Thematic analysis of EBT

The Watercooler
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I am about to embark on a large body of work and would value the advice of this group pls!

@sujato I have been talking with Bhante Sujato for some time about my long-term plans to read the entire Sutta Pitaka and allocate the major themes. Recently (on Fire Horse New Year’s Day as it turned out coincidentally!), we met to work out the logistics of this and it looks like we will be able to start in a few weeks.

Summary

Aim: To perform a detailed thematic analysis of the entire Early Buddhist Texts (EBT) Sutta Pitaka to enable readers to develop an understanding of the core teachings found throughout the texts.

Early Buddhist Texts (EBT): Pali Dīgha Nikāya; Majjhima Nikāya; Saṃyutta Nikāya; and Aṅguttara Nikāya English translation on Sutta Central. The Khuddaka Nikāya and other texts may be completed after the first 4 Nikāyas.

Datasource: Bilara software using Bhante Sujato’s English translations of the EBT from: https://suttacentral.net/pitaka/sutta?lang=en

The units will be the existing ‘segments’ in Sutta Central (which are apparently logical chunks of text, such as verses or sentences, already built into the software so convenient to use these rather than lines or verses.

Themes: We have the following pre-determined list of Themes. There can be more than one theme per segment. Additional themes can be added by disaggregating segments allocated to the “other” theme. Themes will be recorded as comma delineated free text for later coding with the main theme listed first.

(My) Pre-determined Theme headings:

1. Four Noble Truths (in generic terms: if 8FNP or Nibbana only use those themes)

2. 8-fold Noble Path (including precepts, and 9 & 10 fold where applicable)

3. Karma

4. Rebirth

5. Dependent Origination (any references, whether the number is 12 or not)

6. 5-Khandhas or any detailed exposition of any one of the 5

7. Meditation, Mindfulness, Bhavana, Sati, Samadhi, or Jhanas/absorptions

8. Enlightenment, Bojjhangas, Nibbana or qualities of the Noble Ones

9. Hindrances, 8-winds, and other similar lists that are not part of other themes

10. Rituals: chanting; statues; incense; flowers; oil lamps; lay ceremonies

11. Greetings & pleasantries & setting

12. Other: final category for all remaining text not allocatable to above themes

Additional themes: Gender issues (including the phrase ‘it is not by birth’), Sexual issues (e.g., LGBTQI), Environment, and EBT teachings from Buddha vs. others.

Reviewers: I will read each segment and allocated to the themes listed with the plan to disaggregate the “other” theme into specific themes if they arise repeatedly. We could do this inductively (reading and then allocating themes as they emerge) or deductively (predetermined list of themes). I have decided to do this work deductively as I have already read the entire DN, MN, SN and AN (in one form or another, not always from Sutta Central) so it makes more sense. Given this will be open for review any segment allocation can be questioned by any reader and reviewed and potentially reallocated. Eventually, a second (or more) independent reviewers could replicate this work to add validity to what will always be subjective allocations.

Repetition: As we know, much of the EBT is repeated, often verbatim, but we will still allocate themes to each segment given the repeated verses can be slightly different and the fact that the teaching is repeated suggests added importance.

To make this work feasible in a reasonable amount of time (perhaps a few years as I work full-time), I want to limit the number of themes so as not to have to decide on one of dozens of potential themes. Detailed searches for individual words can already be done if people want very granular analyses of specific topics. However, I am not aware of any big picture thematic analysis of this kind of the EBT. My memory of the texts is that the main themes listed are the overwhelming majority of the verses and this work should be able to demonstrate that quantitatively and help those studying the texts to differentiate concepts mentioned repeatedly, which I presume makes them more likely to be original, versus those hardly mentioned at all.

I plan to get started in a few weeks so any helpful constructive advice and warnings before we begin would be most welcome! :slight_smile:

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New Bilara update
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This sounds great!
Thanks for taking this on. I hope that it is a beautiful and beneficial dive into the suttas

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Thanks to Ven @Pasanna for alerting me to this!

I am embarking on a similar project, but not similar enough to be the same. More like a Dhamma Zettelkasten and I know those themes will come up as I work it.

You asked for constructive advice, and I don’t see mention of what you’ll be using for notes. I suggest Obsidian. It has a rich ability to cross-reference, which is something I found useful while doing a very rudimentary version of what you are talking about (and not coming close to completing it). It also has a folder structure.

I think for something as interconnected as these themes, both a hierarchical and nonhierarchical structure are merited, both for navigation and for producing novel insights (Zettelkasten style).

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This sounds like an awesome project :anjal:

I’m sure you’ve got these in the back of your mind, but it’s not on your list, so I thought I would give it ‘voice’:

  • The 4 right efforts
  • The 5 powers/faculties
  • The 7 enlightenment factors
  • The Gradual training

May this endeavor bare great fruit :anjal:

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Thanks, I had to google Zettelkasten, and not sure I understand it even after that, but interested to see your eventual output!

As I understand it, the Bilara software will enable notes, but I was planning on using them mainly for internal purposes (segments I want to come back to or perhaps elaboration of “other”) but will be keeping my own notes as well so will look into Obsidian.

Yes, plan both hierarchical (first allocated theme) and nonhierarchical (one segment can have multiple themes so a theme search will find all segments (at least all that I allocated anyway!)….if I understood your point.

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Good point Adrian! Those were the sort of lists I meant by #9! There are so many lists :slight_smile: I suspect most will be allocatable to another theme so just wanted a storehouse for lists not otherwise allocatable. There will be many subjective decisions to make (e.g., whether the Enlightenment factors are allocated to #8 as I intended). I will keep track of tricky allocations and generate explanatory notes as I go but am trying to make this as seemless and quick as possible as I know what a big body of work this is going to be :slight_smile:

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Nice, Hasantha. As it happens I just got off a meeting w/ Hongda about Bilara, and fine-tuning the new tags feature.

