Dialogues of the Buddha (Part III)

The introduction reflects on the long publication history of the translation project and reaffirms Rhys Davids’s view that the early Pāli texts preserve very old North Indian Buddhist material, much of it pre-Aśokan. It also discusses the gradual growth of the canon, the anthology-like structure of the Nikāyas and Vinaya, the use of older doctrinal and ethical materials, and the importance of linguistic and doctrinal “test-words” for determining relative textual chronology. The contents cover discourses 24–34 of the Dīgha Nikāya: Pāṭika on mystic wonders and the origin of things; Udumbarikā-Sīhanāda on asceticism; Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda on kingship, moral decline, war, wickedness, and wealth; Aggañña as a Buddhist “book of genesis”; Sampasādanīya on faith; Pāsādika on doctrinal confidence; Lakkhaṇa on the marks of the great man; Sigālovāda on lay social ethics; Āṭānāṭiya on protective recitation; Saṅgīti on communal doctrinal recitation; and Dasuttara on the tenfold analytical series.