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The Chinese Āgamas, with parallels linked on every sutta
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The Chinese Āgamas, with parallels linked on every sutta
The Pali Canon is not the only surviving record of the early discourses. Other early Buddhist schools carried their own versions of the same teachings from India through Central Asia to China, where they were translated into Chinese around the 4th and 5th centuries CE. These collections, the Āgamas, are the closest living relatives of the Pali Nikāyas and can now be read in the Āgamas section.
What's available
- Dīrgha Āgama (DA) — the parallel of the Dīgha Nikāya. All 30 discourses.
- Madhyama Āgama (MA) — the parallel of the Majjhima Nikāya. 51 of its 222 discourses so far.
- Saṃyukta Āgama (SA) — the parallel of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Around 300 discourses, plus 62 from a second, shorter translation.
- Ekottarika Āgama (EA) — the parallel of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Around 150 discourses.
Nearly 600 texts in all. Translation of the Āgamas into English is ongoing work, so coverage will keep growing.
Parallels, linked both ways
The more useful half of this feature: suttas and their Chinese counterparts now link to each other directly. At the bottom of a sutta page you'll find a Parallels section — reading the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (MN 10), you can jump straight to the Ekottarika version (EĀ 12.1) and compare. The same section appears on every Āgama page, pointing back to the Pali.
Why bother? The Pali and Chinese collections descend from a common body of teachings but were transmitted separately for centuries by different schools. Where a sutta and its Āgama parallel agree, that material likely predates the split between the schools, which makes parallels one of the few tools available for looking behind the texts as any single tradition preserved them.
Things to note:
- Entries marked "cf." are partial parallels — the texts resemble each other or share a passage, but aren't versions of the same discourse.
- Pali suttas now also show parallels to other Pali suttas. The canon repeats itself: MN 10 and DN 22 are both the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, so each lists the other.
The parallel data comes from SuttaCentral's curated correspondence tables, built on decades of comparative scholarship. Only texts added to the site (english translations) are linked — parallels that exist only in Chinese, Sanskrit, or Tibetan aren't shown.
Credits
The English translations are the work of Charles Patton (Dharma Pearls), Bhikkhu Anālayo, Marcus Bingenheimer, and several others, hosted via SuttaCentral. Attribution appears at the bottom of every text. The bulk of these translations, including the complete Dīrgha Āgama, come from Charles Patton's ongoing Dharma Pearls project; if you find them valuable, consider supporting his work.
Note: the Āgamas are kept separate from the sutta search and the browse-by-audience features, which remain focused on the Pali Canon. The Āgamas are here for reading and comparison.
If you have any feedback or suggestions, please let me know at contact@abuddhistview.com.