In this large two-volume book Bhikkhu Anālayo offers a comprehensive comparative study of the discourses (suttas) that make up the Majjhima-nikāya, the “Collection of Middle-length Discourses” of Pali Buddhism. He examines each of the 152 Pali discourses alongside its counterparts or parallels preserved in other languages – mainly Chinese – within other reciter transmissions; and he sets this large body of comparative material between an Introduction and a Conclusion which together provide the overall historical and methodological context.

The book falls within the area of Buddhism studies that is now sometimes referred to as comparative nikāya-āgama studies. Research in this area dates back just over a century to the pioneering work of Anesaki Masaharu. In 1908 Anesaki published the first comprehensive tables setting out the correspondences between the discourses of the four Buddhist āgamas preserved in Chinese translation and their parallels in the four Pali nikāyas.Footnote ¹ Research building on that early work has recently entered a period of rapid growth. Increasingly it is being recognized that studies of early Buddhism should not be based on the Pali discourses alone. Much valuable data can come to light when the Pali discourses are considered alongside their parallels representing other schools of Buddhism – for example, the Dharmaguptaka, (Mūla)-Sarvāstivāda, and Mahāsāṅghika – particularly the abundant material in Chinese translation. Anālayo's book provides easy access to such data in the case of the Majjhima-nikāya.

Here it is necessary to clarify the relationship of this book to an earlier one by Thich Minh Chau (1964), which bears a superficially similar title.Footnote ² Minh Chau's book is based on the Chinese Madhyama-āgama (MĀ), discussing a selection of discourses from that collection in the light of their Pali parallels. Anālayo's book, however, is based on the Pali Majjhima-nikāya (MN), covering all of its component discourses and taking account of a maximally wide range of known parallel discourses, including: discourses in the Chinese āgamas, individual Chinese translations, Tibetan translations, Sanskrit fragments, a few quotations found in later Sanskrit texts, and Pali parallels from elsewhere in the Pali Tipiṭaka. That is to say, Anālayo's book, while having a broadly similar objective to Minh Chau's, differs from it greatly in both approach and scope.

The book under review has, as its core, fifteen chapters (pp. 23–853) corresponding to the fifteen decades (vagga) of the Pali Majjhima-nikāya. Within each chapter, each of the (usually ten) discourses is summarized and discussed in comparison with its Chinese and/or other parallel(s). This is done, according to a largely consistent format, with attention to structure, content, and any other features deemed worthy of note. Often this comparative procedure confirms a basic agreement, as regards content, between the Pali version and its non-Pali parallels; but occasionally it reveals substantial differences. In the latter case the author seeks explanations for the differences, usually in terms of errors apparently introduced during the period of oral transmission in India. Where appropriate and possible, a judgement is then made on which version of the discourse has best preserved this or that particular aspect of the total message.

The Introduction (pp. 1–22) provides an overview of the Majjhima-nikāya as regards its structure and the distribution of its Chinese parallels. It then moves to a preliminary discussion of the oral transmission within early Buddhism and of some of the mnemonic devices it appears to have employed. The discussion of oral transmission is subsequently resumed in the Conclusion (pp. 855–91). It includes consideration of how the Buddhist approach to memorization of oral texts is likely to have differed from the better-known Vedic approach. Also considered are questions relating to how commentarial and other material may have been inadvertently incorporated into the memorized discourses. In the final paragraphs of the Conclusion the author reflects that the findings of this study of the Majjhima-nikāya further demonstrate the need for studies of early Buddhism to involve, as standard research procedure, comparing each relevant Pali sutta with its parallels preserved in other languages and representing other schools of Buddhism.

Of the book's back matter the main components are a very extensive bibliography (pp. 899–1036), a table of parallels to the 152 Majjhima-nikāya discourses (pp. 1037–55), and a comprehensive index (pp. 1057–84).

The table of parallels just mentioned incorporates an important feature of this book: its use of the most up-to-date information on discourse parallels. For the identification of parallels (mainly Pali-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-Pali) scholars have long relied on Akanuma's Comparative Catalogue published in 1929, a work that is now seriously outdated.Footnote ³ In the present book a significant number of the Majjhima-nikāya parallels listed by Akanuma have been revised (with footnoted explanations), and many recently identified Sanskrit and Tibetan parallels or partial parallels have been added.

In each of the 152 discourse studies (chapters 1 to 15) the identity of known parallels for the discourse in question is among the first pieces of information provided. If the subsequent comparison of the Majjhima-nikāya discourse with its parallel(s) reveals significant differences in detail, the author weighs up the credentials of the different versions. His basic methodological premise is that the discourses may be expected to satisfy the Buddha's traditional criteria of consistency and coherence (pp. xxvi–xxvii); consequently, any seeming instance of inconsistency or incoherence is in need of rational explanation. The author seeks such explanations, for example in terms of faulty memorization, incorporation of extraneous material, or mistranslation. On the basis of this he makes a judgement on which version is most likely to have preserved the discourse's original message.

For a typical example we may consider the study of the Discourse to Samaṇamaṇḍikāputta (Samaṇamaṇḍikā-sutta), MN 78 (pp. 424–31). This discourse has a single parallel in discourse no. 179 of the (Mūla)-Sarvāstivādin Madhyama-āgama, preserved in Chinese: MĀ 179. After reviewing the contents of the two versions, the author notes (p. 428) that whereas the Majjhima-nikāya version associates the ceasing of wholesome thoughts with the second meditative absorption (jhāna), the Madhyama-āgama version associates it with the fourth absorption. He infers that, because attainment of the second absorption is elsewhere consistently identified with the ceasing of discursive thought (vitakka-vicāra), the MN version is the more coherent and is therefore likely to be the one that has preserved the record accurately in respect of this particular detail. On the other hand, the overall sequence of topics covered in MN 78 / MĀ 179 is judged by the author to be, for various cogent reasons, more coherent in the MĀ version than in the MN version (pp. 428–30), which makes the MĀ version the more trustworthy in this respect.

Many of the studies include useful tables showing how the different versions of the discourse in question agree or disagree with regard to specific details of content. For example, the study of the Discourse on the Establishing of Mindfulness (Satipaṭṭhāna-sutta, MN 10 / MĀ 98 / EĀ 12.1) has a table for each of the four contemplations (body, feelings, mind, dharmas), which lists the specific objects of mindfulness prescribed in the three versions of the discourse (pp. 80, 87, 88, 90). Such tables assemble information that would otherwise be troublesome to locate. Consequently, they are potentially valuable research aids.

Chapters 1–15 also include occasional discussion of a variety of linguistic and text-critical issues that happen to arise. Examples are: variations in the Chinese renderings of Indic terms throughout the Madhyama-āgama; Chinese transcriptions as evidence of variations in the Indic source text(s); the different forms of address used by different classes of interlocutor when addressing the Buddha; the conventional use of exaggerated and stereotyped numbers; evidence that a segment from one discourse has been copied into another; and evidence that commentarial material has sometimes been incorporated into the discourse it refers to.

This is not the sort of book that one would normally read from cover to cover. Apart from the Introduction and Conclusion, which can profitably be read in isolation from the rest, it has more the nature of a reference book. It would serve as a valuable companion to any research or serious reading involving discourses of the Majjhima-nikāya. Researchers who lack the requisite language skills will find in this book otherwise hard-to-get information on how any particular Majjhima discourse matches up with its non-Pali parallels. And those who do read the āgamas with facility will nevertheless find it expedient and rewarding to consult the relevant comparative studies in this book alongside the original texts.