resenting Ekottara
rather than Anguttara.[772] There is hence _prima facie_ reason to
suppose that these works represent not the Pali Canon, but a somewhat
similar Sanskrit collection. That one or many Sanskrit works may have
coexisted with a somewhat similar Pali work is clearly shown by the
Vinaya texts, for here we have the Pali Canon and Chinese translations of
five Sanskrit versions, belonging to different schools, but apparently
covering the same ground and partly identical. For the Sutra Pitaka no
such body of evidence is forthcoming, but the Sanskrit fragments of the
Samyuktagama found near Turfan contain parts of six sutras which are
arranged in the same order as in the Chinese translation and are
apparently the original from which it was made. It is noticeable that
three of the four great Agamas were translated by monks who came from
Tukhara or Kabul. Gunabhadra, however, the translator of the
Samyuktagama, came from Central India and the text which he translated
was brought from Ceylon by Fa-Hsien. It apparently belonged to the
Abhayagiri monastery and not to the Mahavihara. Nanjio,[773] however,
states that about half of it is repeated in the Chinese versions of the
Madhyama and Ekottara Agamas. It is also certain that though the Chinese
Agamas and Pali Nikayas contain much common matter, it is differently
distributed.[774]

There was in India a copious collection of sutras, existing primarily
as oral tradition and varying in diction and arrangement, but codified
from time to time in a written form. One of such codifications is
represented by the Pali Canon, at least one other by the Sanskrit text
which was rendered into Chinese. With rare exceptions the Chinese
translations were from the Sanskrit.[775] The Sanskrit codification of
the sutra literature, while differing from the Pali in language
and arrangement, is identical in doctrine and almost identical in
substance. It is clearly the product of the same or similar schools,
but is it earlier or later than the Pali or contemporary with it? The
Chinese translations merely fix the latest possible date. A portion of
the Samyuktagama (Nanjio, No. 547) was translated by an unknown author
between 220 and 280. This is probably an extract from the complete
work which was translated about 440, but it would be difficult to
prove that the Indian original was not augmented or rearranged between
these dates. The earliest translation of a complete Agama is that of
the