There are severalBuddhist canons, which refers to the various scriptural collections ofBuddhist sacred scriptures or the various Buddhistscriptural canons.[1][2][3][4] Some of these collections are also calledTipiṭaka (Pali:[tɪˈpɪʈɐkɐ]) orTripiṭaka (Sanskrit:[trɪˈpɪʈɐkɐ]) , meaning "Triple Basket",[1] a traditional term for the three main divisions of some ancient canons. In ancient India, there were several Buddhist scriptural canons that were organized into three main textual divisions:Vinaya (monastic rule),Sutra (which contains teachings of the Buddha) andAbhidharma (which are more systematic and scholastic works). For example, thePāli Tipiṭaka is composed of theVinaya Piṭaka, theSutta Piṭaka, and theAbhidhamma Piṭaka.[5] InEast Asian Buddhism meanwhile, the traditional term for the canon isGreat Storage of Scriptures (traditional Chinese: 大藏經;pinyin:Dàzàngjīng).[6]
WhileTripiṭaka is one common term to refer to the scriptural collections of the variousBuddhist schools, most Buddhist scriptural canons (apart from the Pāli Canon) do not really follow the strict division into three piṭakas.[7] Indeed, many of the ancient Indian Buddhist schools had canons with four or five divisions rather than three. Likewise, neither the East Asian Buddhist canon nor the Tibetan canon is organized in a traditional Indian Tripiṭaka schema.
Tipiṭaka (Pāli), orTripiṭaka (Sanskrit: त्रिपिटक), means "Three Baskets".[1] It is a compound of the Paliti or Sanskrit word oftri (त्रि), meaning "three", andpiṭaka (पिटक), meaning "basket".[1] These "three baskets" recall the receptacles ofpalm-leaf manuscripts and refer to three important textual divisions of early Buddhist literature:Suttas, theVinaya, and theAbhidhamma.[8]
Sutras were the doctrinal teachings in aphoristic or narrative format. Thehistorical Buddha delivered all of his sermons in an indo-aryan language which is sometimes termed Magadhan. This language was related to otherprakrits like Pali, though its exact nature is not fully known. The sutras were transmitted orally until eventually being written down in the first century BCE. Even within the Sūtra Piṭaka it is possible to detect older and later texts.[9]
The Vinaya Piṭaka appears to have grown gradually as a commentary and justification of the monastic code (Prātimokṣa), which presupposes a transition from a community of wandering mendicants (the Sūtra Piṭaka period) to a more sedentary monastic community (the Vinaya Piṭaka period). TheVinaya focuses on the rules and regulations, or the morals and ethics, of monastic life that range from dress code and dietary rules to prohibitions of certain personal conducts.[10]
TheAbhidharma refers to more scholastic philosophical works. Many of these texts are later than the sutras and are school specific. Hence, the Sarvastivada school's Abhidharma Pitaka contains a completely different set of texts than the Theravada school'sAbhidhamma collection.
While these three textual categories were very common in the canons of theearly Buddhist schools, they were not the only ones. Some schools also had additional Pitakas other than the main three. These extra Pitakas included collections of incantations, magical spells orDhāraṇī which were called Vidyādhāra Piṭaka, Mantra Piṭaka orDhāraṇī Piṭaka.[11][12] Likewise, some Buddhist schools in India also maintainedBodhisattva Piṭakas, which contained texts that were later termed"Mahayana".[11][12]
Xuanzang transporting Buddhist scriptures to China
Each of theearly Buddhist Schools likely had their own versions of theTripiṭaka. According to some sources, there were some Indian schools of Buddhism that had five or seven piṭakas.[13]
According toYijing, an 8th-century Chinese pilgrim to India, theNikaya Buddhist schools kept different sets of canonical texts with some intentional or unintentional dissimilarities. Yijing notes four main textual collections among the non-Mahayana schools:[14]
TheSarvāstivādaTripiṭaka (also 300,000 slokas), which was maintained in Sanskrit
TheSthaviraTripiṭaka (also 300,000 slokas), thePali canon is one version of this Tripiṭaka which belonged to the Southern Theravada school
TheSaṃmitīyaTripiṭaka (in about 200,000 slokas), none of the original texts have survived in the original language
