Digital Comparative Catalogue
of the Pāli-Chinese Āgama Literature

Trial Version
April 2002

Marcus Bingenheimer

Click HERE if you already know how to search the catalogue.

A. Introduction
B. User's manual

A. Introduction

A1. This catalogue is a digital reworking of the catalogues published by M. Anesaki (1908) and Chizen Akanuma (1928). It is they who, over the course of many years, have worked out the parallels and correspondences between the two text corpora. They deserve full credit for their meticulous and toilsome efforts. This digital catalogue differs from their works in two main respects:

A2. We have not encoded any indication as to how texts are related. Akanuma especially sometimes uses certain interpretative signals (參, 中, 終, 後半 etc.) which so far are omitted. Although this is actually a loss of information, there are good reasons for it. Firstly the use of these signals is not consistent and, more important, they themselves are open to interpretation. Thus, at this stage we did not want to encode them.
Instead encoding tenative hints regarding the relationship between two or more texts we have followed the concept of "text cluster." A cluster is a number of texts that are in some way related. In the case of this catalogue this relation ranges between complete literality to having only a few lines or even only the topic in common. The result of the search therefore yields a cluster of texts that have certain features in common and a researcher might want to look at all of them. Because of the advantages of the digital medium this clustering of texts could be realized much better than in the print versions.
We believe it is better to postpone the encoding of the complex web of several levels and degrees of similarity between the texts. We need a more comprehensive approach for this. This catalogue is meant to be part of a larger project that aims at using the advantages of digital encoding for a comparative study of the Āgama literature.
In this trial version the corrections of Akanuma's addenda are not yet fully included.

A3. This is an open project, i.e. it is designed with the aim to allow further information to be added as the research is done. The clusters will over time be refined, perhaps grow, perhaps diminish, perhaps be regrouped into a different pattern according to the hermeneutic approach of the researcher.

A4. Open also means that this version can be freely copied and redistributed for non-commercial use with the header intact, under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html).

A5. Open also means that only non-proprietary standards are used. The catalogue is a XML file that can be read in any text editor on any platform (The DTD is here). The markup follows the standard established by TEI (Text Encoding Intiative). More information on this form of electronic markup, which is of central relevance for the development of research in the humanities, at their web-site (http://www.tei-c.org/).

A6. I have to thank the Vipassana Research Institute, Ignatpuri - especially Drs. Pathak and Rohi - for their hospitality that made it possible to work on this project undisturbedly. Daphne Tseng helped me with some of the input. The tedious input of numbers and letters was greatly helped by the concentrated atmosphere at Dhammagiri. Last not least, as always I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Chung-hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies, Taipei - especially Venerable Huimin and Aming Tu - for patiently putting up with me all the time.

May all beings be happy

Marcus Bingenheimer
April 2002

B. User's Manual

B1. This is a trial version. If you encounter any problems, especially if you find any mistakes: please, please report them back to me (zeitreich@yahoo.com) so that I can fix it for the next version. The general structure of this file is:

Library of Links, List of Titles (Chinese titles, Pali titles and a short List of Sanskrit titles). The information you are looking for is in the Library of Links, but, as explained in B9, it is better to search until you arrive in the List of Titles.

B2. This is a trial version. It has no search interface. You will have to use the search function in your text editor (often invoked with ctrl+f).

B3. Owing to the structure of the text corpora the ids (identifiers) can be somewhat confusing. You will have to input your search exactly as prescribed below or you won't find anything.

Search-Input:
B4. You have a Pali Sutta and are looking for related texts:

For the Digha Nikaya search for:
DXX
(XX is the number of the Sutra in the PTS edition. I.e. for the Brahamajaala S. you will have to enter D01. Every "X" has to be assigned a number!)

For the Majjhima Nikaya search:
MXXX
The Kandakara Sutra would be M051.

Now careful:
For the Samyutta Nikaya Samyuttas 1-4, 6-7 and 11 search:
SXX.XX.XX
The first Sutta (Ogham) would therefore be S01.01.01

for Samyuttas 5, 8-10 and 12-56 search:
SXX.XX or SXX.XXX depending if the sutta-number has one /two or three digits.
It would be 45.01 (not 45.1) for the first Sutta (Avijjaa), 45.99 (not 45.099) for the Samudda(3)-Sutta and 45.130 for the Sutta titled Tathaagata.

