Can someone enlighten me what's agama sutta about that was being
mentioned from some posts above
Thanks in advance.
Agama sutta is the mahayana term given to the Pali Cannon which
Theravada tradition is based. As you know, there are 2 main
tradition of buddhism today - Theravada and Mahayana. Tibetan
buddhism is a subset of mahayana.
Pali Cannon is also known as Tipitaka. It contains 3 'baskets'
of books passed down , namely ;
1. Sutta Pitaka (Buddha's discourses on various issues regarding
the doctrine, his day-to-day conversation as remembered and
recorded by Ven Ananda, his attendant. There are also some
discourses from Ven Sariputta and Ven Mogallana, his 2 chief
disciples).
2. Vinaya - Rules of Monasteric life . This contains the
explaination of the origination of the rules, and under what
circumstance buddha made the regulations to be observed by the
Sangha
3. Ahbidhamma - the higher Dhamma dealing with Ultimate
realities, or 'Buddhist metaphysics'. It explains in detail the
various constituents of consciousness, mind, matter, etc. It is
said that the Buddha taught the Ahbidhamma to the devas in the
Travatimsa (heaven of 33) for the period of 3 months in the human
world (because devas possess the sharp mind to penetrate the
Doctrine). However, it was made known to the humans by the effort
of Ven Sariputta, who took the effort to ask the Buddha what he had
taught in the heaven. The Buddha repeated his teaching to Ven
Sariputta.
The ahbidhamma's position varies in different school of
buddhism. Ven Sariputta is very venerated in Theravada tradition,
so this teaching of Ahbidhamma is credited to his effort during his
Recitation of Ahbidhamma months before he passed into nibbana.(he
passed away before Buddha did, so any error in the Ahbidhamma would
have been corrected by the Buddha).
The earlier mahayana sutras (which is in sanskrit ) have
similarities to Pali Cannon, so Pali Cannon was regarded as the
core of buddhists teaching , therefore given the name Agama
Sutra.
Mahayana tradition has additional sutras, which are not found in
the Pali Cannon.