Yijing notes that though there were numerous sub-schools and sects, the sub-sects shared theTripiṭaka of their mother tradition (which he termed the "four principal schools of continuous tradition" or the "arya" traditions).[15] However, this does not mean that the various sub-schools did not possess their own uniqueTripiṭaka.Xuanzang is said to have brought to China theTripiṭaka of seven different schools, including those of the above-mentioned schools as well as theDharmaguptaka,Kāśyapīya, andMahīśāsaka.[15]
According toA. K. Warder, the Tibetan historianBu-ston said that around or before the 1st century CE there were eighteen schools of Buddhism each with their ownTripiṭaka transcribed into written form.[16] However, except for one version that has survived in full and others, of which parts have survived, most of these texts are lost to history or yet to be found.[16]
Various ancient sources (likeBhāvaviveka, andParamārtha) also indicate that the different branches of the Mahāsāṃghika tradition (such as theBahuśrutīya) had aBodhisattva Piṭaka in their canon.[19][20] The 6th century CE Indian monkParamārtha wrote that 200 years after theparinirvāṇa of the Buddha, much of the Mahāsāṃghika school moved north ofRājagṛha, where they became divided over whether theMahāyāna sūtras should be incorporated formally into their Tripiṭaka. According to this account, they split into three groups based upon the relative manner and degree to which they accepted the authority of these Mahāyāna texts.[21] Paramārtha states that theKukkuṭika sect did not accept the Mahāyāna sūtras asbuddhavacana ("word of the Buddha"), while theLokottaravāda sect and theEkavyāvahārika sect did accept the Mahāyāna sūtras asbuddhavacana.[22] Also in the 6th century CE, Avalokitavrata writes of the Mahāsāṃghikas using a "Great Āgama Piṭaka," which is then associated with Mahāyāna sūtras such as thePrajñāparamitā and theDaśabhūmika Sūtra.[12]
According to some sources, Abhidharma was not accepted as canonical by the Mahāsāṃghika school.[23] The TheravādinDīpavaṃsa, for example, records that the Mahāsāṃghikas had no Abhidharma.[24] However, other sources indicate that there were such collections of Abhidharma, and the Chinese pilgrimsFaxian andXuanzang both mention Mahāsāṃghika Abhidharma. On the basis of textual evidence as well as inscriptions atNāgārjunakoṇḍā, Joseph Walser concludes that at least some Mahāsāṃghika sects probably had an Abhidharma collection, and that it likely contained five or six books.[25]
TheCaitikas included a number of sub-sects including the Pūrvaśailas, Aparaśailas, Siddhārthikas, and Rājagirikas. In the 6th century CE, Avalokitavrata writes that Mahāyāna sūtras such as thePrajñāparamitā and others are chanted by the Aparaśailas and the Pūrvaśailas.[12] Also in the 6th century CE,Bhāvaviveka speaks of the Siddhārthikas using a Vidyādhāra Piṭaka, and the Pūrvaśailas and Aparaśailas both using aBodhisattva Piṭaka, implying collections ofMahāyāna texts within these Caitika schools.[12]
TheBahuśrutīya school is said to have included a Bodhisattva Piṭaka in their canon. TheSatyasiddhi Śāstra, also called theTattvasiddhi Śāstra, is an extant abhidharma from the Bahuśrutīya school. This abhidharma was translated into Chinese in sixteen fascicles (Taishō Tripiṭaka 1646).[26] Its authorship is attributed to Harivarman, a third-century monk from central India. Paramārtha cites this Bahuśrutīya abhidharma as containing a combination ofHīnayāna and Mahāyāna doctrines, and Joseph Walser agrees that this assessment is correct.[27]
ThePrajñaptivādins held that the Buddha's teachings in the various piṭakas were nominal (Skt.prajñapti), conventional (Skt.saṃvṛti), and causal (Skt.hetuphala).[28] Therefore, all teachings were viewed by the Prajñaptivādins as being of provisional importance, since they cannot contain the ultimate truth.[29] It has been observed that this view of the Buddha's teachings is very close to the fully developed position of the Mahāyāna sūtras.[28][29]
The Sthavira nikāya (Sanskrit "Grouping of the Elders") was a branch of theearly Buddhist schools. They were one of the original two main divisions (the other beingMahāsāṃghika) during the first schism.[30] The SinhaleseTheravāda school'sPāli Canon is the only canon of the early Buddhist schools which survived in complete form. However, individual and fragmentary texts from other Sthavira branches have survived as well.
