to settle down and stop being so agitated. The Pali perhaps got the passage confused by inserting dhamma.
Also, I would say this is not an EBT but something written later in Buddhist history. I’m struck not just by the fact that it’s Ananda teaching or that śamatha and vipaśyanā practice is a subject, but also the attainment of liberation is defined as ending the anuśayas rather than the āsavās. That switch in philosophy is something well-documented in the development of Abhidharma in the Sarvâstivāda.
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I decided today (Dec. 31 here in the US) to tabulate exactly where I’m at in terms of translating the four Āgamas after the past year working full-time on MĀ and various parallels to important Pali suttas. So here’s the numbers:
| Āgama | Sutras Translated / Total | Pages Translated / Total | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dīrgha (T1) | 2 / 30 | 4.2 / 148.5 | 2.8% |
| Madhyama (T26) | 47 / 222 | 57.3 / 388.3 | 14.8% |
| Saṃyukta (T99) | 84 / 1360 | 18 / 372.5 | 4.8% |
| Ekôttarika (T125) | 22 / 472 | 19.5 / 281.2 | 6.9% |
| Total | 155 / 2084 | 99 / 1190.5 | 8.3% |
To give a sense of scale, 1 page of Taisho Chinese usually translates to 1,000-1,200 words of English. So, I’d expect a translation of all four Āgamas to total at least 1.2 million words.
Looking at the numbers, it’s pretty clear I spent a good part of the year focused on the Madhyama, and I believe I’ve already translated more of the Ekôttarika Āgama that anyone has in the past.
It’s a pretty daunting amount of material to translate from classical Chinese. Another thing that’s been daunting about this project besides its size is the difficulty of translating four different ancient translations of lost texts and coping with their varying styles and vocabularies.
Looking forward to 2021, the project will continue, and I’m hoping to pick up the pace now that I’ve worked with all four Āgama texts. I’d like to reach a pace closer to 20% of the total in one year, which certainly seems doable if I can continue to work full-time on it.
I want to thank everyone who has supported this project, and Happy New Years to everyone around the world!
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That is fantastic Charles 
Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu!
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Fantastic work! Thanks again for all your gifts for us and for future generations.
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Ah, finally, I have a new update for Dharma Pearls. The past month and a half has been … well … eventful here in the US, to say the least. However, the translation project continues. I’ve changed gears a bit, which is also part of why there’s been only the sound of crickets for the past month and a half. I’ve begun to work on the Dīrgha Āgama in earnest, which will probably continue for a couple more months.
Today, I posted a fairly literal translation of DĀ 21 Brahmā’s Shaking (aka, DN 1 Brahma’s Net). One of the things I’ve been doing behind the scenes is acquiring the Japanese translation of the Dīrgha Āgama (thank you Amazon Japan for shipping to America: 現代語訳「阿含経典」), which was produced by a team of scholars that included the late Dr. Karashima Seishi. As I suspected, it’s been indispensable for checking my readings of obscure Chinese passages. It seems to be the best translation available today.
Going forward, I’ll be giving DĀ 27 and 29 a new edit and then continuing to translate parallels to DN.
And, of course, I’ll add bits of SĀ and edit MĀ as time permits.
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Thank you for your work. I’m a regular visitor to your website and enjoy reading the translations. I’ve become interested in the DN as of late, so your translation of the parallels has come at a good time for me.
May I ask, once you are done would you move on to translating the various Abhidharma texts?
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I dabble in reading the Chinese Sarvâstivāda Abhidharma texts now and again in my spare time. It’s a little daunting as a translation project because the terminology is technical and no one has attempted it yet, so there’s not much available to check myself with.
But, yes, if the projects lasts long enough, I would eventually work on the Abhidharma texts, too. And the Sarvâstivāda Vinaya.
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