The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha (Majjhima Nikaya)

The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, the Majjhima Nikaya, translated by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and completed and edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi and published by Wisdom Publications in 1995, is a widely used complete scholarly English translation of one of the core collections of early Buddhist texts, including the discourses in which the Buddha declines to answer whether a tathagata exists after death, illustrated with the simile of an extinguished fire. Its authority rests on Bodhi's standing as a respected monastic scholar-translator working from the Pali canon and on the translation's wide adoption in both academic and practitioner settings as a reliable rendering. Its limit as a source is the same as any scriptural translation: it renders what the early texts themselves record, and how a given passage such as the unanswered questions is best philosophically interpreted remains a matter of ongoing scholarly and doctrinal discussion beyond the text itself.