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Greetings,

I’m going to throw a dirty word in here, but is AI not perfectly suited to help you with this endevour?

Warm regards,

Peter

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Spending days and days and days hanging out with the Buddha and his disciples sounds far more satisfying and enjoyable.

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True, someone could use AI ….. but I can confidently inform you that it will not be me
(in this or subsequent iterations of me ….as best as I can tell from this iteration of me anyway).

PS: I wouldn’t trust anything that cant recognise a traffic light with something of little value, let alone with something that holds the key to the eradication of all forms of suffering.

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I’m curious how people will interface with your data.

You might want to take a look at the stats for the CIPS, e.g. the number of locators per headword: Headwords sorted by number of locators

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Hasantha

May 2024

“What an incredible body of work, thank you so much for making this available! Will definitely be cross referencing this when working through the EBT myself, such a valuable resource!”

Yes, 2 years ago I mentioned how great your CIPS project was and that I would review when I was doing my work and so I will! Will discuss with Bhante how best to do this, but haven’t yet TBH.

In terms of our scope, I wasn’t planning on recording individual headings down to single uses as you have, but more a general look at the major themes in one or two dozen categories (unless the ‘other’ category becomes so big as to be unworkable as has to be broken up into subcategories, then perhaps more). Purely from memory, I think most of the EBT are core things again and again, but could be wrong.

Re the interface, not fully developed yet but should be open access and available for others to check and agree or disagree with thematic allocation. However, more importantly, I hope to be able to provide some form of infographic so you could see how often karma and rebirth are covered across our definition of the EBT (like a heat map with the entire text one a single page and karma and rebirth coloured red etc) and ditto for all the major themes. This would be useful to highlight just how repetitive the ‘core’ teachings are across the EBT. Also, it might show that some things that are talked about or practiced a great deal, dont actually have a large footprint in the EBT.

Anyway, build it and they will come as they say so the first thing is to collect the data :slight_smile: !

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UPDATE:

Sorry for the delay in follow-up but I heard from Bhante @sujato last week that it looks like the note function is/will be live!

So, the plan is to get started as above with the comments noted. Have managed to sort out a login for Github (‘HasanthaG’).

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Nice idea. Few other things I would include

  • sense-bases
  • elements(manifold things identified as dhaathu)
  • brahmavihaaras
  • ariya-puggala (spectrum of noble ones and their classifications)
  • to-householders
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Are you familiar with Arthaviniscaya Sutra?

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@Snowbird and @HongDa , I met with @sujato tonight and understand the new Bilara software is now ready to go for this project to tag the suttas! Could you grant me access please (‘HasanthaG’)?

Looking forward to embarking on this adventure and hope it produces something worthwhile. :slight_smile:

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The creator of this obsidian vault already did the tagging as he read the suttas. Likely the tags will be different from what you have, but the data is there, so I encourage @Hasantha to download this obsidian vault and can make use of earlier work done by a monk.

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I’m not involved with the software, so that will be something HongDa will help you with.

I’m curious if your taxonomy has changed from your original post above. Have you decided where to start in the Nikayas? If you are looking for a broad range of topics, the MN would be a good place to start. If you really want to establish major doctrinal themes first, the Mahavagga of the SN would be a good place to start.

I’m trying to envision how something like SN56 Saccasaṁyutta would work with the tag for the Four Noble Truths. Do you plan on giving nearly every single segment the 4NT tag?

I solved this in the CIPS by simply citing the entire samyutta and then indexing out specific sub items.

When I was doing the CIPS, I was really trying with every citation to think about how the user would experience the index. Specifically, would they be happy to be pointed to this sutta based on the headings and sub headings they were looking at. But it sounds like you are instead aiming for an exhaustive, almost statistical classification down to the segment level. Then how people choose to use this data is up to them? Is that accurate?

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Thanks Venerable, I was not aware of this resource so will look at it before starting.

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@ryan.hastings

Follow up on my earlier post, this is the information in excel format. Just save a copy to your own google drive, and you can manipulate to see the general themes, particular topics of each sutta etc.

Here’s the intro from the author:

My initial aim was to study the entire four main Nikayas of the Pali Canon by reading one sutta daily. As I progressed in this rewarding and recommended practice, the idea occurred to me to create a catalog that would help to review the suttas that caught my attention.
Along the journey this catalog expanded to accomidate a broadining perspective. I needed to come up with a system that organizes the challenges each Nikaya presents, the complex relationships between suttas, the number of topics that a sutta can cover, the multitude of ways in which suttas can be cataloged, and the variety of renderings of Pali words. It is not easy to achieve complete coherence in the categories of General Themes and Particular Topics, which form the core of the project, but I reviewed and homonoginized these two categories as my skills allowed.
It would require a long time to deeply revise the whole catalog; hence, some mistakes are to be expected but I hope they do not obstruct understanding and are forigiven.
For all these reasons, this first version can be a useful initial guide, as well as a platform, which users can improve and personalize according to their own criteria and terms. This catalog can even be expanded to other books in the Pali Canon and Agamas.
For beginners, this catalog aims to provide a rough map of the contents of the main four Nikayas, which may otherwise seem overwhelming. For the more advanced students, this platform may give encouragement to deepen one’s understanding by finding suttas related to a theme, and providing assistance to select and to take notes of their favorite suttas.
Finally, I would love to see what experts, either in Buddhism or in programming, can improve from this basic platform, with the aim to spread and facilitate access to the wisdom of the early Buddhist texts.

I hope this catalogue proves useful on your path to full liberation.

Bhikkhu Kusalacāra
April 2022
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Sutamaya: a study app for the Pali suttas