Chinese Āgamas

The Chinese Āgamas are translations representing a class Indian scriptures drawn from several different mainstream Buddhist sects including the Sarvâstivāda and Dharmaguptaka. These mainstream Buddhist traditions referred to their sūtra collections as Āgamas, which were analogous to the Nikāyas of the present-day Theravāda tradition. The majority of these translations are collected in the first two volumes of the Taishō shinshū daizōkyō (T 1-151).

The Four Āgamas

Four complete Āgama sūtra collections were translated to classical Chinese during the 4-5th centuries CE, and numerous independent translations were completed by various translators between the 1st and 10th centuries CE.

The four complete collections include:

• The Long Discourses (Ch. 長阿含經; Skt. Dīrgha Āgama)
• The Middle-Length Discourses (Ch. 中阿含經; Skt. Madhyama Āgama)
• The Numerical Discourses (Ch. 增一阿含經, Skt. Ekottarika Āgama)
• The Related Discourses (Ch. 雜阿含經; Skt. Saṃyukta Āgama)