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But other books such as the Peta- and Vimâna-vatthu show a distinct difference in tone and are probably separated from the Buddha by several centuries. Of the other four Nikâyas the Saṃyutta and Anguttara are the more modern and the Anguttara mentions Munda, King of Magadha who began to reign about forty years after the Buddha's death.
The fifth is mostly in verse and more miscellaneous. The four collections of discourses bear the names of Dîgha, Majjhima, Saṃyutta and Anguttara. The first, meaning long, consists of thirty-four narratives.
The remaining collections, the Saṃyutta and Anguttara, classify the Buddha's utterances under various headings and presuppose older documents which they sometimes quote . The Saṃyutta consists of a great number of suttas, mostly short, combined in groups treating of a single subject which may be either a person or a topic.
The two older ones seem dominated by the desire to bring before the reader the image of the Buddha preaching: the Samyutta and Anguttara emphasize the doctrine rather than the teacher and arrange much the same matter under new headings.
A remarkable passage is preserved in the Anguttara Nikâya describing his feelings as a young man and may be the origin of the story about the four visions of old age, sickness, death and of peace in the religious life. After describing the wealth and comfort in which he lived , he says that he reflected how people feel repulsion and disgust at the sight of old age, sickness and death.
As early as the Anguttara Nikâya we find references to the danger of a taste for ornate and poetic sutras and these compositions seem to be the outcome of that taste.
The Anguttara, which is a still longer collection, is arranged in numerical groups, a method of classification dear to the Hindus who delight in such computations as the four meditations, the eightfold path, the ten fetters. It takes such religious topics as can be counted in this way and arranges them under the numbers from one to eleven.
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