ཀན་ཏ་རྒྱ་བ་སན་རངས་ཀྱས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.6

intro.6

The Pali Majjhima Nikāya contains a sutta called Dīghanakhasutta in the Paribbājakavagga (The Division on Wanderers).⁵ This sutta relates the story of how Dīrghanakha became a lay disciple of the Buddha, who addresses him here as Aggivessāna. After Dīrghanakha approaches the Buddha and proclaims that he believes in nothing,⁶ there follows a conversation in which the Buddha teaches the reasons for abandoning wrong views and the method for attaining liberation by adopting the view of impermanence rooted in the observation of physical sensation. In the Mahāvastu of the Mahāsaṅghika-Lokottaravāda school, a sūtra called The Sūtra of the Wanderer Dīrghanakha is mentioned as a text to be inserted, but is not included.⁷