How interesting that Ananda used that phrase at this moment, considering the Buddha’s reply included only eight factors. I didn’t know that fascinating fact, not being a scholar of Pali, because all English translations I’ve read don’t include that phrase “twelve nidanas”, just “dependent co-arising”.
Thanks for the info, and a clearer view!
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I agree with @Phraalan
Sutta analysis like this, which uses syntactic structure analysis, feels naive. Instead of doing semantic, meaningful analysis.
We know the Buddha was most likely to present the dhamma in various formulas. Then people who are known as experts analyze the structural presentation of dhamma as a basis for suspecting that this is later and that one is first.
@Bodhipaksa Thank you for your writing. I became interested in checking back on DN14.
The context of the part of DN14 which states “consciousness conditions the arising of mind-body, but also mind-body conditions consciousness”, is the contemplation and reflection (at that time) of the Bodhisatta Vipassi. The most important of these reflections was the conclusion that came to the mind of Bodhisatta Vipassi: “This consciousness returns to mind-body. Go no further.” That is, the causes and effects that occur so as to form the circle of rebirth all come from the mind-body, not from external causes.
Now let’s look at the “difference” context of consciousness as the cause of the mind-body and the one as the effect.
The first consciousness, which is the cause of mind-body, is the consciousness of rebirth. That is the consciousness that first arises after the moment of death. This is the first arising of consciousness after death and the type of consciousness is vipakka (fruit of karma). That is consciousness as the fruit of karma due to the existence of potential lust (anusaya tanha).
Because there is rebirth marked by the emergence of the first consciousness after death, it then encourages karma to bear fruit in the next form of consciousness which is accompanied by co-arising by the appearance of the material element originating from karmic maturity (kammajarupa). From this mind-body element arises the sense-base… and then comes contact… from this contact comes consciousness accompanied by vedana (sensation). Now, this is what the Bodhisatta Vipassi pondered:
“because (first) consciousness arises, then mind-body arises… which eventually conditions the next series of consciousness…”.
So it’s not meant for us to take it as a “new model” for the 12 mutually conditioning chains of life. Rather it is a mental conclusion from the 12 links: “from consciousness conditioned the physical mind… the subsequent consciousness is also not from anywhere, but is again conditioned by the mind-body too…”.
Haha! this is great!! more grist for my mill!!! I am slogging through an exhaustive analysis of every sutta in the NIkayas/Agamas that has jhana in it so I have something to compare other doctrines too, over in the are the aggregates late thread. Now when I finish that I can apply the same process to the 12DO in the 4N/A and get a sense of it’s relative "spread in the early material.
After that, sense bases.
I note for the moment that the 37 aides to enlightenment list, appearing in several places in the nIkayas, never appears in SN, and that the mahavagga of SN has for its first 7 chapters exactly the same list as chapter headings, so, my thought is that the mahavagga of SN is the Ur text for the “proto-abhidhamma” or “matrika”. i.e cattāro satipaṭṭhānā, cattāro sammappadhānā, cattāro iddhipādā, pañcindriyāni, pañca balāni, satta bojjhaṅgā, ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo
This would neatly explain the lack of aggregates and nidanas in DN and MN, and the broader structure of SN, where the mahavagga would have to be supplemented with these important concepts.
I’m excited!!
Well, exactly as @cdpatton asked before, what do we mean by “late”? Some scholars argue the 12-link sequence was formed later than the Buddha, quite non-convincingly, I belief. But to others, like Frauwallner, “later” just means it was not the earliest version of the principle (which was the noble truths) but was still spoken by the Buddha. Schmithausen is not committing himself either way.
This kind of simple (excuse me) instance counting and comparing between the Nikāyas seem to be proliferating on this discussion board, so I’d like to say that this says little if anything about the authenticity of certain doctrines. In this particular case most discourses on the 12 links are found in SN12 because of the very simply fact that they were collected there when the Canon was organized. If you collect things in one place, naturally they are not found as frequently elsewhere anymore. It’s like walking into a library and wondering why all books on mathematics are in one corner, and none found in the geography section. Well, simply because someone gathered them in one place!
