The History of Buddhist Thought c28.s3.3

c28.s3.3

¹ The names also occur in Pāli. But nidāna "cause, occasion", has remained the name of an introductory composition explaining the occasion or motive of a work. The Pāli word apadāna makes it probable that the form avadāna is a Prakrit form representing apa-, but the derivation is uncertain. As a type of literature the Pāli Apandāna has nothing to do with the Sarvāstivādin Avadāna. There is the Mahāpadāna-sutta in the Dīgha, and the Apadāna, a work in verse in the Khuddaka-nikāya, neither of them having any connection as a literary form with Avadāna. Upadeśa is "instruction", and it remained with that general meaning in the Pāli.