According to Tse Fu Kuan, "in 385 AD Zhu Fonian (竺佛念) completed a Chinese translation of the Ekottarika-āgama recited by Dharmanandin (曇摩難提), a monk from Tukhāra. This first translation, in forty-one fascicles, was later revised and expanded by Zhu Fonian into the Ekottarika-āgama in fifty-one fascicles that has since come down to us. Zhu Fonian probably added new material to his first translation and even replaced some passages of his first translation with new material." Scholars such as
Yin Shun, Zhihua Yao and Tse Fu Kuan consider the Ekottara Āgama to belong to the
Mahāsāṃghika school. According to
A.K. Warder, the Ekottara Āgama references 250
Prātimokṣa rules for monks, which agrees only with the
Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, which is also located in the Chinese Buddhist canon. He also views some of the doctrine as contradicting tenets of the Mahāsāṃghika school, and states that they agree with Dharmaguptaka views currently known. He therefore concludes that the extant Ekottara Āgama is that of the Dharmaguptaka school. According to
Étienne Lamotte, the Ekottara Āgama was translated from a manuscript that came from northwest India, and contains a great deal of
Mahāyāna influence. This may agree with the 5th century Dharmaguptaka monk Buddhayaśas, the translator of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya and Dīrgha Āgama, who wrote that the Dharmaguptakas had assimilated the Mahāyāna Tripiṭaka (Ch. 大乘三藏). According to Venerable
Sheng Yen, the Ekottara Āgama includes teachings of the Six
Pāramitās, a central concept in the
bodhisattva path, and in the Mahāyāna teachings. The Ekottara Āgama generally corresponds to the
Theravādin Aṅguttara Nikāya, but of the four Āgamas of the Sanskritic Sūtra Piṭaka in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, it is the one which differs most from the Theravādin version. The Ekottara Āgama even contains variants on such standard teachings as the
Noble Eightfold Path. == Mindfulness of Breathing ==