(英文版)中阿含經研究論文集Research on the Madhyama-āgama

This is the third volume of proceedings of the Agama seminars con-vened by the Agama Research Group at the Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts (formerly Dharma Drum Buddhist College).

On this occasion, during the last weekend of October 2015, we met to discuss various aspects related to the Middle-length Collec-tions of discourses transmitted by different early Buddhist lineages of reciters.

This volume presents twelve studies, arranged according to the authors' names in alphabetical order. Several contributions are the result of joint ventures between colleagues, reflecting the cooperative concept of the research seminar.

The volume opens by bringing us straight into the world of the Gandhari Agamas, with Mark Allon and Blair Silverlock's in-depth investigation of the "Sutras in the Senior Kharosthi Manuscript Col-lection with Parallels in the Majjhima-nikaya and/or the Madhyama-agama". The Senior manuscripts were probably produced by monast-ics of the Dharmaguptaka lineage since several of the texts in the collection most closely match the versions found in texts attributed to the Dharmaguptakas preserved in Chinese, namely the Dirgha-agama and the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya. Based on the characteristics of the inscription on the pot that contained the manuscripts and the results of carbon dating, the collection seems to have been assembled between AD 130 and 140 or at least the bark of the samples tested was cut from the tree or trees at that time. The collection includes four discourses whose primary parallels are found in the Pali or Chinese Middle-Length Collections. Further, there appear to be several uddana-like references to middle-length discourses in the list of fifty-five discourses preserved on two scrolls. Allon and Silverlock look from numerous angles into what both classes of material have to tell us about the nature and structure of the Gandharan Madhyama-agama that was known to the community that produced the Senior collection.