The Kaccānagotta Sutta is a short, but influential Buddhist text in the Pali Canon (Saṃyutta Nikāya 12.15).
ASanskrit and Chinese (Saṃyuktāgama 301; also a partial quotation in SĀ 262) parallel text is also extant. Although there is considerable agreement across versions, the Sanskrit and Chinese texts are more or less identical to each other and both slightly different from the Pāli version.
The Chinese translation was carried out by Guṇabhadra (c. 435-443 CE) as part of a Samyuktāgama Sutta (雜阿含經) translation project. Guṇabhadra is thought to have had the Sanskrit text brought to China from Sri Lanka. A separate Sanskrit text, also part of the fragmentary Saṃyuktāgama and dating from the 13th or 14th century, has been preserved.
The text is cited in Sanskrit in works by Nāgārjuna and his commentators. Nāgārjuna's citation suggests he had a different version from the extant Sanskrit.[1] The text is also cited in a number of other Mahāyāna Sūtras.
Mahākaccāna asks about the meaning of the phrase "right-view" (Pali: sammādiṭṭhi; Skt: samyagdṛṣṭi; Ch: 正見).
The main theme of the text is the avoidance of the extremes "existence" (Pāli: atthi) and "non-existence" (Pāli: natthi) with respect to the world (Pāli: loka), and instead seeing the world in terms of the Middle Way which is illustrated by the twelve nidānas. The one with right-view understands this.
In the Chinese version, the terms "existence" and "non-existence" are rendered 有 (yǒu) and 無 (wú). The Sanskrit text uses the terms asti and nāsti. Nāgārjuna's Sanskrit citation uses the words bhava and abhava instead, although in context these terms mean more or less the same as the roots of both atthi (Sanskrit: asti) and bhava come from verbs meaning "to be" (i.e. √as and √bhū).
The question of existence and non-existence is discussed in the context of right-view (sammādiṭṭhi) with Mahākaccāna initially asking the Buddha to define right view for him.
Kaccāna is a moderately prominent character in the Pāli Canon, and two canonical commentaries are attributed to him.
The sutta is quoted in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (Section LXII; p. 145). It is also cited in Sanskrit in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārika (MMK 15.7) and in commentaries on this work by Candrakīrti, namely Prassanapadā and Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya.
As the only text cited by name in MMK it is pointed to as evidence that Nāgarjuna might not have been a Mahāyānist.[4] David Kalupahana has referred to the MMK as "a commentary on the Kaccānagotta Sutta".