Numbered Discourses

From the Publisher:

This translation was part of a project to translate the four Pali Nikāyas with the following aims: plain, approachable English; consistent terminology; accurate rendition of the Pali; free of copyright. It was made during 2016–2018 while Bhikkhu Sujato was staying in Qimei, Taiwan.

From the Introduction:

The Aṅguttara Nikāya is the last and longest of the four primary divisions of the Sutta Piṭaka. The word aṅguttara literally means “up by one factor”, i.e. “incremental”. It refers to the fact that the discourses are arranged by numbered sets, with the numbers increasing by one. I have translated it as Numbered Discourses, while previously it has been translated as the Numerical Discourses or the Gradual Sayings.

SuttaCentral follows Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translation in counting 8122 discourses in total. The summary verse at the end of the collection, however, says there are 9,557 suttas. This scribal remark does not say how this count was arrived at; it must have been quite a process to count so many discourses when dealing only with palm-leaf manuscripts. In any case, as with the Saṁyutta Nikāya, this count is largely a product of discourses repeated according to templates. Many of these consist only of a single word; indeed, the process of abbreviation is carried to such extremes that hundreds of suttas do not, in fact, exist at all in the text; they are merely numbers to be filled out. Also, in the case of the Ones and Twos, most of the suttas are longer texts that have been divided to make the numbers. On SuttaCentral, these are treated as if one vagga was a sutta, and the abbreviated texts likewise are combined. If we count the files of the texts combined in this way, we arrive at more reasonable, but still very large, 1407 texts of substance.

The focus of the Numbered Discourses is on practical matters of everyday relevance. Guidelines of ethics and character predominate. If the Saṁyutta Nikāya gathers the chief teachings on doctrines, the Aṅguttara gathers the teachings on persons. The concerns of the lay community are a major focus, and many teachings deal with how to teach.