The Numerical Discourses

A Reader’s Guide to the
Chinese Ekottarika Āgama

Chapter 1: Introduction

Summary

This first chapter served as an introduction to the Ekottarika Āgama and the entire Sūtra Piṭaka of the early school that maintained it. It tells the story of how the Āgama collection came into existence and gives us a few details about the recitation lineage that passed it down after the Buddha’s death. This type of narrative introduction isn’t found in other early Sūtra Piṭakas that still exist today, but we do see similar narrative introductions placed at the beginning of Vinaya Piṭakas.

The introduction has two distinct sections. The first is composed in verse and narrates the story of Ānanda’s compilation of the Tripiṭaka at the first council, which Buddhist tradition holds was convened at Rājagṛha shortly after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. This story is primarily concerned with explaining the organization of the Sūtra Piṭaka, but it does provide some details about the first council that we can compare with other accounts of these events.

The second section of the introduction was composed in prose, and it concerns itself more with the history of this particular version of the Ekottarika Āgama, which was transmitted by a monk named Uttara. Uttara is depicted as the direct successor to Ānanda. The Ekottarika Āgama is also extolled as the root text of the Sūtra Piṭaka. Both Uttara and the Ekottarika are depicted as being present throughout the entire lineage of seven buddhas, extending back ninety-one eons to the time of Buddha Vipaśyin. This served to elevate the Āgama to being equivalent to the timeless Dharma realized and taught by all buddhas, and the monk Uttara as the disciple of all buddhas.