For the Anguttara Nikaya Nipatas 01 and 02 search:
AXX.XX.XX or AXX.XX.XXX
The first two XX are 01 or 02 the second pair is the vaggo and XX or XXX again depending if the sutta number has one/two or three digits. The first sutra is therefore A01.01.01

For Nipatas 03-11 just search for:
AXX.XXX
The first Sutta in the Tika Nipata has, you guessed it, the id A03.001.

If, after making sure that your input was correct, you still get no hits at all, scroll down to the title list. The sutra you are looking for is probably in a group like S51.45-54. (If you happen to look for S51.46 this would not yield a search result.) Try searching for the group as a whole, if there are still no hits it means that no texts related to this group are known (if you happen to know one: please tell me).

B5. You have a Chinese Jing and are looking for related texts:

For the Chang Ahan jing 長阿含經 search for:
ChaXX

For the Zhong Anhan jing 中阿含經 search for:
ZhoXXX

For the Za Ahanjing 雜阿含經 search for:
ZaXX.XX
The first two "XX" denote a juan 卷 - chapter.

For the Beiyi Za Ahanjing 別譯雜阿含經 search for:
BZaXX.XX
Again the first two "XX" denote a juan 卷 - chapter.

For the Zengyi Ahanjing 增一阿含經 search for:
ZeXX.XX
Careful! Here the first two "XX" denote a pin 品 - chapter!

All other Taisho Sutras are to be searched as:
TnXXXX
Thus, the 七佛經 would be Tn0002.

Interpreting the results:
B6. Example No.1:

Say, you want to find texts related to the first Sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya.
You search for:
S01.01.01

Your search function should lead you to a place in the Library of Links where it says:
<link type="correspondence" resp="akanuma/anasaki" targOrder="N" targets="S01.01.01 Za48.01 BZa09.20"/>

The important part is the last item in this element (an element is an expression in < > brackets). The group of "targets" at the end contains the ids to a cluster of three texts: the sutta you already have (S01.01.01) and - in this case - two related texts: Za48.01 BZa09.20

From the discussion above it is clear that this denotes the first part in juan 卷48 of the Za Ahan jing 雜阿含經 and the twentieth sutra in juan 9 of the Bieyi ahan jing 別譯雜阿含經. If you don't have the first two Taisho volumes on your desk, you can now use e.g. the CBETA Website (http://www.cbeta.org) or CD to access the texts.

For the Za and the BZa, Akanuma has divised his own system of dividing the juan-text that differs from the way CBETA divides the text. The Taisho page and line-number for each of Akanuma's divisions can be found in the List of Titles.

B7. Example No.2:
You sit in front of the fourth sutra of the Zhong ahan jing 中阿含經 the Shui yu jing 水喻經 and wonder if Akanuma and Anesaki have found any related texts other than the ones given in the Taisho footnotes.

You search for:
Zho004

and are led to an element that says:

<link type="correspondence" resp="akanuma/anasaki" targOrder="N" targets="Zho004 Tn0029 Ze39.03 A07.015 Pgp-AP"/>

So, next to Zho004 you have:
Taisho-number 0029
a sutra from the Zengyi ahan jing, namely the third of juan 39
a sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya, namely No. 15 in the Sattaka Nipata
and a cryptic abbreviation "Pgp-AP"

Tn0029 is pretty straightforward, if you want to know the full name scroll down to the list of Chinese titles (or search for "Tn0029" with the search function).

Ze39.03 and A07.015 are obvious, too.

But Pgp-AP? For any strange combination involving abbreviations, hyphens and letters you will have to search in the "List of other Pali titles" after the Nikaya titles (again your search function will do it for you of course).

In this example "Pgp" stands for Puggalapa&ntilde;&ntilde;ati, Pgp-AP refers to Puggalapa&ntilde;&ntilde;ati VII.2 (all references to the PTS edition).

B8. Example No. 3:

You search for:
S12.26

and all you get is:
<link type="correspondence" resp="akanuma/anasaki" targOrder="N" targets="S12.26"/>

that means that Akunama/Anesaki have found no texts related to this sutta.

B9. I have tried to cluster the texts in a way that every id appears only once in the "Library of Links." There are some exceptions, however, and it is best to repeat your search for every id until you arrive in the "List of Titles" that consists of <item> elements. Happy searching!.