Similarly, in AN8 we actually find no (or very few) discourses on the eightfold path. Why? Simply because most discourses on the subject were already put in SN45. This relative absence in AN says nothing about the authenticity of the eightfold path, which has to be one of the earliest doctrines. We do on the contrary often find the 10-fold path in AN10, which in turn is more rarely found in SN, for similar reasons that they were already put in the AN. May not be the best example, but you all get the idea.
It’s the same with the texts on aggregates, @josephzizys, which were generally collected in SN22, and therefore are much rarer elsewhere. There apparently also wasn’t a discourse specifically on the aggregates that was considered long enough to be put in the DN or MN instead of SN, which generally has the shorter discourses.
Again, all this says nothing about authenticity. We have to realize that the suttas existed before there were the different Nikāyas. It’s not the other way around, at least most of the time. So instead of spending time on this counting stuff in different books, we’d better spend it on studying the actual content of the texts, then comparing it with the Chinese—and suchlike study which can actually say something about authenticity.
So that the 12-fold chain occurs most in SN12 says nothing about it being inauthentic. On the contrary, we could say it was deemed important enough to get it’s own Saṃyutta.
See also Vetter’s Zwei Schwierige Stellen Im Mahānidānasutta: Zur Qualität Der Überlieferung Im Pāli-Kanon, which compared DN15, DA13, MA97, and T14 and T52. His conclusion iirc was that DN15 is overall later, but Ānalayo for good reasons wasn’t convinced (in his Dīrgha Āgama studies.) He does point out some interesting things, though. As far as I know online it’s only available on Jstor, but you can get a free non-downloadable preview there.
Vetter discusses some Sanskrit fragments too. SC lists SF 240, SF 138, and SHT Sutta 23 as parallels to DN15. Anybody has access to those and able to share them, or know where we can find them?
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Yes, this is very good point indeed about the books, the collections of suttas: Nikayas/Agamas.
According to Ven. Yinshun, Saṃyukta-āgama/Saṃyutta-nikāya was at first not being termed as nikāya or āgama, but generally named as the ‘Connected Discourses’ 相應教 Saṃyukta-kathā .
See:
About the term Saṃyukta-kathā, see p. 899, note 21 in “Ācāriya Buddhaghosa and Master Yinshun 印順 on the Three-aṅga Structure of Early Buddhist Texts” (2020) by Choong Mun-keat.
Calling the Saṃyukta/Saṃyutta discourses as āgama/nikāya ‘collection’ was until when the other three nikāyas/āgamas (MN/MA, DN/DA, AN/EA) were gradually developed and expanded from it (相應教 Saṃyukta-kathā) (Cf. pp. 10-11 in Choong Mun-keat’s Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism (2000)).
Yup, and it seems to me that SN 22.56 is a simple treatment of, roughly, the four noble truths (pain, cause, cessation, path) referred to, differently, as catuparivaṭṭaṁ, and dependent origination, (e.g. Form originates from food. When food ceases, form ceases. Āhārasamudayā rūpasamudayo; āhāranirodhā rūpanirodho) in relation to the five aggregates (which, implicitly, are pain).
Worrying about conceptual imputation (i.e. nama-rupa) and Buddhist nominalism is quite philosophically advanced for most people I think.
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But this is not at all what we find with regard to the jhanas for example, or the danger gratification escape pericope, or a whole bunch of other features we find in the material.
And its not simply that there is a lack of discourses about them outside SN, its that there is an almost complete lack of even the mention of them.
Ive noticed that quite a few people like to say this, but am yet to hear a particularly convincing reason why, with the “all mentions are collected in one place” seeming to be more or less the counter-argument, which I just dont find very convincing.
I will give this se more thought and repsond more thoroughly later i think.
So? It seems not unlikely that some central doctrines, like the jhanas, were more prone to being directly connected with others, so couldn’t be fully isolated in a book; others were probably not significant enough to get their own book in SN, like the danger pericope.
