In Osamu Tezuka's manga Buddha, Assaji was eaten alive by wolves or wild dogs. I always thought the manga artist came up with a lot of his own original stories. Because this story and others are not on wikipedia. But then I recently watched an old Hong Kong TV show Journey to the West II (1998) and it depicted the same story of Assaji being eaten alive. And that of King Bimbisara being killed by his own son, as predicted by Assaji. As influential as the manga was, it seems unlikely that a Hong Kong TV show would have picked a story from a manga. Is it possible, in Japanese or Chinese Buddhism, they have their own set of canonical stories? And they are unfortunately hard to find on the English internet?

What are the salient differences between the *Pāḷi Nikāyas* & Chinese *Āgamas*? I'm looking specifically for a **comprehensive** list of discourses that are unique in the *Āgama* collection and differences between parallel discourses.

Here Monks praise Buddha by exclaiming the following: > The monks said to the Buddha: “The Buddha is the root of the Dharma, > the eye of Dharma, the foundation of the Dharma. May he teach us! > Having heard him teach the Dharma, the monks will receive it > respectfully as he has taught it.” My questions are : What is the meaning of the fact that Buddha is the root of Dhamma? Similarly what is the meaning of the fact that Buddha is the eye of Dhamma? And what is the meaning of the fact that Buddha is the foundation of Dhamma ?

Are there any websites that have an English translation of the Chinese Buddhist canon, similar to what is available for the Pali canon at [accesstoinsight.org](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/) and [suttacentral.net](https://suttacentral.net/) ? Grateful for help and with kind regards, Tord

There is a similar question from the *Vajrayāna* stand-point in which I gave an answer that was partially off-topic since it wasn't from that tradition's texts. So I thought it could be useful for newcomers to know what the early texts say on this matter. *Note: Since one is explicitly encouraged to answer his own questions for the sake of sharing his knowledge, I've also answered the question below.*

The answeres to the following question: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/13686/is-the-ocean-samadhi-a-metaphor-or-an-actual-meditation implply there are 8 types of conciousness in Chinese Buddhism. What are these? How did they originate? Is this there a common text with Theravada which is cited deriving or rationalising this?

Recently I read/heard someone saying that the [agamas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80gama_(Buddhism)) are/were dismissed and downplayed in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism throughout history. I understand that Mahayana texts received much attention in these regions, but I wonder if the (presumably) lack of importance given to the agamas are simply due to them being neglected among the vast literature, or if they were explicitly disliked (for a specific reason?) or considered inferior, or obsolete. **EDIT**: Trying to be clearer: I'm looking for historical evidence for either chinese/japanese appreciation of the agamas, or evidence of reasons for chinese/japanese to neglect these books across the centuries.

While looking for an answer to [this question](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/7318/looking-for-negative-reference-to-women-in-the-avatamsaka-sutra) I found [a text that contains the quote in question](http://www.genshu.gr.jp/DPJ/database/bunken/goibun/f_tyu_b.htm) , but I cannot find any information about it. * Is it written in classical Chinese or classical Japanese? (The two written languages were apparently quite similar) * Is it a commentary to the Lotus Sutra as the title seems to indicate? * When was it written and by whom? * Are the divisions equivalent to the divisions of the Lotus Sutra? * Do the line numbers also point to the lines of the sutra?