Access to Insight: An Incomplete Canon

[songhill]

Accesstoinsight (hereafter ATI), which these days seems to be the goto Buddhist Internet site for cash strapped Buddhists, hosts an incomplete Pali canon. Anyone who imagines that ATI is the entire Pali canon hasn't paid very close attention to the site. For example, ATI has, roughly, 58% the Majjhima-Nikaya posted; the Digha-Nikaya is 44% complete, while the large Samyutta-Nikaya has only 12% of the Suttas posted. Turning to the huge Anguttara-Nikaya there is barely 3% on the ATI site. As for the Khuddaka-Nikaya it, too, is incomplete. The important section of the Samyutta-Nikaya, the Khandhasamyutta which deals with the Five Aggregates and the fact that they are not the self, has only 28% of the 159 Suttas posted. Notablly absent, except for one Sutta is the Radhasamyutta section. Some of these missing Suttas reveal that Mara the Evil One is the five aggregates.

Those who are seriously interested in Buddhism can't learn it via ATI. You have to buy the books, for example, Bhikkhu Bodhi's The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya in addition to The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikaya by Bhikkhu Nnamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi. Incidentally, most all of my Pali citations come from Bhikkhu Bodhi's Samyutta-N; my citations from the Majjhima-Nikaya are from I.B. Horner.

[Indrajala]

The Madhyama-āgama from Chinese will be translated into English soon.

The Saṃyukta-āgama will also be done.

See here:

http://buddhistinformatics.ddbc.edu.tw/analayo/

[gregkavarnos]

Those who are seriously interested in Buddhism can't learn it via ATI.

Of course they can. It is unlikely (and unecessary) that anybody will read the entire Pali Canon anyway.

You have to buy the books...

As for having to buy books, some of us do not have the luxury of having enough (spare) money to invest in purchasing the entire Pali Canon texts, some of us have barely enough/not enough money to cover their living costs.

So, unless you are proposing supplying us all with a copy of the Pali Canon for our perusal then you will just have to put up with us utilising Access to Insight and other (kindly provided) free and legitimate Dhamma and Dharma sources.

[gregkavarnos]

PS As for Horner, a true pioneer! Unfortunately her translation of the Pali Canon is rather outdated. It suffers (as is to be expected, given it was done during the 1930's-1940's) from a heavy reliance on Abrahamic terminology and concepts. This, unfortunately, leads many times to the texts being a source of confusion rather than insight as they lean towards ideas like the Soul and the Divine. A fantastic attempt nonetheless.

[Michael_Dorfman]

Accesstoinsight (hereafter ATI), which these days seems to be the goto Buddhist Internet site for cash strapped Buddhists, hosts an incomplete Pali canon.

Not only that, this is by design.

In fact, you'll find the following in their FAQ:

"This website aims to be selective rather than comprehensive. My goal has never been to publish translations of every single one of the Tipitaka's 10,000-plus suttas. What you see here is a selection of suttas that meet three criteria: (1) they are, in my opinion, good translations; (2) I have personally found them useful; and (3) their copyright holders have provided them for free distribution.

There are many other fine translations of important suttas available in print today, and I encourage you to support their continued publication by purchasing copies. Someday, perhaps, these publishers will make those translations available freely to all. Until then, however, we must learn to make do with what we have. Happily, what we already have is pretty darn wonderful.

The same criteria apply to my selection of books, articles, and other materials on the site."

[Yudron]

Wow! I'm impressed. Most of my friends never even look at one Pali sutra, much less 10,000!

[Nosta]

The idea that I have from Acess to Insight is of a serious site trying to promote buddhism without the objective of earning money. They dont look like a commercial site.

[gregkavarnos]

Some hucksters would prefer that us "cash strapped Buddhists" do not have access to sites like ATI so that they can jive us with their misinterpretations of the Suttas and sell us some watered down and bogus versions. All this just to get their deluded points across and satisfy their ego-centred obsessions. It would make their sick goal incredibly easier if they could discredit freely available public sources of legitimate translations of the Buddhas word, so they could pull the wool over our eyes.

Unfortunately for these liars and deceivers a number of talented and dedicated translators have volunteered their time, effort and experience to freely present us with these gems. Instead of displaying gratitude and wishing that the endeavour expands so that the texts are even made available in different languages for our non-English speaking "cash strapped Buddhist" brothers and sisters, these people prefer to criticise the noble effort which is being made.

This is the unfortunate truth my dear Nosta.

[Roland]

It says this when you click on the "About" link on the ATI site:

The readings assembled here represent just a selection of the Buddha's teachings. These are the ones that, over the years, I've personally found to be helpful in deepening an understanding of Dhamma practice. This collection is not meant to be an exhaustive archive of Theravada Buddhist texts.

Having some of the books are good to have, of course, if one is fortunate enough to have them.

