Book Description

The Book of Recounts is the third book of the Digha Nikāya, the Collection of the Long Discourses of the Buddha. As the previous ones, and because of their length, these are not discourses delivered by the Buddha. In this case, they are long suttas conceived to support the missionary work of the bhikkhus among an audience alien to the Teachings. The Book of Recounts collects eleven suttas, mostly lists of items, in which the last two stand out, Convocation of the Saṅgha and Superior to Ten, which are very useful enumerations to memorize the main points of the doctrine. Apart from these two suttas, outstanding are DN 24: About Pāṭikaputta, an amusing tale of scorn about a fool. DN 28: Inspiring Confidence, is an enumeration of how well the Buddha explains the teaching and its superiority to others. DN 29: An impressive discourse, continues in that vein. The rest, following the pattern of this Nikāya, are fake suttas, not even forged. They come marked with double asterisks (**). From giving blows to other ascetics and Brahmins to entering into excessive mythomania even for oriental taste, either of universal monarchs or of thirty-two marks which, gathered in one person, make this "great man" appear to us as a freak of the fair. And there is no lack of an enumeration of good and bad things similar to a list of commandments, ending with a sort of protection spell. The last two suttas alone make this book worthwhile.