SuttaCentral: Online Sutta Correspondence Project

Help with Searching

(For help with display of diacritics and special characters, click here.)

You can use this Search facility to find the Chinese, Sanskrit, Tibetan, or other parallels to any given Pali discourse (sutta) - at this early stage, to any discourse of the Pali Dīgha, Majjhima, or Saṃyutta Nikāya.

On Screen 1 (Home page) you are invited to specify the Pali discourse in any of three ways:

(1) by its title; e.g., mahasatipatthana or mahaasatipa.t.thaana
(2) by its abbreviation and number; e.g., DN 22
(3) by a nikāya/volume/page reference; e.g., DN II 310

Click one of the three buttons to choose your method for specifying the Pali discourse.
Type in the identifying information.

If you are typing the discourse title, then spell it either "plain" (i.e., omitting diacritics) or in Velthuis transliteration. Omit the word sutta, e.g., mahasatipatthana or mahaasatipa.t.thaana.
You can truncate the title; e.g., typing mahasatip will take you to mahāsatipaṭṭhāna. If you type a small segment of the title, you will get all the sutta titles that contain that segment; e.g., typing sati will take you to satipaṭṭhāna, mahāsatipaṭṭhāna, ānāpānasati, kāyagatāsati, and others.
When typing a sutta abbreviation and number, leave one space between the letters and the number; e.g., MN 21 or mn 21.
Use the nikāya/volume/page option if you have a citation reference (e.g., from an author's footnote) and don't know which discourse it belongs to. The program will identify the discourse in question. Type the volume number in roman numerals and leave one space before and after it; e.g., DN II 310, MN III 36, MN iii 36.

Click on "Submit".

This takes you to Screen 2. Now you see the full identification of the discourse you are searching.

Click on the highlighted Pali reference (abbreviation and number; e.g. DN 22).

This takes you to Screen 3. Now you see a list of all the known parallel discourses in Chinese (Taishō edition), Pali (PTS editions), and other languages.

The texts are grouped by language, and the languages are in alphabetical sequence, beginning with Chinese.

Within each language group, full parallels are listed first, followed by partial parallels (marked with *).

Within each of these categories the discourses are listed in numerical order of volume and page, with the Pali nikāyas in the traditional sequence: DN, MN, SN, AN.

Chinese sutta titles are as given in Akanuma's Comparative Catalogue (1929); many of them are not actually attested in the texts.

If an information button (i) shows, move the cursor over it to display further relevant information.

If a listed discourse (including the Pali one from which you began) is shown highlighted, this means that you can view the actual text. Currently this facility is available for all Pali discourses, for those Chinese discourses that have parallels in DN or MN, and for a few items in Sanskrit or Tibetan.

To view a text, click the highlighted reference.

In the case of a discourse in PALI, this takes you to the relevant page at "e-Tipitaka Quotation" (http://tipitakastudies.net). This is a very accurate source for Pali texts, said to be based on the 6th Council edition. On your first visit, you will need to provide a username and password of your choice.

In the case of a discourse in CHINESE, you are taken to the relevant page at CBETA (Taishō edition). With most browsers the beginning of the required discourse will show in red at the top of the screen; however, with some browsers you may need to scroll down to find it. If the discourse extends over more than one juan (卷, fascicle), the remainder of it can be viewed by clicking the "下一卷" button below the last visible line of text. This is the case with DA 2, DA 30, T 3, T 5-8, T 10-13, T 23-25.

For material in SANSKRIT, clicking the highlighted reference takes you to GRETIL. What you see is the beginning of the relevant text. The section you require may be buried within this text. It can be located using "Find" and the page or paragraph number given in the list of parallels on Screen 3.

Most Sanskrit references on Screen 3 are not highlighted, which means that the text is not yet accessible via SuttaCentral. In such cases, you can find the required text in the listed publication. To display the full bibliographic details, click the button (+) next to the publication reference. For a list of all such referenced publications, go to the Bibliography.

In the case of a discourse in TIBETAN, clicking the highlighted reference takes you to the relevant section in the AsianClassics digital version of the Derge edition (in Wylie transliteration).

If the reference is not highlighted, the text is not yet accessible via SuttaCentral.

Tibetan references beginning with "D" are to the Derge edition (for a scan of D, see www.tbrc.org). Those beginning with "Q" are to the Peking edition.

If a critical edition is listed, consult the book in question. For its full bibliographic details, click the button (+) next to the publication reference. For a list of all such referenced publications, go to the Bibliography.

For an overview of the entire Dīgha, Majjhima, or Saṃyutta Nikāya, return to Home page, then click Collections > Pali > DN or MN. Suttas that have parallels are highlighted. Clicking them will display the parallels.

For an overview of the entire set of parallels for DN and/or MN, return to Home page, then click Collections > Pali > one of the three links below the table: DN, MN, or DN+MN. This takes you to a pdf of the complete table of parallels, which you can scroll through.

Try it out yourself: