Anālayo dates the text between 435 and 436, and gives the further detail that it was translated by Baoyun 寶雲 based on a manuscript that Guṇabhadra read aloud (Anālayo 136). The 'Mixed Āgamas.' One of the four Agamas 四阿含. This corresponds to the Pāli text of the Saṃyutta-nikāya, a collection of miscellaneous and short sutras. It is said to be 'mixed' because the compilers gathered sets of related portions from other Āgamas. This is one of the basic works for the articulation of the early Indian Buddhist teaching, as it deals with such topics as suffering 苦, impermanence 無常, selflessness 無我, and the eightfold path 八正道. Some sutras of this latter text were separately translated into Chinese, and they are collectively called the Saṃyuktâgama , viz., the 別譯雜阿含經. (Skt. *Kṣudrakâgama )

Mizuno Kōgen summarizes a history of detailed scholarship on T 99. Mizunoʼs focus is the theories of Yinshun 印順, which Mizuno regards as more satisfactory than any earlier theories.

The basic problem is that the Guṇabhadra text, as transmitted and presented in the Taishō, had become disordered; further, two fascicles had been lost, and in the present fascicle 23 and 25, the loss had been made up by interpolating material from an Aśokāvadāna. The wording of these interpolations differs from extant Chinese versions of the Aśokāvadāna, showing that they must have been taken from some alternate, lost source. Hanayama 花山 (see below) proposed that this lost source was a lost text entitled Wuyou wang jing 無憂王經 ascribed to Guṇabhadra [for which see Chu sanzang ji ji 出三藏記集 T 2145.55.13a4]. These interpolations must already have been made by the early sixth century, since Sengyouʼs 僧祐 Shijia pu 釋迦譜 (T 2040) preserves quotations from them, with the identification of the source as the "Saṃyuktâgama ", as does the Jing lü yi xiang 經律異相 (T 2121). The evidence of the Jing lü yi xiang, moreover, shows that the text had also already become jumbled by this point, since it cites the fascicle numbers of the disordered version. Further, the Chu sanzang ji ji also gives titles of "excerpted sūtras" 抄經, featuring material from these Aśokāvadāna sections, for which it also gives the "Saṃyuktâgama " as the source. Strangely enough, in fact, according to Mizuno, this is in fact the only source from which the Chu sanzang ji ji has material from the Aśokāvadāna, even though the other canonical versions of the text existed by the Liang. Four such texts are listed: 阿育王獲果報經; 阿育王於佛所生大敬信經; 阿育王供養道場樹經; 阿育王施半阿摩勒果經 (T 2145.55.25b2–5; Sengyouʼs failure to list the Ayu wang jing 阿育王經 (T 2043), ascribed to Saṃghabhara 僧伽婆羅, can be accounted for by the fact that Sengyou lists no Liang works).

Mizuno summarizes a history of modern Japanese scholarship attempting to correct these problems in the transmission of T 99, including work by Anesaki 姉崎, Kajio 梶尾, Maeda 前田, and Hanayama 花山. These scholars compared the order of the text with that of the (anonymous) "alternate" Saṃyuktâgama  別譯雜阿含經 T 100. The latter text has been transmitted in two versions: the Goryeo lineage preserves a version in 16 fascicles, and the Ming (and its successors) a version in 20 fascicles. The 20-fascicle version preserves a better order, which has been used, along with verses summarizing the contents of the whole collection, to correct the disorder in T 99. Prior to Kajio, Japanese scholars thought that the Aśokāvadāna portions were already interpolated in the Indic source text, but Hanayama proposed, more plausibly in Mizunoʼs view, that it had been interpolated after translation. Hanayama also advanced consideration of these problems by proposing that the units that had been jumbled in the text were whole fascicles, and it should therefore be reconstituted by reorganization at the level of the fascicle; this allowed him to correct earlier theories, which had been overly restricted by the comparison to the 20-fascicle version of T 100. Hanayama also proposed, as mentioned earlier, that the Aśokāvadāna interpolations derived from a lost Guṇabhadra translation. Maeda built further on Hanayamaʼs theories, finding further guides to the reconstruction of the sequence of the text in the Kṣudrakavastu of the Mūlasarvâstivāda-vinaya, the table of Saṃyuktâgama contents in fascicle 85 of the Yogâcārabhūmi, and other Vinaya materials. It was also Maeda who first proposed that T 99 was originally 50 fascicles in length, and the Aśokāvadāna portions were interpolated to make up two lost fascicles.

Yinshunʼs theories were presented primarily in two works. The Foguang Chinese Buddhist canon 佛光大藏經 (a project Mizuno presents as driven by Yinshun) includes a Saṃyuktâgama  雜阿含經 in four volumes which is based upon, and reflects, the fruits of Yinshunʼs research, and has appended to it an essay entitled “Za ahan jing lei zhi zhengbei 雜阿含經類之整備,” which is identical to an essay of the same title in Za ahan jing lun huibian 雜阿含經論會編. The other work is Chapters 9 and 10 of Yuanshi Fojiao shengdian zhi jicheng 原始佛教聖典之集成 (629–703) [entitled “Za ahan jing de zhengli 雜阿含經的整理”]. Yinshunʼs primary foil in Japanese scholarship was Maeda, who represented the endpoint of the developments in Japanese scholarship sketched above. The first respect in which Yinshun went beyond the Japanese studies was that he followed a 1923 study published in Neixue 內學 by Lü Cheng 呂澂, entitled “Za ahan jing kanding ji 雜阿含經刊定記,” which according to Mizuno was almost entirely unknown to Japanese scholarship. In this study, Lü observed that the exposition of 'sutras'  契經 presented in fascicles 85–98 of the Yogâcārabhūmi details the structure of the Saṃyuktâgama , and could be used as the basis for a reconstitution of the original order of corresponding portions of T 99.

According to Mizuno, Yinshun proposes that the Saṃyuktâgama is significant for the study of early Buddhist doctrine as a whole, and the formation of all the Āgamas. On this theory, the Saṃyuktâgama was the first collection of sutras. The Saṃyuktâgama itself can be further stratified into three stages, namely, sūtra, geya and vyākaraṇa. These are the first members of the ninefold classification of scriptures, and this theory also proposes that the ninefold rubric preceded the Āgamas/Nikāyas, rather than being developed subsequent to it. Thus, the sutra section of the Saṃyuktâgama is regarded as the oldest kernel of the collection of all sutras, written in plain language (nītârtha), couched in prose, and centering on the exposition of core Buddhist doctrine. The geya section represents an extension of Buddhist doctrine beyond the Buddhist community, to address other strata of society (such as Brahmins and Kṣatriyas) and other denizens of the cosmos as framed in Indian cosmology (such as Brahmā and Indra). This portion, in line with wider conventions in Indian religious texts, is couched in verse, but as such, requires further exposition (neyârtha) in order to be comprehensible. (Mizuno notes that this means that Yinshun resists the more usual view that verse historically precedes prose in the development of Buddhist texts, and can sometimes be taken as an index of an early date.) This then leads to the development of the third portion, vyākaraṇa, which unpacks the implicit meaning of the geya section. Yinshun then proposes that the other Āgamas were hived off from the Saṃyuktâgama that had been so formed. Thus, when T 99 preserves some texts without parallels in the Pāli Samyutta-nikāya, but with parallels in the Aṅguttara-nikāya (or Ekôttarikâgama) or the Majjhima-nikāya (or Madhyamāgama), this is not because T 99 has borrowed those texts from other Āgamas, but rather, because T 99 preserves vestiges of a stage in which those texts still belonged organically to the Saṃyuktâgama itself. This order of development is also supposed to be reflected in the traditional order in which the Āgamas are named in Sarvâstivāda sources, namely Saṃyukta-Madhyama-Dīrgha-Ekottarika, with the Saṃyukta in pride of place.

These theories seem to inform Yinshunʼs efforts to further refine the reconstitution of the original order of T 99. He takes it that the same order, sūtra-geya-vyākaraṇa, characterized the original text. He follows Lü Cheng in using fascicles 85–98 of the Yogâcārabhūmi to restore the order of the sutra portion. This leads to a theory which is very different from the theories of Anesaki and Kajio, and close to that of Hanayama and Maeda; but Mizuno judges that in finer matters of detail, Yinshunʼs theory even supersedes and supplants the latter. Yinshun also goes beyond Japanese scholars in theorizing the likely content of the two fascicles whose loss created the lacunae filled by the Aśokāvadāna interpolations. Mizuno presents Yinshunʼs two successive refinements of his theory in brief, convenient tabulated form at pp. 28 and 36.

References:

Anālayo. 2007. “Mindfulness of Breathing in the Saṃyukta-āgama.” Buddhist Studies Review 24-2 : 137–150.

----. 2008. “The Conversion of Aṇgulimāla in the Saṃyukta-āgama.” Buddhist Studies Review 25-2 : 135–148.

Choong, Mun-keat. 2006. “A Comparison of the Pāli and Chinese Versions of the Bhikkhu Saṃyutta, a Collection of Early Buddhist Discourses on Monks.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series) 23-1 : 61-70.

----. 2007. “A Comparison of the Pāli and Chinese Versions of the Vaṇgīsa-thera Saṃyutta, a Collection of Early Buddhist Discourse on the Venerable Vaṇgīsa.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series) 24-1 : 561–574.

----. 2012. “A Comparison of the Pāli and Chinese Versions of the Sakka Saṃyutta, a Collection of Early Buddhist Discourses on ‘Śakra, Ruler of the Gods'.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Third Series) 22, 3-4 : 561–574.

Glass, Andrew. 2008. “Guṇabhadra, Baoyun, and the Saṃyuktâgama .” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 31, 1-2 : 185–203.

Mizuno, Kōgen 水野弘元. 1988. “Zō agon kyō no kenkyū to shuppan 『雑阿含経』の研究と出版 .” Bukkyō kenkyū 仏教研究  17 : 1-45.

Mukai Akira 向井章. 1985. “The Vastusaṁgrahaṇī of the Yogācārabhūmi and the Saṁyuktāgama 『瑜伽師地論』摂事分と『雑阿含経』 .” The Annual Report on Cultural Science 33 (2): 1–41.

[European Language Translations]