A complete version of theDīrgha Āgama (Taishō Tripiṭaka 1) of theDharmaguptaka school was translated into Chinese byBuddhayaśas andZhu Fonian (竺佛念) in theLater Qin dynasty, dated to 413 CE. It contains 30 sūtras in contrast to the 34 suttas of the Theravadin Dīgha Nikāya.A. K. Warder also associates the extantEkottara Āgama (Taishō Tripiṭaka 125) with the Dharmaguptaka school, due to the number of rules for monastics, which corresponds to the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya.[31] The Dharmaguptaka Vinaya is also extant in Chinese translation (Taishō Tripiṭaka 1428), and Buddhist monastics inEast Asia adhere to the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya.
The Dharmaguptaka Tripiṭaka is said to have contained a total of five piṭakas.[27] These included aBodhisattva Piṭaka and aMantra Piṭaka (Ch. 咒藏), also sometimes called aDhāraṇī Piṭaka.[11] According to the 5th-century Dharmaguptaka monk Buddhayaśas, the translator of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya into Chinese, the Dharmaguptaka school had assimilated the Mahāyāna Tripiṭaka (Ch. 大乘三藏).[32]
Small portions of theTipiṭaka of theKāśyapīya school survive in Chinese translation. An incomplete Chinese translation of the Saṃyukta Āgama of the Kāśyapīya school by an unknown translator circa the Three Qin (三秦) period (352-431 CE) survives.[35]
TheSarvāstivāda school was a major sect in North India. Since it enjoyed the patronage ofKanishka (c. 127–150 CE), emperor of theKushan Empire, they soon became one of the dominant sects of Buddhism in north India for centuries, flourishing throughout Northwest India, North India, andCentral Asia. The Sarvāstivāda school held a council inKashmir during the reign ofKanishka II (c. 158–176). In this council, their canonical texts were rendered intoSanskrit and their main canonicalAbhidharma text was composed, theMahāvibhaṣa.[36]
Scholars at present have "a nearly complete collection of sūtras from theSarvāstivāda school" thanks to a recent discovery in Afghanistan of roughly two-thirds of Dīrgha Āgama in Sanskrit."[37] TheMadhyama Āgama (Taishō Tripiṭaka no. 26) was translated by Gautama Saṃghadeva, and is available in Chinese translation as part of the Chinese canon. TheSaṃyukta Āgama (Taishō Tripiṭaka no. 99) translated byGuṇabhadra, is also available in Chinese translation. The Sarvāstivāda is therefore the only early school besides the Theravada for which we have substantial number of sutras. The SārvāstivādaVinaya Piṭaka is also extant in Chinese translation, as are the seven books of the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma Piṭaka, including theAbhidharma Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra (Taishō Tripiṭaka 1545), which was the main canonical Abhiodharma text of theVaibhāṣika Sarvāstivādins of northwest India.
Portions of theMūlasārvāstivāda Tripiṭaka survive in Tibetan translation and Nepalese manuscripts.[38] The relationship of the Mūlasārvāstivāda school to Sarvāstivāda school is indeterminate; their vinayas certainly differed but it is not clear that their Sūtra Piṭaka did. The Gilgit manuscripts may contain Āgamas from the Mūlasārvāstivāda school in Sanskrit.[39] The Mūlasārvāstivāda Vinaya Piṭaka survives inTibetan translation and also in Chinese translation (Taishō Tripiṭaka 1442). The Gilgit manuscripts also contain vinaya texts from the Mūlasārvāstivāda school in Sanskrit.[39]
ThePāli Canon is the complete Tripiṭaka set maintained by theTheravāda tradition as written and preserved inPali.[40]
The dating of theTripiṭaka is unclear.Max Müller states that the current structure and contents of the Pali Canon took shape in the 3rd century BCE after which it continued to be transmitted orally from generation to generation until finally being put into written form in the 1st century BCE (nearly 500 years after the lifetime of Buddha).[41][42]
The Theravada chronicle called theDipavamsa states that during the reign ofValagamba of Anuradhapura (29–17 BCE) the monks who had previously remembered the Tipiṭaka and its commentary orally now wrote them down in books, because of the threat posed by famine and war. TheMahavamsa also refers briefly to the writing down of the canon and the commentaries at this time.[43] According to Sri Lankan sources more than 1000 monks who had attainedArahantship were involved in the task. The place where the project was undertaken was inAluvihare,Matale, Sri Lanka.[16] The resulting texts were later partly translated into a number of East Asian languages such as Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian by ancient visiting scholars, which though extensive are incomplete.[44]
Each Buddhist sub-tradition had its own Tripiṭaka for its monasteries, written by itssangha, each set consisting of 32 books, in three parts or baskets of teachings:Vinaya Pitaka (“Basket of Discipline”),Sutra Pitaka (“Basket of Discourse”), andAbhidhamma Piṭaka (“Basket of Special [or Further] Doctrine”).[3][42][45] The structure, the code of conduct and moral virtues in the Vinaya basket particularly, have similarities to some of the survivingDharmasutra texts of Hinduism.[46]
Much of the surviving Tripiṭaka literature is in Pali, with some in Sanskrit as well as other local Asian languages.[45] The Pali Canon does not contain the Mahayana Sutras and Tantras as Mahayana schools were not influential in Theravada tradition as in East Asia and Tibet. Hence, there is no major Mahayana (neither Hinayana or Pratyekabuddhayana) schools in Theravada tradition. The Tantric schools of Theravada tradition use Tantric texts independently, and not as the part of the Collection.
