Thanks for all this. I’ve added all of them from Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book that we did not have yet and uploaded them to staging.suttacentral.net (for the main site you will have to wait until one of the devs is updating that). I also added the Rhinoceros Sutra in Gandhari here:
The Japanese book is just amazing! It will take me some time to go through that! But they have verse-line parallels too so each verse line is compared with other texts. I will not put all that into SuttaCentral only full or resembling parallels but not going down to the level of separate verse lines.
Why is this name also used together for this Elder?
Reading Madhyamāgama you can notice the development of sutras. In it the first sutras start with minor differences against Pali then the later text seems a later developed sutras. Seeing when it was translated in China. One cannot expect for it to be anymore as it was before Christ.
Stories has always been added in all traditions. For Indians in that time it’s normal to do that. It’s like Vol 1 Vol 2 Vol 3
For me Mahāyāna started to make it popular that he is going to be bodhisatta Metteyya , and everyone wished to also become a Bodhisatta and Early Schools had to come with response against that. And it was that those that want be a bodhisatta also needs to get a prediction in front a Buddha.
This started to become probably popular around when this was written,
Thus, the presence of a living Buddha is also necessary for Sarvāstivāda. The Mahāvibhāṣā explains that its discussion of the bodhisattva path is partly meant “to stop those who are in fact not bodhisattvas from giving rise to the self-conceit that they are.”[2]
I found this also about it very good
In it it says Sarvāstivāda and Theravāda agrees that they are two different persons. But the origin from the Great Sangha. But I believe that a sign It started with them. But I read from Vasubandhu this Tibetan only preserved work. This quotation from Buddhist review
sin tu rgyas pa’i sde ni don rgyas par ston pa’o. gzan dag ni gzan dag tu brjod de, 'phagspa dge 'dun phal chen sde pa mams kyi 'donpa kho na Ita bu’o ies so.
The Vaipulya explains a topic at length. Others define it differently as “[scriptures] recited by the Arya Mahasamghikas”.
Vaipulya Was the name used before for Mahāyāna text. Because it more elaborate. Usually made longer. More details. As is known today. I have seen it in a 3 century work. I don’t know if early on they used it for early Buddhism also.
Notice the agreement is in the names but some of their works have like their Agamas. But still it could have influenced to later become Buddhahood . Those Abhidharma works are a later tradition. So who knows what was earlier?
I read somewhere that some Sthavira Gathas was found. But I think it was published in a book, I think that’s where we have to look at to see what was tradition in those Gathas. If it mentions anything. But probably the one found are not complete
I try to go in older sources. I have the Netti. And only mentioned Ajita. I don’t know about Peta.
because that agreed with this Elder verse, but the names are confusing