There is just no justification to judge the lateness of doctrines by how they are arranged in the Nikāyas. It’s just logical that the suttas existed before the different Nikāyas. The sangha wouldn’t have started with an empty set of Nikāyas before they had the discourses. Also, I can’t remember the suttas ever mentioning the Nikāyas, yet they do mention other suttas. This also shows the Nikāyas were later.
You can also compare the Pāli canon to the Āgamas and see that certain suttas are arranged differently, like put in the Majjhima equivalent rather than Digha, or Saṃyutta rather than Majjhima and so on. Again, where the suttas are placed says little or anything about their lateness, because this placement happened after the suttas were created. This is a commonly agreed upon fact, so don’t be surprised nobody is going to lay it out for you here. You can do some research into the matter yourself, some links were already given earlier. You’ll also see that scholar don’t judge the lateness of a text or doctrine purely by which Nikāya it is mainly found in.
But to get back to the topic at hand, I do also tend to think that the 12 membered formula was not the first formulation of the principle—although I do belief it goes back to the Buddha. Cdpatton earlier mentioned that quite interestingly in some Chinese parallels to DN15 there are two separate chains which are never directly joined together like they are in the Pāli. (MA97 and T52)
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I really don’t care what people commonly agree upon as thier facts. I am interested in the actual facts, whether anyone agrees upon them or not.
This is exactly where we disagree. I say, where a sutta is;
- spoken by the Buddha.
- to a public audience.
- in a named location.
- where there is an Agama parallel.
- and that parallel occurs in the same collection.
- and agrees with the location.
- and contains the same doctrinal pericopes
That we have every right to claim that there is circumstantial evidence that the sutta is early. In contrast where a sutta is;
- spoken by a disciple (especially if that disciple is not Anada or Sariputta of Mahakassapa) or
- to a private audience (like “deep in the woods” or to a “gravely ill monk”) or
- does not name a speaker or location (or simply says “at savatthi”) or
- has no Agama parallel or
- that parallel is placed in a different collection. (because by the time it was considered canonical the schools had split and decided on different placements) or
- the parallel gives a different location (or different characters, for the same reason as previous) or
- has different or missing doctrinal pericopes (implying the sutta was still being edited in the sectarian period)
we can reasonably raise doubts about the earliness and universal endorsement of the material.
Similarly if a doctrine or periscope is found ONLY in one Nikaya, or ONLY in that Nikaya and then locations outside of it that are disputed by the schools, then we may legitimately ask the question whether said doctrine is in fact as indisputably early as the jhana formulation.
I don’t care what “scholars” of Buddhism do or don’t do, it’s not rocket science, I don’t really care if God himself thinks that the frequency and distribution of technical terms in a corpus isn’t relevant to stratifying that corpus, if he can coherently explain to me why he thinks it is meaningless then I will give that argument my full consideration. So far all I have heard is a tacit claim that every sutta in the Pali NIkaya must predate any collection of them, a position that seems to me manifestly false, and a claim that the reason some doctrinal terms occur in SN and almost nowhere else with Agama parallels in the same texts is because they where collected that way, an argument that also does not stand up to scrutiny for the obvious reason that if the agamas and nikayas differ on where the rare occurrences do occur then they cannot be explained by collection in a pre-sectarian period.
So what would you say it was about jhanas that make them obviously different to say the four foundations of mindfulness that caused them to be spread throughout DN/DA and MN/MA in a way that mindfulness wasn’t? what is it about situational awareness that allows it to be widely distributed while the four foundations are not?
Other people can, and very obviously do, believe whatever they like, I believe that there is an enormous amount to be gained by a more complete and rigourous study of the frequency and distribution of known pericopes in the nikayas and agamas with specific reference to the points 1-7 mentioned above, and I intend to continue pursuing this line of research and to continue to post my ramblings on here as long as I am allowed, because I still hope that there are some few people, now on this board or in the future dipping in to look at ti, who will see the value in what is being presented.
