• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Finally, I wish to express my appreciation to Dr. Nicholas Ribush for his encouragement and helpfulness and to Wisdom Publications for doing such a fine job of production. I am particularly grateful to John Bullitt for his careful and precise management of this project.

For any errors or defects that remain, I myself am fully responsible.

BHIKKHU BODHI

Forest Hermitage

Kandy, Sri Lanka

Note to the Second Edition

This second edition of The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (2001) incorporates a number of corrections and minor changes in the terminology that I have been making over the years to the text of the original edition. It also includes some additions and alterations to the Notes.

Note to the Third Edition

This third edition of The Middle Length Discourses (2005) includes numerous corrections and changes suggested to me by Bhikkhu Ñāṇatusita, who diligently compared the entire translation with the original Pāli text. I have also included other changes suggested to me by Ajahn Brahmavaṃso and Sāmaṇera Anālayo.

B.B.

Introduction

THE MAJJHIMA NIKĀYA AS A COLLECTION

THE MAJJHIMA NIKĀYA is the second collection of the Buddha’s discourses found in the Sutta Piṭaka of the Pali Canon. Its title means literally the Middle Collection, and it is so called because the suttas it contains are generally of middle length, compared with the longer suttas of the Dīgha Nikāya, which precedes it, and the shorter suttas making up the two major collections that follow it, the Saṁyutta Nikāya and the Anguttara Nikāya.

The Majjhima Nikāya consists of 152 suttas. These are divided into three parts called Sets of Fifty (paṇṇāsa), though the last set actually contains fifty-two suttas. Within each part the suttas are further grouped into chapters or divisions (vagga) of ten suttas each, the next to the last division containing twelve suttas. The names assigned to these divisions are often derived solely from the titles of their opening sutta (or, in some cases, pair of suttas) and thus are scarcely indicative of the material found within the divisions themselves. A partial exception is the Middle Fifty, where the division titles usually refer to the principal type of interlocutor or key figure in each of the suttas they contain. Even then the connection between the title and the contents is sometimes tenuous. The entire system of classification appears to have been devised more for the purpose of convenience than because of any essential homogeneity of subject matter in the suttas comprised under a single division.

There is also no particular pedagogical sequence in the suttas, no unfolding development of thought. Thus while different suttas illuminate each other and one will fill in ideas merely suggested by another, virtually any sutta may be taken up for individual study and will be found comprehensible on its own. Of course, the study of the entire compilation will naturally yield the richest harvest of understanding.

If the Majjhima Nikāya were to be characterised by a single phrase to distinguish it from among the other books of the Pali Canon, this might be done by describing it as the collection that combines the richest variety of contextual settings with the deepest and most comprehensive assortment of teachings. Like the Dīgha Nikāya, the Majjhima is replete with drama and narrative, while lacking much of its predecessor’s tendency towards imaginative embellishment and profusion of legend. Like the Saṁyutta, it contains some of the profoundest discourses in the Canon, disclosing the Buddha’s radical insights into the nature of existence; and like the Anguttara, it covers a wide range of topics of practical applicability. In contrast to those two Nikāyas, however, the Majjhima sets forth this material not in the form of short, self-contained utterances, but in the context of a fascinating procession of scenarios that exhibit the Buddha’s resplendence