Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?

Discuss and learn about the traditional Mahayana scriptures, without assuming that any one school ‘owns’ the only correct interpretation.
Nalanda
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Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?

Post by Nalanda »

Thanks Leo & Kim fwends. :reading: :reading: :reading: :reading: :reading:
IF YOU PRACTICE WITH A STRONG BELIEF IN WHAT
YOU ARE DOING, THEN THERE IS NO LIMIT TO WHAT
YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH WITH YOUR PRACTICE.

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Javierfv1212
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Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?

Post by Javierfv1212 »

Going back to your original question, I can point to some sources which are close to what you are asking about (that is, commentaries in the Mahayana tradition on early Buddhist material).

One way to think about this is that, even though there is nothing like what the Pali tradition has (full commentaries on individual EBTs, early Buddhist texts that is) the Mahayana tradition does have scattered commentarial material on what would be called "early Buddhist" sources. This is because Mahayana sutras sometimes contain EBT teachings and passages inside of them. For example, the 25000 line Prajnaparamita sutra contains various EBT material, including a version of the "Satipatthana" passage. The various commentaries on the PP sutra literature should discuss these "EBT" passages from a Mahayana POV. So this could be one avenue of research for you.

Another similar thing happened with the Śālistamba Sūtra, this is a sutra that contains numerous passages that are parallel with Pali Nikaya texts. I believe there is a commentary to Śālistamba attributed to Nagarjuna.

There is also the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra which contains many teachings that are close to the Agamas and Nikayas.

This is just off the top of my head, but I am sure there are probably other sources along these lines.
It is quite impossible to find the Buddha anywhere other than in one's own mind.
A person who is ignorant of this may seek externally,
but how is it possible to find oneself through seeking anywhere other than in oneself?
Someone who seeks their own nature externally is like a fool who, giving a performance in the middle of a crowd, forgets who he is and then seeks everywhere else to find himself.
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Leo Rivers
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Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?

Post by Leo Rivers »

Thanks Javierfv1212.

A possible model.

Some descriptions of the passage from sutta to sutra seem like a caravan across a desert with many oasis, a thread of beads incremental.

The Same is described for the migration of Asians from central Asia across the Bering Strait down into North America.

But I have heard another model described. The sea level was lower. The land passage was for a time wide enough that people could think they never left one continent for another. And instead of a trek, think of a farm with the kids building there farm next door to the East. For Generations. Maybe imagine a mala with each bead a farm and a family who had no idea they were going anywhere but next door.

From the earliest new writings to the first record of the dedication of a Monastery as a Mahayana monastery was hundreds of years. And think of all the Mahayana sutras received and carried on orally by people living and practising fruitfully in what we would call Hinayana monasteries. The attitudes of the larger and smaller groups varying from accepting to not accepting on both sides from Monastery to Monastery. And most of them had no idea they were going anywhere but next door. :D
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Aemilius
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Re: Commentaries on the Canonical Sutras?

Post by Aemilius »

As the sutras and their commentaries were oral for aprx 500 years, it means that for a long time Dharma was like the australian aboriginal oral culture.
svaha
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
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