The irony of this given that the distribution of the 12 link version and the presence of differences in the parallels are practically the only evidence we have to suggest that this is in fact the case is quite… well, it makes me feel feelings… bemusement maybe?
Anyway, I love your work @Sunyo, but as i’ve said before, I can usually rely on you to disagree with me on any given point, so keep up the good work! I am loving the opportunity to robustly debate with people I respect (but respectfully disagree with).
Metta.
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It matters if those people are highly regarded scholars. It’s why there are such things as peer review and collaboration. Sure, you can create your own principles to judge authenticity, but then the burden is on you to prove that they are valid.
Prove how your methods are valid rather than assuming they are, and people may give you more credit and attention.
Can’t you see how that’s problematic?
For one thing, you can learn and improve by caring what others do.
Those are questions not easily answered in a brief forum post. however, that there is no simple answer is not a reason to make assumptions about lateness of other doctrines based on where they are found.
You’re also placing the burden on us, which is unfair given that you’re the one using the unique methods.
You can and by all means do. But I hope you are aware that people are reading along who are very ill informed about the history of texts, who also have no way to tell our credntials. That’s the reason I care, honestly. I don’t mind what you’re doing or thinking privately.
Just for the record, I never said every sutta. I specifically said “most of the time”.
But how exactly is this ironic, given that the brief argument I gave is not based on the location of the text but on their actual content? In fact, these texts I mentioned appear in different collections in the Chinese and Pāli, which actually supports what I’m trying to say, that the place in the canon is quite irrelevant.
I respect you a lot as well, just not your methods. 
I think I’ve made that clear enough—again, not to convince you, but at least other people see the different perspective.
This is not a topic of discussion that particularly inspires me or makes me want to practice or study, so I hope you don’t mind I leave it as this. I’m just putting it out here as a bit of counterweight, for people to consider.
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Here’s an interesting article in the New York Times about the current trend of ‘I’ve done my own research’, or ‘D. Y. O. R enthusiasts’.
I dont have an nyt subscription so i cant read the article, but in fairness to me I had to leave an undergraduate degree for personal reasons 1 capstone unit shy of graduation majoring in philosophy and religion stidies including two units of Buddhist Studies for which I recieved high distinctions, and have been a practicing buddhist for more than 30 years.
I have read plenty of Buddhist Studies papers and research, and my impression is that systematic stratification studies are very much out of vogue and that we still more or less have to go back to Rhys Davids, BC Law, Pande, Warder and Norman for the most part while the likes of Allon, choong mun-keat, Shullman etc provide some futhur specific ideas and positions as well, nothing much by way of broader systematics is put forward, then on the monastic side and our own @sujato , Bodhi and Analayo have provided much to chew on, but as I say I remain unconvinced by thier arguments for the most part. Gombrich seems to me also to veer somewhat to the credulous side of things and I find much of what Wynne has to say frankly wrong. I have read, carefully, a substantial portion of what the preceding scholars have to say about matters to do with stratification.
Very little is said that i can find that presents any coherant criticism of the methedology i am developing.
I havent read much Vetter, as unfortunately now that I am no longer a student I dontnhave access to jstor.
Perhpas if people think there are articles that might cure me of my ignorance and unreasonableness they could suggest them here or better yet PM me pdfs?
Metta.
I’m not sure if this has been addressed, but would you say a limitation to your method is that it doesn’t count for teachings that might have been marginal but yet still useful?
I would say that from the perspective of someone who wants to know what the historical buddha actually taught it is more or less completely silent, that is, the buddha might absolutely have taught the five aggregates, once or twice, to very senior monastics, but the bulk of the canon formed around very common teachings, and the aggregates teaching was almost lost, until the students of thise very senior monks close to the actual buddha, put it back so to speak.
So anything could have been a teaching by the buddha, evwn if it originally occured just once, but then spread widely later.
