Table of Contents
Title Page
Preface
Introduction
A Summary of the 152 Suttas
The MAJ JHIMA NIKĀYA
Part One - The Root Fifty Discourses
Chapter 1 - The Division of the Discourse on the Root
1 - Mūlapariyāya Sutta
2 - Sabbāsava Sutta
3 - Dhammadāyāda Sutta
4 - Bhayabherava Sutta
5 - Anangaṇa Sutta
6 - Ākankheyya Sutta
7 - Vatthūpama Sutta
8 - Sallekha Sutta
9 - Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta
10 - Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta
Chapter 2 - The Division of the Lion’s Roar
11 - Cūḷasīhanāda Sutta
12 - Mahāsīhanāda Sutta
13 - Mahādukkhakkhandha Sutta
14 - Cūḷadukkhakkhandha Sutta
15 - Anumāna Sutta
16 - Cetokhila Sutta
17 - Vanapattha Sutta
18 - Madhupiṇḍika Sutta
19 - Dvedhāvitakka Sutta
20 - Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta
Chapter 3 - The Division of Similes
21 - Kakacūpama Sutta
22 - Alagaddūpama Sutta
23 - Vammika Sutta
24 - Rathavinīta Sutta
25 - Nivāpa Sutta
26 - Ariyapariyesanā Sutta
27 - Cūḷahatthipadopama Sutta
28 - Mahāhatthipadopama Sutta
29 - Mahāsāropama Sutta
30 - Cūḷasāropama Sutta
Chapter 4 - The Great Division of Pairs
31 - Cūḷagosinga Sutta
32 - Mahāgosinga Sutta
33 - Mahāgopālaka Sutta
34 - Cūḷagopālaka Sutta
35 - Cūḷasaccaka Sutta
36 - Mahāsaccaka Sutta
37 - Cūḷataṇhāsankhaya Sutta
38 - Mahātaṇhāsankhaya Sutta
39 - Mahā-Assapura Sutta
40 - Cūḷa-Assapura Sutta
Chapter 5 - The Shorter Division of Pairs
41 - Sāleyyaka Sutta
42 - Verañjaka Sutta
43 - Mahāvedalla Sutta
44 - Cūḷavedalla Sutta
45 - Cūḷadhammasamādāna Sutta
46 - Mahādhammasamādāna Sutta
47 - Vīmaṁsaka Sutta
48 - Kosambiya Sutta
49 - Brahmanimantanika Sutta
50 - Māratajjanīya Sutta
Part Two - The Middle Fifty Discourses
Chapter 1 - The Division on Householders
51 - Kandaraka Sutta
52 - Aṭṭhakanāgara Sutta
53 - Sekha Sutta
54 - Potaliya Sutta
55 - Jīvaka Sutta
56 - Upāli Sutta
57 - Kukkuravatika Sutta
58 - Abhayarājakumāra Sutta
59 - Bahuvedanīya Sutta
60 - Apaṇṇaka Sutta
Chapter 2 - The Division on Bhikkhus
61 - Ambalaṭṭhikārāhulovāda Sutta
62 - Mahārāhulovāda Sutta
63 - Cūḷamālunkya Sutta
64 - Mahāmālunkya Sutta
65 - Bhaddāli Sutta
66 - Laṭukikopama Sutta
67 - Cātumā Sutta
68 - Naḷakapāna Sutta
69 - Gulissāni Sutta
70 - Kīṭāgiri Sutta
Chapter 3 - The Division on Wanderers
71 - Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta
72 - Aggivacchagotta Sutta
73 - Mahāvacchagotta Sutta
74 - Dīghanakha Sutta
75 - Māgandiya Sutta
76 - Sandaka Sutta
77 - Mahāsakuludāyi Sutta
78 - Samaṇamaṇḍikā Sutta
79 - Cūḷasakuludāyi Sutta
80 - Vekhanassa Sutta
Chapter 4 - The Division on Kings (Rājavagga)
81 - Ghaṭīkāra Sutta
82 - Raṭṭhapāla Sutta
83 - Makhādeva Sutta
84 - Madhurā Sutta
85 - Bodhirājakumāra Sutta
86 - Angulimāla Sutta
87 - Piyajātika Sutta
88 - Bāhitika Sutta
89 - Dhammacetiya Sutta
90 - Kaṇṇakatthala Sutta
Chapter 5 - The Division on Brahmins (Br̄hmạavagga)
91 - Brahmāyu Sutta
92 - Sela Sutta
93 - Assalāyana Sutta
94 - Ghoṭamukha Sutta
95 - Cankī Sutta
96 - Esukārī Sutta
97 - Dhānañjāni Sutta
98 - Vāseṭṭha Sutta
99 - Subha Sutta
100 - Sangārava Sutta
Part Three - The Final Fifty Discourses
Chapter 1 - The Division at Devadaha
101 - Devadaha Sutta
102 - Pañcattaya Sutta
103 - Kinti Sutta
104 - Sāmagāma Sutta
105 - Sunakkhatta Sutta
106 - Āneñjasappāya Sutta
107 - Gaṇakamoggallāna Sutta
108 - Gopakamoggallāna Sutta
109 - Mahāpuṇṇama Sutta
110 - Cūḷapuṇṇama Sutta
Chapter 2 - The Division of One by One
111 - Anupada Sutta
112 - Chabbisodhana Sutta
113 - Sappurisa Sutta
114 - Sevitabbāsevitabba Sutta
115 - Bahudhātuka Sutta
116 - Isigili Sutta
117 - Mahācattārı̄saka Sutta
118 - Ānāpānasati Sutta
119 - Kāyagatāsati Sutta
120 - Sankhārupapatti Sutta
Chapter 3 - The Division on Voidness
121 - Cūḷasuññata Sutta
122 - Mahāsuññata Sutta
123 - Acchariya-abbhūta Sutta
124 - Bakkula Sutta
125 - Dantabhūmi Sutta
126 - Bhūmija Sutta
127 - Anuruddha Sutta
128 - Upakkilesa Sutta
129 - Bālapaṇḍita Sutta
130 - Devadūta Sutta
Chapter 4 - The Division of Expositions
131 - Bhaddekaratta Sutta
132 - Ānandabhaddekaratta Sutta
