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ever, is that here My. is actually said to have stayed at places, to have met persons, to have pronounced views in certain questions, to have approved or disapproved of other people's opinions, to have commented upon persons, things and events of his time, that, in fine, Mv. here appears more as an active personality set against the background of its environmental conditions and circumstances. In other words: the nucleus sayas of the Viy. are, or rather contain, the only genuine dialogue text (pannatti) to be found in the canon, the example25 imitated by would-be dialogue texts (secondary pannattis) such as Pannav. etc. and the accretions of the Viy. itself discussed in § 4 seqq.
Probably here too the original picture has been very much dimmed by the secular deterioration of tradition. That, for one thing, would explain why also in the vast majority of the nucleus texts Mv. invariably answers Goy.'s questions in the Guñasilaya sanctuary near Rayagiha: evidently the names Goy. and Rāy. entered wherever tradition had lost precise details about the circumstances of the Master's teachings.
Besides Goy., though, we meet quite a number of other people approaching, with their doubts and difficulties, Mv. and other teachers: other disciples of the Lord, Elders, monks, nuns and laymen, followers of Pārsva's creed, Ajīvikas and other dissidents, brahmans, noblemen, merchants and gods, many of whom are mentioned by name and even introduced to us as more or less real individuals by an episodical presentation of the circumstances surrounding their meeting with the teacher.
§ 17. Some Characteristic Dialogues. I may conveniently pursue my investigation by dwelling upon certain dialogues which depart from the usual pattern, scil. put interlocutors other than Mv. or Goy. on the scene.
Thus the disciples Roha (1 64), Mandiyaputta (III 34), Māgandiyaputta (XVIII 3) and several unnamed Elders (X 5) approach Mv. at Rāy. propounding him various problems. In the case of Māgandiyaputta we hear of the astonishment and the disbelief of the other monks when he imparts them Mv.'s
25 Cf. SCHUBRING, Worte Mu. p. 10; Lehre par. 42.
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