Иногда в качестве аргумента поздней датировки Сутта питаки приводят некоторые сутты из второй и третьей частей Дигха Никаи. Нужно признать, что они действительно сравнительно поздние, как это пишут доктор Бимала Черн Лоу:
The results arrived at concerning the chronology
of the Pali canonical listerature are preseented in
the subjoined table.
(1) The simple statements of Buddhist doctrines
now found, in identical words, in paragraphs or
verses recurring in all the books.
(2) Episodes found, in identical works, in two or
more of the existing books.
(3) The Silas, the Parayana group of sixteen
poems without the prologue, the atthaka group of four
or sixteen poems, the sikkhapadas.
(4) The Digha, Vol. l, the Majjhima, the
Samyutta, the Anguttara, and earlier Patimokkha code
of 152 rules.
(5) The Digha, Vols. II & III, the
Thera-Theri-Gatha, the collection of 500 Jatakas, the
Suttavibhanga, the Partisambhidamagga, the
Puggala-pannatti and the Vibhanga.
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/bcl.htmи профессор Бапат:
In term of further stratification, L. Bapat in Annuals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute discerns the three different literary stages in the Dīgha Nikāya:
The first stage is assigned to the first volume by placing the previousness of the second sutta of it to most of the subsequent suttas on the account that 'this Sutta (the Sāmaññaphala sutta) forms the basis of all the subsequent suttas, except the last one, in the first volume, and serves the purpose of a common factor, thus indicating that almost the whole of the first volume must have been put together in its present form'[41].
The two suttas, Mahāpadhāna and Mahāgovinda as being chronological signs draw scholars' attention. Mahāpadhāna, the first sutta in Mahāvagga of the Dīgha Nikāya, relates a discourse given at Sāvatthi to the Bhikkhus who were one day discussing the Buddha's knowledge of past existences. The Exalted One told them about the last seven Buddhas, with a full life story of one of them, the Vipassī Buddha, recalling all the facts of the Buddhas, their social rank, name, clan, life span, the pairs of Chief Disciples, the assemblies of their followers, their attainments, and emancipation from defilements. The Buddha explained that his ability to remember and recall all the facts of past existences was due to his own penetrating discernment as well as due to the devas making these matters known to him[42].
In the Mahāgovinda sutta, the 6th sutta in Mahāvagga of the Dīgha Nikāya, Pañcasikha, a Gandhabba deva, told the deva assembly where Sanaṅkumāra Brahmā taught the Dhamma as shown by Mahāgovinda, the Bodhisatta who had reached the Brahmā world. The Buddha said that Mahāgovinda was none other than himself and explained that the Dhamma he taught at that time could lead one only to the Brahmā world. With his teaching now as an Enlightened Buddha, higher attainments such as the Sotāpatti, Sakadāgāmi, Anāgāmi, and the highest achievement Arahatta phala were possible[43].
The above suttas also appear in the Culla Niddesa of the Khukkaka Nikāya, and are notable illustrations, as they are assumed, of the Suttanta Jātakas, the Jātakas as found in the earliest forms in Pāli literature. The casting of the story in a Jātaka mould as we find it in the Mahāgovinda suttanta could not taken place in the lifetime of the Buddha.
The second volume of the Dīgha Nikāya also throws some light on the issue of dating through the Pāyāsi sutta, the 10th and last sutta in the Mahāvagga of the Dīgha Nikāya. The sutta recounts how the Venerable Kumārakassapa showed the right path to Governor Pāyāsi of Setabyā town in Kosala country. Governor Pāyāsi held the wrong belief: "There is no other world; no beings arise again after death; there are no consequences of good or bad deeds." The Venerable Kumārakasapa showed him the right path, illustrating his teaching with numerous illuminating similes. Ultimately Pāyāsi became full of faith and took refuge to the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Saṁgha. The venerable Kumārakassapa taught him also the right kind of offerings to be made and that these offerings should be made with due respect, by one's own hands, with due esteem and not as if discarding them. Only under these conditions would the good deed of offerings bear splendid fruits[44]. The suttanta contains several anecdotes forming the historical basis of some of the Jātaka stories. All this makes it strongly convincible, as agreed upon by B. C. Law and then by K. L. Hazra, that the date of this sutta should be placed at least half a century after the demise of the Buddha[45].
The Āṭānāṭiya sutta in the last volume of the Dīgha Nikāya records that Four Celestial Kings came to see the Buddha and told him that there were non-believers among many invisible beings who might bring harm to the followers of the Buddha. The Celestial Kings therefore wanted to teach the bhikkhus the protecting incantation known as the Āṭānāṭiya Paritta. The Buddha gave his consent by remaining silent. Then the four Celestial Kings recited the Āṭānāṭiya Paritta[46], which the Buddha advised bhikkhus, Bhikkhuṇīs and lay disciples to learn, to memorize so that they might dwell at ease, well guarded and protected[47]. This sutta is otherwise described as a rakkhā or saving chant manipulated apparently on a certain passage in the then known as Mahābhārata. The development of these elements, the Jātaka stories as referred to in the foregoing paragraphs, and the parittas could not take place when Buddhism remained in its pristine purity.
There is, however, no reason for surprise that such developments had already taken place as early as the 4th century B.C., as contented by B. C. Law and K. L. Hazra on account that the warning against the forgery in form of fable and fiction, and especially of imaginative poetry was given in certain passages of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Moreover, 'the growth of these foreign elements must have caused some sort of confusion otherwise it would not have been necessary to discuss in a sutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya the reasonable way of keeping genuine the utterance of the Buddha distinct from others that crept in under the outside influence and were characterized by poetical fancies and embellishments.
http://www.viet.net/anson/ebud/mind/02_chap2.htm