A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t1.127

v2.c19.s3.t1.127

Side by side with Suttas drawn out to inordinate lengths owing to the abundant repetitions, there are some brief and terse dialogues, in which an idea is presented with the utmost nicety and lucidity, and developed without a single superfluous word. Dialogues of this kind are to be found in all of the four Nikāyas, and we are pretty safe in assuming that they belong to the earlier parts of the canon. In style and language, too, there is no essential difference among the four Nikāyas.¹ Though the Aṅguttaranikāya may be somewhat later than the other Nikāyas,² there cannot have been a very great interval of time between it and the others. There is even less foundation for assuming the Dīghanikāya to be "the earliest accessible source of Buddhist writing."³ "The earliest accessible sources" of the doctrine of Buddha are only a few isolated Suttas appearing in different collections and are not afforded by any one collection; in fact they have to be culled from the whole of Buddhist literature, Pāli as well as Sanskrit. At all events all the four Nikāyas contain very ancient as well as more modern elements.