16.2.11 Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #16. Buddhism, post #12: Difference between the Kalama Sutta in Pali Canon and its Chinese parallel.

Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #16. Buddhism, post #12 (16.2.11):

I originally posted this at the Dhamma Wheel message board ( https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=33475&start=15 ):

I actually found on the internet at this Wisdom Publications website (is it a real Wisdom Publications website, or not?) that they have the Introduction to The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha (Anguttara Nikaya English translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi) online, and it does include the passage about the Kalama Sutta and its Chinese parallel. It is found almost to the bottom of the webpage:

INTRODUCTION

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The Chinese Parallels

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An intriguing divergence between the two traditions occurs in a discourse widely known as the Kālāma Sutta, which records the Buddha’s advice to the people of Kesaputta. In contemporary Buddhist circles it has become almost de rigueur to regard the Kālāma Sutta as the essential Buddhist text, almost equal in importance to the discourse on the four noble truths. The sutta is held up as proof that the Buddha anticipated Western empiricism, free inquiry, and the scientific method, that he endorsed the personal determination of truth. Though until the late nineteenth century this sutta was just one small hill in the mountain range of the Nikāyas, since the start of the twentieth century it has become one of the most commonly quoted Buddhist texts, offered as the key to convince those with modernist leanings that the Buddha was their forerunner. However, the Chinese parallel to the Kālāma Sutta, MĀ 16 (at T I 438b13‒439c22), is quite different. Here the Buddha does not ask the Kālāmas to resolve their doubts by judging matters for themselves. Instead, he advises them not to give rise to doubt and perpexity at all. He tells them point blank: “You yourselves do not have pure wisdom with which to know whether there is an afterlife or not. You yourselves do not have pure wisdom to know which deeds are transgressions and which are not transgressions.” He then explains to them the three unwholesome roots of kamma, how they lead to moral transgressions, and the ten courses of wholesome kamma.

SOURCE: https://www.wisdompubs.org/book/numerical-discourses-buddha/introduction

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