133 - Mahākaccānabhaddekaratta Sutta
134 - Lomasakangiyabhaddekaratta Sutta
135 - Cūḷakammavibhanga Sutta
136 - Mahākammavibhanga Sutta
137 - Saḷāyatanavibhanga Sutta
138 - Uddesavibhanga Sutta
139 - Araṇavibhanga Sutta
140 - Dhātuvibhanga Sutta
141 - Saccavibhanga Sutta
142 - Dakkhiṇāvibhanga Sutta
Chapter 5 - The Division of the Sixfold Base
143 - Anāthapiṇḍikovāda Sutta
144 - Channovāda Sutta
145 - Puṇṇovāda Sutta
146 - Nandakovāda Sutta
147 - Cūḷarāhulovāda Sutta
148 - Chachakka Sutta
149 - Mahāsaḷāyatanika Sutta
150 - Nagaravindeyya Sutta
151 - Piṇḍapātapārisuddhi Sutta
152 - Indriyabhāvanā Sutta
Bibliography
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Pali-English Glossary
Index of Subjects
Index of Proper Names
Index of Similes
Index of Pali Terms Discussed in Introduction and Notes
About the Translators
The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies
Wisdom Publications
Copyright Page
Preface
THE PRESENT WORK OFFERS a complete translation of the Majjhima Nikāya, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, one of the major collections in the Sutta Piṭaka or “Basket of Discourses” belonging to the Pali Canon. This vast body of scriptures, recorded in the ancient Indian language now known as Pali, is regarded by the Theravāda school of Buddhism as the definitive recension of the Buddha-word, and among scholars too it is generally considered our most reliable source for the original teachings of the historical Buddha Gotama.
This translation is an extensively revised version of an original draft translation made by the distinguished English scholar-monk Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli (1905–1960). During his eleven years’ life in the Buddhist Order, passed entirely at the Island Hermitage in south Sri Lanka, Ven. Ñāṇamoli had rendered into English some of the most difficult and intricate texts of Pali Buddhism, among them the encyclopaedic Visuddhimagga. Following his premature death at the age of fifty-five, three thick, hand-bound notebooks containing a handwritten translation of the entire Majjhima Nikāya were found among his effects. However, although all 152 suttas of the Majjhima had been translated, the work was obviously still in an ongoing process of revision, with numerous crossouts and overwritings and a fair number of unresolved inconsistencies. The translation also employed an experimental scheme of highly original renderings for Pali doctrinal terms that Ven. Ñāṇamoli had come to prefer to his earlier scheme and had overwritten into the notebooks. He had used this new set of renderings in several of his final publications, offering an explanation for his choices in an appendix to The Minor Readings and The Illustrator of Ultimate Meaning, his translation of the Khuddakapāṭha and its commentary.
In 1976 Bhikkhu Khantipālo made a selection of ninety suttas from the notebooks, which he edited into a fairly consistent and readable version rearranged according to a topical sequence he himself devised. This was published in Thailand in three volumes under the title A Treasury of the Buddha’s Words. In this edition Ven. Khantipālo had endeavoured to make as few changes as possible in the original translation by Ven. Ñāṇamoli, though he inevitably found it desirable to replace some of the latter’s innovative renderings with better-known equivalents, generally choosing the terminology that Ven. Ñāṇamoli had used in The Path of Purification, his excellent translation of the Visuddhimagga.
The present work contains finished translations of all 152 suttas. In editing the ninety suttas selected by Ven. Khantipālo, I have worked from the version found in A Treasury of the Buddha’s Words, referring to Ven. Ñāṇamoli’s notebooks whenever questions arose or problematic passages were encountered. The other sixty-two suttas had to be freshly edited from the notebooks. The translations of all 152 suttas have been checked against the original Pali texts and I hope that all errors and omissions have been rectified.
