Political Science · Indian Political Thought
UGC NET June 2019 Political Science
The Agganna Sutta is the:
A27th Sutta of the Digha Nikaya ✓ Correct
B27th Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya
C26th Sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya
D27th Sutta of the Anguttara Nikaya
Correct answer: (A) 27th Sutta of the Digha Nikaya — The Agganna Sutta is the 27th discourse of the Digha Nikaya, the 'Collection of Long Discourses' in the Buddhist Pali Canon.
Explanation
★The Agganna Sutta is the 27th discourse of the Digha Nikaya, the 'Collection of Long Discourses' in the Buddhist Pali Canon.
★It records a discourse the Buddha gave to two brahmins, Bharadvaja and Vasettha, who had left their caste and family to join the Sangha.
★Its central purpose is a refutation of caste: it counters the Rig Vedic theory of the divine origin of the varna order.
★The Sutta narrates a naturalistic, evolutionary account of how human beings and social order arose, rather than a divine creation.
★The Digha Nikaya is one of the five Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka, so naming the correct collection is the key to this question.
★The Majjhima Nikaya (middle-length), Samyutta Nikaya (connected) and Anguttara Nikaya (numerical) are the other Nikayas and are the distractors here.
★The text is significant in political theory as an early non-contractual yet quasi-social-origin account of the state and kingship (the figure of Mahasammata, the 'great elect').
★The ruler elected in the Sutta bears the title Mahasammata, the great elect, also called the People's Choice or Lord of the Fields.
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