For example I am.comong round to thinking that the jhana pericope actually originates in the longer pericope of the sekkha, it might, for all its wide distribution, have been taught just once, almost incidentally, while the buddhas main focus might have been mindfulness, but because the jhana pericope was integral to the sekkha and because the sekkha appears integral to the narrative nikayas, we end up with the impression that the buddha taught the jahnas every other minute.
As i said in am earlier post, my interest is in the evolution of the texts themselves, a process that pretty much ce R ainly took place entirely after the byddhas death.
Metta.
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It’s probably because most scholars these days are bringing different approaches to Buddhist studies. It could mean that if you are genuinely interested you are going to have to slice into research differently to meet some of these newer approaches on their own ground. Many of them are interdisciplinary.
You may wish to simply retract and refract, wider, for instance, with something like this book
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In addition to what @Meggers suggested, you might also consider using a method like Bayesian analysis. An excellent example of its use is “On the Historicity of Jesus” by Richard Carrier. Its a fascinating book BTW. That said, The data you have collected is great. It has got to be explained no matter what.
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Which scholars? A small handful? Are scholars such as Gombrich & Jurewicz, who seem to Veda the 12 Nidana, included among the “highly regarded”? It seems the notion of “peer review”, unlike in the physical sciences, experiment design or statistical data, does not apply to interpreters of faith-based religion who can have various agendas. I imagine its like “peers” studying the Bible to conclude “God is real”. It seems the notion of “peer review” was rebuked by the Buddha. 
Suppose there was a queue of blind men, each holding the one in front: the first one does not see, the middle one does not see, and the last one does not see. In the same way, it seems to me that the brahmins’ statement turns out to be like a queue of blind men: the first one does not see, the middle one does not see, and the last one does not see.
MN 95
Again, the Suttas contain the following principles:
“Aren’t you speaking only of what you have known and seen and realized for yourselves?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, mendicants! You have been guided by me with this teaching that’s visible in this very life, immediately effective, inviting inspection, relevant, so that sensible people can know it for themselves.
MN 38
I think doctrines that cannot be verified according to the principle of “sandiṭṭhiko akāliko ehipassiko opaneyyiko paccattaṁ veditabbo viññūhi” will be subject to trivialization. In other words, it seems expected the twelve nidana will become (bhava) a play thing when Dhamma principles are ignored. While defending the Suttas seems honorable, my impression is this idea of “early vs late”, “authentic vs inauthentic” was popularized by the associates of this very discussion board. This dialectic method seems to have moved the goal posts from the traditional way of viewing suttas in terms of “mundane” (“lokiya”) vs “supramundane” (“lokuttara”). Thus with the new dialectic, for example, self-appointed “Pali experts” employ the novel method of using mundane suttas to interpret supramundane suttas; which may have possibly accounted for the fervor in recent years to bring MN 117 into question. Regardless, my impression is if this genre of discussion did not occur here, this discussion board would be close to literally suñño (empty). 
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For the English readers in this forum who may want to read the following quotation in English, may I ask anyone here who is able to translate it into English.