Some of the well known preserved Pali Canons are the Chattha Sangayana Tipitaka, Buddha Jayanthi Tripitaka, Thai Tipitaka, etc.
Wu and Chia state that emerging evidence, though uncertain, suggests that the earliest written Buddhist Tripiṭaka texts may have arrived in China from India by the 1st century BCE.[48] An organised collection of Buddhist texts began to emerge in the 6th century CE, based on the structure of early bibliographies of Buddhist texts. However, it was the 'Kaiyuan Era Catalogue' byZhisheng in 730 that provided the lasting structure. Zhisheng introduced the basic six-fold division with two sets of sutra, vinaya, and abhidharma works classified as Mahāyāna andHīnayāna.[49] It is likely that Zhisheng's catalogue proved decisive because it was used to reconstruct the Canon after the persecutions of 845 CE; however, it was also considered a "perfect synthesis of the entire four-hundred-year development of a proper Chinese form of the Canon."[50]
One of the most well known preserved edition of the Chinese Canon is thewoodblock edition of theTripitaka Koreana. These woodblocks became the basis for the modern edition of the JapaneseTaishō Tripiṭaka, the most widely used and digitized edition for modern scholarship. The Taishō Daizōkyō is the standard modern edition as systematized by Japanese scholars, published in Japan from 1924 to 1929.[51]
While still referred to by the traditional term "Tripiṭaka", it is actually divided into many more textual categories, including:Āgamas (equivalent to Nikāyas),Jātakas,Mahāyāna Sūtras, Esoteric texts, Vinaya, Sutra Commentaries, Abhidharma, MahayanaŚāstras (‘Treatises’), Chinese commentaries, Chinese Treatises, Histories and biographies.[51]
In the modern era, the Chinese Buddhist Canon was translated in full intomodern Korean. It was also fully translated intoJapanese by Japanese scholars. While many texts have also been translated into English, many others remain untranslated.
The Tibetan Canon has its own scheme which divided texts into two broad categories:
Kangyur (Wylie:bka'-'gyur) or "Translated Words orVacana", consists of works supposed to have been said by the Buddha himself. All texts presumably have a Sanskrit original, although in many cases the Tibetan text was translated from Chinese from Chinese Canon, Pali from Pali Canon or other languages.
Tengyur (Wylie:bstan-'gyur) or "Translated Treatises orShastras", is the section to which were assigned commentaries, treatises and abhidharma works (both Mahayana and non-Mahayana). The Tengyur contains 3,626 texts in 224 Volumes.
There many editions of the Tibetan Canon, some of the major editions include theDerge edition, theLhasa edition, the Peking edition and the Jiang edition.
