Texts

The Pali Canon (Tipiṭaka)

The suttas of the Pali Canon (Tipiṭaka) are essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the Buddha and his teaching. They have been preserved and passed down in the Pali language by the Theravāda tradition of Buddhism as the word of the Buddha.

These texts were originally passed down orally, by generations of monks and nuns who memorized them and recited them together. Around 30 BCE they were written down in the Āluvihāra in Sri Lanka, and subsequently were transmitted in manuscripts of palm leaves.

From the 19th century, the manuscripts were edited and published as modern editions in sets of books. In addition, the Pali text was translated into a number of modern languages, including Thai, Burmese, Sinhalese, and English.

The word Tipiṭaka means “Three Baskets”, which in traditional order are the baskets of Monastic Law (Vinaya), Discourses (Sutta), and Systematic Treatises (Abhidhamma).

Similar collections are found in ancient Chinese translations, and substantial portions of them are also in Sanskrit and Tibetan. The diverse collections of scriptures arose among the Buddhist communities who spread across greater India in the centuries following the Buddha, especially under the Buddhist emperor, Ashoka. These missions are documented in the ancient chronicles of Sri Lanka as well as the Vinaya commentaries in Pali and Chinese, and have been partially corroborated by modern archaeology. A comparative understanding based on the full spectrum of these texts is essential for any study of early Buddhism. The Chinese Buddhist canon, in particular, contains a vast amount of translations of early texts, and in terms of quantity it outweighs the Pali texts by some margin.

For many reasons, though, the Pali texts will always retain a special place for those who wish to understand what the Buddha taught.

• They are the only complete set of scriptures of an early school of Buddhism.
• They are by far the largest body of texts to survive in an early Indic dialect.
• They are accompanied by an extensive and detailed set of ancient commentaries (aṭṭhakathā).
• They are, for the most part, linguistically clear, well-edited, and readily comprehensible.

Moreover, the Pali texts are the core scriptures of a living tradition, the Theravāda school found in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, India, China, and Vietnam. To this day they are recited, taught, studied, and practiced daily, and are regarded in the traditions as being a reliable witness to the teachings of the Buddha himself.

Among the Pali texts, it is the four nikāyas that command the most attention. It is here that we find extensive and definitive explanations of Buddhist teachings, as well as the living personality of the Buddha and his immediate disciples.

By comparison, the Vinaya Piṭaka details the life of the monastic communities, and in addition it reveals much about the history and social background; but it contains only a few teaching passages. The Abhidhamma Piṭaka is made up of systematic treatises that were composed in the centuries following the Buddha’s passing. And the books of the Khuddaka Nikāya are very mixed. There are six fairly short books that are supplements to the main four nikāyas, mostly in verse: the Dhammapada, Udāna, Itivuttaka, Sutta Nipāta, Theragāthā, and Therīgāthā. However, most of the other books in the Khuddaka are later, and represent a phase of Buddhism a few centuries after the Buddha.

The Pali Commentaries (Aṭṭhakathā)

Outside of the canonical texts, the Pali commentaries are a vital source of knowledge on the early Buddhist period. They transmit old traditions about Buddhist thought and meditation, record important events in the expansion of Buddhism across and beyond Indian subcontinent, and preserve important material on the development of Buddhist philosophy and the different Buddhist schools. They also contain very old traditions about the Buddha which were not included in the canon itself. For example, the commentary on the ‘Discourse on the Noble Search’ (MN 26: Ariya-pariyesana-sutta) tells us that after spending the first twenty years of his teaching mission as a homeless wanderer, the Buddha’s daily routine in the last twenty-five years was relatively fixed around the Northern city of Sāvatthi.

bhagavā pa (o) thamabodhiyaṃ visati vassāni anibaddhavāso ahosi, pacchā pañcavisati vassāni abbo (o) kiṇṇaṃ sāvatthiyeva upanissāya vasanto ekadivase dve ṭhānāni paribhu (o) ñjati jetavane rattiṃ vasitvā punadivase bhikkhusaṅghaparivuto dakkhiṇadvārena sāvatthiṃ piṇḍāya pavisitvā pācinadvārena nikkhamitvā pubbārāme divāvihāraṃ karoti. pubbārāme rattiṃ vasitvā punadivase pācinadvārena sāvatthiyaṃ piṇḍāya pavisitvā dakkhiṇadvārena nikkhamitvā jetavane divāvihāraṃ karoti / kasmā dvinnaṃ kulānaṃ anukampāya / manussattabhāve ṭhitena hi anāthapiṇḍikena viya añena kenaci mātugāmattabhāve (o) ṭhitāya ca visākhāya viya aññāya itthiyā tathāgataṃ uddissa dhanapariccā (o) go kato nāma natthi / tasmā bhagavā tesaṃ anukampāya ekadivaseneva imāni (o) dve ṭhānāni paribhuñjati

‘For twenty years after the awakening, the Blessed One did not have a fixed abode. But for the following twenty-five years he lived around Sāvatthi, where he would eat in two places each day: when he spent the night in the Jetavana, surrounded by the community of mendicants, he would enter the Southern gate of Sāvatthi to gather alms in the city, and would then go out through the Eastern gate to spend the day in meditation in the Eastern Park. When he spent the night in the Eastern Park, he would enter the Eastern gate of Sāvatthi to gather alms in the city, and would then go out through the Southern gate to spend the day in meditation in the Jetavana. Why did he do this? Out of compassion for two families. For nobody else gave up their wealth for the Tathāgata like Anāthapindaka among men, and like Visākhā among women. Therefore the Blessed One would eat in these two places each day out of compassion for them.’