[songhill]

I support scholars and translators, and hand out small scholarships. I have no problems with most translations. I read the Pali along with them (I can get by). I would encourage everyone to buy The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikaya by Bhikkhu Nnamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi. Like I.B. Horner they have both read the commentarial literature which is cited in the notes. It's is a real help. The Buddhas have blessed me with the ability to have a rather awesome personal library. Having said that, we have to support our translators. Personally, I don't care if they are Theravadin or an upper graduate student. They are helping the Dharma, and I feel the need to buy their works.

[gregkavarnos]

I support scholars and translators, and hand out small scholarships. I have no problems with most translations. I read the Pali along with them (I can get by). I would encourage everyone to buy The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikaya by Bhikkhu Nnamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi. Like I.B. Horner they have both read the commentarial literature which is cited in the notes. It's is a real help. The Buddhas have blessed me with the ability to have a rather awesome personal library. Having said that, we have to support our translators. Personally, I don't care if they are Theravadin or an upper graduate student. They are helping the Dharma, and I feel the need to buy their works.

My dear songhill, If I had the money I would too. I could think of nothing better than to have the entire Pali Canon sitting here in my study/shrine room so I could better serve the members of this site and my students. Unfortunately Greece is currently in the middle of an economic depression and it has been two years since I have had a steady minimum income (680 USD per month), so... Even with this income, as you can imagine, given that basic food and other essential items in Greece are the most expensive in Europe, it doesn't leave one with much slack at the end of the month.

[Roland]

I second that recommendation. Before I knew anything about the Buddha or any of the teachings, I was for some reason drawn to Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. It ended up being the first book I owned when I started to investigate the teachings. I'm very glad to have had it as the first book.

[songhill]

I second that recommendation. Before I knew anything about the Buddha or any of the teachings, I was for some reason drawn to Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. It ended up being the first book I owned when I started to investigate the teachings. I'm very glad to have had it as the first book.

Great! I remember when I was in the U.S. Navy (67-71) only making chump change for a salary, I bought I.B. Horner's three volume translation of the Middle Length Discourses. I still have them. When my fellow anchor-clankers were spending all they had on tattoos, I was buying Sutras. I bought my first copy of The Zen Teaching of Huang-Po at City Lights Book Store!

[Jikan]

I second that recommendation. Before I knew anything about the Buddha or any of the teachings, I was for some reason drawn to Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. It ended up being the first book I owned when I started to investigate the teachings. I'm very glad to have had it as the first book.

Great! I remember when I was in the U.S. Navy (67-71) only making chump change for a salary, I bought I.B. Horner's three volume translation of the Middle Length Discourses. I still have them. When my fellow anchor-clankers were spending all they had on tattoos, I was buying Sutras. I bought my first copy of The Zen Teaching of Huang-Po at City Lights Book Store!

Excellent...

My first approach to Dharma (apart from some fragments my mom had taken in from her youth in Okinawa) was through a translation of the Milindapanha, in the Horner translation, in a comparative philosophy class. I was 18 and that text turned my much-too-overconfident world upside-down.

[gregkavarnos]

The BPS version of the Milindapanha was the first Dharma text I ever translated. Still haven't found a publisher!

[Kim O'Hara]

... Access to Insight and other (kindly provided) free and legitimate Dhamma and Dharma sources.

There are *lots* of other resources, often free, some as real dead-tree books, many more online. Some of the people over at Dhamma Wheel have been compiling a list, with links, for a couple of years. It's here: http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3012
Naturally, texts specific to the Mahayana are under-represented ... but, hey, I'm sure someone over here can start a similar thread to fill in the gaps.


Kim

[gregkavarnos]

I think you will find these suttas much more interesting and more scholary. https://sites.google.com/site/dharmafarer2/

[gregkavarnos]

Why do you consider them "more" interesting and scholarly? Because they agree with your personally favoured interpretations? Why?

[Kare]

Let me first say that personally I prefer to have a book in my hands. But it is also good that texts are available online for free.

Access to Insight is a good resource. But I would also recommend another resource that maybe is not so well known, The Sutta Central:

http://suttacentral.net/disp_division.p ... _name=Pali

At this site there are often more than one translation of a sutta, two or more in English, and often in German, French and Spanish as well.

This site also has a large selection of suttas:

http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/

And if you read Norwegian, you can go to my site, Dhamma-biblioteket, where I publish my own translations into Norwegian. Mostly from the Pali texts, but also some from the Sanskrit texts:

http://dhamma.priv.no/index.htm

None of these sites have the complete Pali canon. The collection of texts is immense. But, if you are lucky, what you don't find at the one site, you may find at another site.

[gregkavarnos]

Thank you VERY much Kare!


PS What part of Norway are you from? I spent a month in Bergen about 10 years ago. Loved it!