Oh, that’s interesting. I had thought this was one of those cases when a term had been lifted out of Agamas and put to other uses later without realizing this distinction. Looking in my Skt dictionary, I’m guessing the Pali reading is eka-ayana.
The thing is, though, the Samyukta Agama in fact translates this term as 一乘道 “one vehicle path.” And it occurs throughout in a couple different sutras. So, someone disagreed with this analysis and considered it to be the same term as we find later in texts like the Lotus Sutra put to a new purpose (refuting the trikaya theory).
The Madhyama Agama, on the other had, translates it as 一道 “one way,” as the does the alternative Samyukta Agama (T100). Huh! SA seems to be the odd case.
What is it you want me to see? There is nothing on that page indicating that yana might be an alternative way of spelling yāna in Pali or Sanskrit texts. It’s merely that certain proper nouns are popularly anglicised without diacritics, e.g., “Mahāyāna” as “Mahayana”.
Two possible explanations come to mind. One is that the translator was working from a Sanskrit edition that happened to read ‘ekayāna’. The other is that though the edition read the same way as the Pali, the translator happened to prefer the ‘ekayāna’ nirukti of it over all the competing glosses and so translated accordingly.
In Sinhalese, yana means (that) “goes”. Eka can also be “direct and straight” etc in addition to its literal meaning of “only”. Although Sinhala meaning cannot be taken as equal to Pali meaning, it makes me think that ekāyana means “that goes straight” to of course Nibbana.
With Metta
Which is always a possibility since the translators were often Mahayanists or held both canons as valid. Then there’s also the possibility of later copyists mistaking a term for its more famous Mahayana look-alike. The Agamas were obscure curiosities in the Chinese tradition for a long time after they were translated. But that’s not as likely to me because there are no alternate readings of inconsistencies across passages.
Source: Sutta: The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary
Yāna, (nt.) (fr. yā, as in yāti. Cp. Vedic yāna and Lat. Janus) 1. going, proceeding J. VI, 415 (+ayāna, opposed to ṭhāna).—2. means of motion, carriage, vehicle. Different kinds of carriages are enumerated at Nd1 145 (on Sn. 816) with hatthi° (elephant-), go° (cow-), aja° (goat-), meṇḍaka° (ram-), oṭṭha° (camel-?), khara° (donkey-). Cp. Miln. 276.—yāna is one of the requisites (carriage or other means of locomotion) of the bhikkhu & as such included in the deyya-dhamma or 14 gifts (see yañña & deyya-dh.). Thus mentioned with anna pāna vattha etc. at S. I, 94; A. II, 85; Pug. 51.—Cp. the definition & application of the term yāna as given below under yāna-sannidhi.—See e.g. the foll. passages: Vin. I, 191 (bhikkhū yānena yāyanti … na bhikkhave yānena yāyitabbaṃ; yo yāyeyya etc. : here a “carriage” is expressly forbidden to the bhikkhu!)
(Yana, Yāna: 30 definitions)
