Khuddaka Nikāya Counterparts

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When browsing Vimānavatthu, Petavatthu, Āpadānas, Cariyāpitaka, Buddhavamsa, we get this in the notes:

These are late texts, and lack counterparts in the northern canons.

So for the longest time, I thought these were exclusive to Pāli Canon, and perhaps penned in Sri Lanka / elsewhere locked.

However, I’ve been browsing Taisho Section 03 the Jātakas, Section 04 Avadānas and I’m finding shapeshifted parallels lefts and right in various sources.

(The Chinese Avadāna section is slightly different from Pāli counterpart, as it’s a general parables section. For example, the stories of the Dhammapada commentaries are found in Taisho Avadānas @ 04/212. )

Many Therāgāthā / Therīgāthā commentary stories are found shapeshifted as well.

So I think, “lack counterparts in the northern canons.”, while technically true, doesn’t paint a clear picture, and in my case, was heavily misleading. :sweat_smile:

For Sanskrit, for example, Avadānakalpalatā has some parallels with Pāli Thig/Thag-a, Āpadānas and Mahāvastu. We also have a Gandhari version of Apadānas in manuscripts.

I have absolutely no idea about Tibetan tradition, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also full of these stories.

The description for Pāli Jātakas reads as follows:

This collection is the main source of Jātakas, but there are many similar stories found elsewhere in the Pali canon (a few in the four nikāyas, others in the Cariyapiṭaka) and throughout the Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit texts.

Something like that for these other collections could help paint a clearer picture lest people like me fall into confusion again: :slight_smile:

This is a late collection, and while it lacks a direct counterpart, many similar stories can be found in the northern canons.

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the tibetan canon has lots of these stories.

Avadanasataka, Karmasataka, Divyavadana, Jatakamala, and many more. Sometimes they’re in separate collection or circulated as independent sutra. For example, “The wise and foolish sutra”.

And there are too many of these stories, with variations, different titles, different translations.

You can even write a paper on this topic. I read one scholar comparing different stories of " the display of Buddha’s miracles that defeat 6 heretical teachers". Iirc there are 4 version of that story.

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There’s definitely a great deal of comparative research that could be done. For some reason, there’s little interest in mythological or folklore studies in Buddhist Studies. Instead, the focus is on doctrinal and ideological issues. Plus, there’s always the dreaded language barriers that keep such studies siloed.

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Well, Pāli stories are kinda neatly organised, so it’s got that going for them. Working through T206, it became quite the ordeal to figure out just exactly what it was as a collection. :sweat_smile:

Chavannes seems to repeat the “official background”, but Lévi notes that his work wasn’t fully finished or reviewed, and many modern Chinese scholars raise some interesting objections.

Which, in itself, makes a good story. After a cursory overview of the stories and some parallels, I’ve begun writing an introductory article, documenting the excavation of it.

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