Why is it not translated in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book? And does anyone have a translation? (… is it not officially part of the sutta? If not, why is it in the suttapitaka here? Sorry if this is a beginner’s question!)
[quote=“Senryu, post:1, topic:5734”]
Why is it not translated in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book?
[/quote]It is probably a scribal postlude, as is found in many Chinese āgamāḥ. They usually just summarize what happened in the sutta, but sometimes they are very involved (in the case of SA). Ven Anālayo generally leaves them untranslated as well.
One of them (I’ll find the citation in a sec) even ends with the text “thus so concludes the report on this sūtra”! Indicating that it is possibly scribal commentary upon the text.
Obviously that is an assumption, but that is what it seems like from your post.
EDIT: while I was typing this Ven @Dhammanando commented. I framed these postludes as “scribal commentaries” based on my amateur analysis of their contexts in SA. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that this feature of scribal commentaries was not present in the Pāli.
Bhante, if you have the time and if it seems worthwhile to answer this to you, are these Pāli uddāna scribal or are they purported Buddhavacana even in an EBT-informed context (which questions the Buddhavacana-status of Abhidhamma etc)?
Ven @Sujato, if you have the time and if it seems worthwhile to answer this to you, we had a private correspondence regarding a question I had about these postludes, are the Chinese āgama postludes the same and/or similar to Pāli uddāna or are we dealing with different things when we talk about the contexts and contents of the Chinese and Pāli Buddhavacana “postludes”?
[quote=“Coemgenu, post:3, topic:5734”]Bhante, if you have the time and if it seems worthwhile to answer this to you, are these Pāli uddāna scribal or are they purported Buddhavacana even in an EBT-informed context (which questions the Buddhavacana-status of Abhidhamma etc)?
[/quote]
I don’t know if there is any consensus on whether the uddānas date from the period of oral transmission or are scribal editions. I know that B. C. Law thought that they were scribal. K. R. Norman, on the other hand, thought it likely that they started out as mātikā that would be orally recited at the beginning of each vagga; later, when the suttas came to be committed to writing, this was no longer necessary and so they were relegated to the end of the vagga.
I’m not aware of any claims (either of traditional or modern provenance) that the uddānas are buddhavacana. It doesn’t seem likely to me, for the early texts never represent the Buddha as delivering an entire Nikāya to his disciples, but only individual discourses. It seems more likely that the uddānas would be inserted as a chunking aid by the different groups of bhāṇakas.
[quote=“Dhammanando, post:4, topic:5734”]
I’m not aware of any claims (either of traditional or modern provenance) that the uddānas are buddhavacana. It doesn’t seem likely to me, for the early texts never represent the Buddha as delivering an entire Nikāya to his disciples, but only individual discourses. It seems more likely that the uddānas would be inserted as a chunking aid by the different groups of bhāṇakas.
[/quote]Perhaps my earlier post was entirely too uninformed on the subject to be a cogent question at all to someone properly informed.
I’ll have to look up more on the uddānas to see what they are, because I was assuming they were the same thing as a peculiar feature of the Chinese āgamas, where a discourse given by the Buddha will formally “end”, followed by a stock phrase (“Buddhavacana this sūtra was thereafter”), then will be followed by what I called a “postlude”, a short section that either a) comments on the subject matter in a manner that seem “poetic” (to me) or b) summarizes the āgama, or c) generally speaks about Nibbāna and the goal of Buddhist practice and/or the relevancy of the āgama to that endgoal.
I am not sure if my question before was sensical in light of the possible different contexts I was trying to stretch, apologies if such was the case.
I see. The Pali uddānas are much terser than this. In the Vinaya Piṭaka they will just list the subjects treated and in the Sutta Piṭaka will list only the suttas’ titles. Even this is often done in a very compressed way. For example, if there are two successive suttas about abiding in jhāna they won’t be named individually, but merely as dve vihārā.
[quote=“Dhammanando, post:6, topic:5734”]
I see. The Pali uddānas are much terser than this. In the Vinaya Piṭaka they will just list the subjects treated and in the Sutta Piṭaka will list only the suttas’ titles. Even this is often done in a very compressed way. For example, if there are two successive suttas about abiding in jhāna they won’t be named individually, but merely as dve vihārā.
[/quote]Interesting. Thank you for that.
For context, here is an example of an āgama featuring one of these postludes. The postlude comes after the phrase 佛說此經已 (Buddha['s] word[s] this sūtra thereafter [was]).
Just to add, the Pali texts do include such “postludes” of various kinds as well. They are not all that common, as normally the text is simply abbreviated and marked with pe. But there are a number of cases where the text gives a remark about the text. In the Mahasangiti edition that I am using, these are (indicated with parentheses). Obviously this is a modern innovation. I’m not sure to what extent these remarks agree between different manuscripts, but I suspect they are probably similar.
Here is an example, from AN 8.20:
ayaṃ, bhikkhave, mahāsamudde paṭhamo acchariyo abbhuto dhammo, yaṃ disvā disvā asurā mahāsamudde abhiramanti (yathā purime tathā vitthāro.)
This is the first amazing and incredible thing, seeing which the demons delight in the ocean. (Expand in detail as before.) …
Well, it’s just the choice of the translator. As it happens, I find that most of these remarks are well considered and helpful, so I do translate them.