In Chapter 10, Section 4, from the book The Formation of Early Buddhist Texts (原始佛教聖典之集成) by Ven. Yin Shun:
第四節 結說
經上來的比對研究，「四阿含」（「四部」）的成立，可得到幾點明確的認識。1.佛法的結集，起初是「修多羅」，次為「祇夜」、「記說」——「弟子所說」、「如來所說」。這三部分，為組成「雜阿含」（起初應泛稱「相應教」）的組成部分。「弟子所說」與「如來所說」，是附編於「蘊」、「處」、「因緣」、「菩提分法」——四類以下的。這是第一結集階段。
在「雜阿含」三部分的集成過程中，集成以後，都可能因經文的傳出而編入，文句也逐漸長起來了。
佛教界稟承佛法的宗本 —— 「修多羅」，經「弟子所說」的學風，而展開法義的分別、抉擇、闡發、論定，形成了好多經典。結集者結集起來，就是「中阿含」；這是以僧伽、比丘為重的，對內的。
將分別抉擇的成果，對外道、婆羅門，而表揚佛是正等覺者，法是善說者，適應天、魔、梵 —— 世俗的宗教意識，與「祇夜」精神相呼應的，集為「長阿含」。
「雜」、「中」、「長」，依文句的長短而得名。
以（弟子所說）「如來所說」為主，以增一法而進行類集，《如是語》與《本事經》的形成，成為「九分教」之一，還在「中」、「長」——二部成立以前。
但為了便於誦持，著重於一般信眾的教化，廢去「傳說」及「重頌」的形式，而進行擴大的「增壹阿含」的編集，應該比「長阿含」更遲一些。
以「雜阿含」為本而次第形成四部阿含，《瑜伽師地論》的傳說，不失為正確的說明！近代的研究者，過分重視巴利文（ Pāli）；依巴利文聖典，不能發見四部阿含集成的真相 。
即使以「雜阿含」的原形為最古，而不能理解為三部分（「修多羅」、「祇夜」、「記說」）的合成；不知三部分的特性，與三部阿含形成的關係，也就不能理解依「雜阿含」而次第形成四部的過程。
ChatGPT3.5 gives;
Section Four: Conclusion
Through a comparative study of the scriptures, we can derive several clear insights into the establishment of the “Four Agamas” (“Four Nikayas”). 1. The initial compilation of Buddha’s teachings began with the “Sutta Nipata,” followed by the “Khuddaka Nikaya” and “Suttanipata” — “Discourses by Disciples” and “Discourses by the Tathagata.” These three parts constitute the components of the “Samyutta Nikaya” (initially referred to as the “Connected Discourses”). “Discourses by Disciples” and “Discourses by the Tathagata” are supplementary to the “Aggregates,” “Sense Bases,” “Dependent Origination,” and “Facets of Enlightenment” — below the four categories. This marks the first phase of compilation.
In the process of integrating the three parts of the “Samyutta Nikaya” into a cohesive whole, after the integration, various texts may have been added due to the dissemination of the scriptures, and the sentences gradually became more elaborate.
The Buddhist community, inheriting the foundational teachings of the Buddha — the “Sutta Nipata” — cultivated a tradition of studying the “Discourses by Disciples.” This laid the groundwork for the differentiation, selection, elucidation, and classification of the Dharma, resulting in numerous scriptures. When these were compiled together, it became the “Majjhima Nikaya”; this is predominantly focused on the Sangha and monks, directed internally.
The outcomes of differentiation and selection, when presented to external sects and Brahmins, praised the Buddha as an awakened one and the Dharma as well-spoken. Adapting to the religious consciousness of the world, including gods, demons, and Brahma, in harmony with the spirit of “Khuddaka,” these were gathered into the “Digha Nikaya.”
“Khuddaka,” “Majjhima,” and “Digha” are named based on the length of the texts.
Taking “Discourses by Disciples” and “Discourses by the Tathagata” as the main elements, the process of classification with the addition of new teachings, leading to the formation of texts like “Thus Spoken” and “Original Discourses,” became one of the components of the “Ninefold Teachings,” predating the establishment of the “Majjhima” and “Digha” — the two parts.
However, for the convenience of recitation and emphasizing the instruction of the general laity, the extensive compilation of the “Ekottara Agama,” which focused on adding one more teaching, should be considered as later than the “Digha Nikaya.”
Based on the “Samyutta Nikaya” and sequentially forming the Four Agamas, the legend of the “Yogacarabhumi Sastra” is a correct explanation. Modern researchers, overly emphasizing Pali, cannot discover the true integration of the Four Agamas based on Pali scriptures alone.
Even if the original form of the “Samyutta Nikaya” is considered the oldest, it is not understood as the synthesis of three parts (“Sutta Nipata,” “Khuddaka,” “Suttanipata”). Without understanding the characteristics of these three parts and their relationship to the formation of the Four Agamas in sequence, the process of forming the Four Agamas based on the “Samyutta Nikaya” cannot be comprehended.
but I suspect a few of the terms are muddled, perhaps you could correct the errors @thomaslaw ?