My aim in editing and revising this material, I must frankly state, has not been to reconstruct the suttas in a way that would conform as closely as possible to the intentions of the original translator. My aim has been, rather, to turn out a translation of the Majjhima Nikāya that simultaneously approaches two ideals: first, fidelity to the intended meaning of the texts themselves; and second, the expression of that meaning in an idiom that would be intelligible to a modern reader seeking in the Pali suttas personal guidance in the proper understanding and conduct of life. Terminological exactitude and internal consistency have been important guidelines underlying the endeavour to achieve those ideals, but care has been taken that their pursuit should leave the translation transparent as to the meaning.
To produce a translation of the Majjhima Nikāya that is both technically precise and lucid in expression required numerous revisions in the manuscript version. Most were quite minor but a few were substantial. Numerous alterations were made in the rendering of Pali doctrinal terms, most of Ven. Khantipālo’s changes having been incorporated. In place of Ven. Ñāṇamoli’s novel renderings I have in most cases returned to the clearer and better established terminology he employed in The Path of Purification. When doubts arose I always turned for help to Ven. Nyanaponika Mahāthera, whose wise advice helped to steer this translation closer towards its two guiding ideals. The handling of several important technical terms is discussed at the end of the Introduction, to which is attached a list showing the terminological changes that were made for this edition. By consulting the list the reader can obtain some idea of how the manuscript translation read. A glossary in the back gives the English renderings used for the major Pali doctrinal terms found in the Majjhima Nikāya as well as Pali words and meanings not included in the Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary. The subject index also includes, for most entries, the Pali term after its chosen English rendering. Botanical names that could not be easily rendered by familiar English equivalents have been left untranslated.
Ven. Ñāṇamoli’s translation was based primarily on the Pali Text Society’s roman-script edition of the Majjhima Nikāya, published in three volumes, the first edited by V. Trenckner (1888), the second two by Robert Chalmers (1898, 1899). This edition was also used to check the translation, but on problematic passages I consulted as well two other editions: the Burmese Buddhasāsana Samiti’s Sixth Buddhist Council edition in Burmese script and the Sinhala-script Buddha Jayanti edition published in Sri Lanka. Instances are not unusual where the reading in one or the other of these editions was preferred to that of the PTS edition, though only occasionally are these mentioned in the notes. Seldom too do the notes refer to I. B. Horner’s long-standing English translation of the Majjhima Nikāya, The Collection of the Middle Length Sayings, with which I sometimes compared Ven. Ñāṇamoli’s translation. Since the first volume of that translation was published in 1954, and the next two in 1957 and 1959, while Ven. Ñāṇamoli’s manuscript indicates that he did his revised translation between 1953 and 1956, it seems unlikely that he had consulted Horner’s version in preparing his own; at most, he might have had access to the first volume after he had completed his first volume.
The text of the translation is divided into numerical sections. These divisions were introduced by Ven. Ñāṇamoli into his manuscript version of the suttas and are not found in the PTS edition of the Majjhima Nikāya. Sometimes, when logic seemed to dictate it, I have made minor alterations in the divisions. The section numbers are included in the sutta references in the Introduction, Notes, and Indexes. Thus, for example, a reference to MN 26.18 means Majjhima Sutta No. 26, section 18.
The numbers at the top of the pages refer to the volume and page number of the PTS edition of the Majjhima Nikāya, as do the bracketed numbers embedded in the text (except for MN 92 and MN 98, wherein the numbers refer to the PTS edition of the Sutta Nipāta).
The Introduction aims to provide the reader with a thorough study guide to the Majjhima Nikāya by systematically surveying the principal teachings of the Buddha contained in this collection along with references to the suttas where fuller expositions of those teachings can be found. More elementary information on the Pali Canon and on Pali Buddhism in general will be found in Maurice Walshe’s introduction to his recent translation of the complete Dīgha Nikāya, Thus Have I Heard, which the present publication is intended to parallel. As a way of easing the reader’s entrance into the canonical texts themselves, a summary of the Majjhima’s 152 suttas follows the Introduction.
To clarify difficult passages in the suttas and to shed additional light on passages whose meaning is richer than appears at first sight, a copious set of back notes has been provided. Many of these notes are drawn from the commentaries on the Majjhima, of which there are two. One is the commentary proper, the Majjhima Nikāya Aṭṭhakathā, also known as the Papañcasūdanī. This was composed in the fifth century by the great Buddhist commentator, Ācariya Buddhaghosa, who based it on the ancient commentaries (no longer extant) that had been pres
erved for centuries by the Sangha of the Mahāvihāra at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. The commentary is of value not only for elucidating the meaning of the texts but also for filling in the background of events that led to the promulgation of the discourses. The other commentarial work is the subcommentary, the Majjhima Nikāya Ṭīkā, ascribed to Ācariya Dhammapāla, who probably lived and worked in South India a century or more later than Ācariya Buddhaghosa. The main purpose of the Ṭīkā is to clear up obscure or difficult points in the Aṭṭhakathā, but in doing so the author often sheds additional light on the meaning of the canonical text. In order to keep the notes as concise as possible, almost always the commentaries have been paraphrased rather than quoted directly.
The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha Page 1