The Tibetan Kangyur and Tengyur were also translated intoClassical Mongolian, and these texts compose the Mongolian Buddhist Canon.[52]
The Mongolian Buddhist Canon is a corpus ofclassical Mongolian Buddhist translations central to the Buddhist tradition inMongolia. It is mostly based on the Tibetan Buddhist canon but also contains texts not found in the standard Tibetan canon collections.[53] Like the Tibetan canon, the Mongolian canon consists of two major divisions: the Kanjur (translated words of the Buddha) and the Tenjur (commentaries and treatises by Indian and Tibetan masters). Tibetan texts were translated into classical Mongolian from Tibetan beginning in theYuan dynasty. But the translation of the canon was not finished until the 17th century, whenLigdan Khan and the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, led by leaderZanabazar, supervised a translation project. The Mongolian canon was fully completed when the ChineseQianlong Emperor (1711–99), the fifth Emperor of theQing dynasty (1636–1912), supervised a grand project to finish translating and then to print the Mongolian canon (withwoodblock printing technology).[54]
Painted covers and single folio from theAṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā manuscript fromNepal, dated 1511.Royal Library, Denmark
TheNewar Buddhist tradition ofNepal has preserved many Buddhist texts inSanskrit. The Nepalese Buddhist textual tradition is a unique collection of Buddhist texts preserved primarily in Nepal, particularly within theNewar Buddhist community of theKathmandu Valley.[55] It is distinct for its emphasis on preserving the Sanskrit originals of many Mahayana and Vajrayana scriptures, which have otherwise been lost in India and survived only in translations in regions like Tibet and China. The Newars have continued to copy Sanskrit manuscripts up to the present day.[55]
The Kathmandu Valley has long been a center for Buddhist scholarship, particularly following the destruction of Indian monasteries after the 12th-centuryMuslim conquests. Tibetan scholars often visited to acquire texts, and local Newar Buddhists, including householder clergy (śākyabhikṣus andvajrācāryas), were proficient in Sanskrit, making it a significant language for Buddhist scholarship in the region.[56] From the 19th century onwards, Sanskrit manuscripts from Nepal were collected and sent to academic institutions inCalcutta and Europe by figures like Brian H. Hodgson, contributing to modern Buddhist studies.[57] However, the focus of modern Newar Buddhist literature was largely on local compositions in theNewari vernacular, reflecting the distinct practices of Newar Buddhism. Newar texts often used bilingual formats, integrating Sanskrit and Newari, and employed diverse calligraphic scripts like NewāLipi andRañjana.
A recentdigital humanities project is compiling a Sanskrit Buddhist canon based on survivingSanskrit Buddhist literature. TheUniversity of the West, in collaboration with the Nagarjuna Institute inKathmandu,Nepal, has worked to digitize and distribute Sanskrit scriptures into the Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon (DSBC) project.[58] The scope of the DSBC project is vast, encompassing the digitization of at least 600 Mahayana Buddhist sutras that have survived in Sanskrit. As of now, the DSBC has successfully digitized over 604 texts, equating to roughly 50,000 pages, with more than 369 scriptures available on its official website. The collection continues to expand as additional texts are digitized and made accessible to the public.[58]
The Chinese form ofTripiṭaka, "sānzàng" (三藏), was sometimes used as an honorary title for a Buddhist monk who has mastered the teachings of the Tripiṭaka. In Chinese culture, this is notable in the case of the Tang Dynasty monkXuanzang, whose pilgrimage to India to study and bring Buddhist texts back to China was portrayed in the novelJourney to the West as "Tang Sanzang" (Tang Dynasty Tripiṭaka Master). Due to the popularity of the novel, the term "sānzàng" is often erroneously understood as a name of the monkXuanzang. One such screen version of this is the popular 1979Monkey (TV series).
The modern Indian scholarRahul Sankrityayan is sometimes referred to asTripiṭakacharya in reflection of his familiarity with theTripiṭaka.[citation needed]
^ab"Arquivo.pt".arquivo.pt. Archived from the original on 2009-06-29. Retrieved2022-10-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Oskar von Hinuber (1995), "Buddhist Law according to the Theravada Vinaya: A Survey of Theory and Practice",Journal of International Association of Buddhist Studies, volume 18, number 1, pages 7–46
^Jiang Wu, "The Chinese Buddhist Canon" inThe Wiley Blackwell Companion to East and Inner Asian Buddhism, p. 299, Wiley-Blackwell (2014).
^Tuladhar-Douglas, Will.Remaking Buddhism for Medieval Nepal: The Fifteenth-Century Reformation of Newar Buddhism, Introduction. Routledge, Jan 24, 2007.
^Lewis, Todd T.Popular Buddhist Texts from Nepal: Narratives and Rituals of Newar Buddhism, p. 11. SUNY Press, Sep 14, 2000.
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