The Sutta Pitaka (; or Suttanta Pitaka; Basket of Discourse; cf Sanskrit ) is the second of the three divisions of the Tripitaka or

Pali Canon The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school. During ...

, the

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist '' Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Bud ...

collection of Buddhist writings of

Theravada ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

. The other two parts of the Tripiṭaka are the Vinaya Piṭaka and the

Abhidharma Piṭaka The Abhidharma are ancient (third century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist ''sutras''. It also refers to the scholastic method itself as well as the f ...

(Sanskrit; Pali:

Abhidhamma Piṭaka The ''Abhidhamma Piṭaka'' (Pali; Sanskrit: ''Abhidharma Piṭaka''; English: ''Basket of Higher Doctrine'') is a collection of canonical texts in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Together with the Vinaya Piṭaka and the Sutta Piṭaka it com ...

). The Sutta Pitaka is also known as 'Buddhavachana' or words of Buddha and contains more than 10,000 suttas (teachings) attributed to the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in ...

or his close companions.

Origins

What was later to become the written scripture of the ''Sutta Pitaka'' was first orally rehearsed by Buddha’s cousin Ananda at the

first Buddhist council __NOTOC__ The First Buddhist council was a gathering of senior monks of the Buddhist order convened just after Gautama Buddha's death, which according to Buddhist tradition was c. 483 BCE, though most modern scholars place it around 400 BCE. T ...

that was held shortly after the Buddha's death. The first council also defined the set of rules (

Vinaya The Vinaya (Pali & Sanskrit: विनय) is the division of the Buddhist canon ('' Tripitaka'') containing the rules and procedures that govern the Buddhist Sangha (community of like-minded ''sramanas''). Three parallel Vinaya traditions remai ...

) that governed the life of monks and nuns within the

monastic community A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

. Tradition holds that little was added to the Canon after this. Scholars are more skeptical, but differ in their degrees of

skepticism Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...

Richard Gombrich Richard Francis Gombrich (; born 17 July 1937) is a British Indologist and scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli, and Buddhist studies. He was the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1976 to 2004. He is currently Founder-Presi ...

thinks most of the first four nikayas (see below) go back to the Buddha, in content but not in form. The late Professor Hirakawa Akira says that the First Council collected only short prose passages or verses expressing important doctrines, and that these were expanded into full length suttas over the next century.

There are five nikayas (collections) of suttas: # Digha Nikāya (), the "long" discourses. # Majjhima Nikāya, the "middle-length" discourses. # Saṁyutta Nikāya (), the "connected" discourses. # Anguttara Nikāya (), the "numerical" discourses. # Khuddaka Nikāya, the "minor collection".

Digha Nikāya

This includes '' The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness'', ''The Fruits of the Contemplative Life'', and ''The Buddha's Last Days''. There are 34 long suttas in this nikaya.

Majjhima Nikāya

This includes ''Shorter Exposition of Kamma'', ''Mindfulness of Breathing'', and ''Mindfulness of the Body''. There are 152 medium-length suttas in this nikaya.

Samyutta Nikaya

There are, according to one reckoning, 2,889, but according to the commentary 7,762, shorter suttas in this Nikaya.

Anguttara Nikāya

These teachings are arranged numerically. It includes, according to the commentary's reckoning, 9,565 short suttas grouped by number from ones to elevens. According to Keown, "there is considerable disparity between the Pāli and the Sarvāstivādin versions, with more than two-thirds of the sūtras found in one but not the other compilation, which suggests that much of this portion of the Sūtra Piṭaka was not formed until a fairly late date."A Dictionary of Buddhism, by Damien Keown, Oxford University Press: 2004

Khuddaka Nikāya

This is a heterogeneous mix of sermons, doctrines, and poetry attributed to the Buddha and his disciples. The contents vary somewhat between editions. The Thai edition includes 1-15 below, the Sinhalese edition 1-17 and the Burmese edition 1-18. # Khuddakapatha #

Dhammapada The Dhammapada ( Pāli; sa, धर्मपद, Dharmapada) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures. The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Khuddaka ...

# Udana # Itivuttaka # Suttanipata # Vimanavatthu #

Petavatthu __NOTOC__ The Petavatthu () is a Theravada Buddhist scripture, included in the Minor Collection (''Khuddaka Nikaya'') of the Pali Canon's Sutta Pitaka. It ostensibly reports stories about and conversations among the Buddha and his disciples, an ...

Theragatha The ''Theragatha'' (''Verses of the Elder Monks'') is a Buddhist text, a collection of short poems in Pali attributed to members of the early Buddhist sangha. It is classified as part of the Khuddaka Nikaya, the collection of minor books in the ...

# Therigatha #

Jataka The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre i ...

# Niddesa # Patisambhidamagga # Apadana # Buddhavamsa # Cariyapitaka # Nettipakarana or Netti # Petakopadesa #

Milinda Panha The ''Milinda Pañha'' () is a Buddhist text which dates from sometime between 100 BC and 200 AD. It purports to record a dialogue between the Indian Buddhist sage Nāgasena, and the 2nd century BC Indo-Greek king Menander I (Pali: ''Milinda'') ...

For more on these editions also see

Translations

* The first four nikayas and more than half of the fifth have been translated by the Pali Text Society

* The first four have also been translated in the Teachings of the Buddha series by Wisdom Publications. * The first four nikayas, as well as six books from the Khuddaka Nikāya, have been translated from the Pali by

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu (also known as Ajahn Geoff; born ) is an American Buddhist monk. Belonging to the Thai Forest Tradition, for 10 years he studied under the forest master Ajahn Fuang Jotiko (himself a student of Ajahn Lee). Since 1993 he ha ...

and released under a Creative Commons license, and are available a
dhammatalks.org
Selections (including material from at least two nikayas): * ''Buddhist Suttas'', ed & tr T. W. Rhys Davids, ''

Sacred Books of the East The ''Sacred Books of the East'' is a monumental 50-volume set of English translations of Asian religious texts, edited by Max Müller and published by the Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910. It incorporates the essential sacred texts ...

'', volume XI, Clarendon/Oxford, 1881; reprinted by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi (& ?Dover, New York) * ''The Word of the Buddha'', ed & tr Nyanatiloka, 1935 * ''Early Buddhist Poetry'', ed I. B. Horner, Ananda Semage, Colombo, 1963 * ''The Book of Protection'', tr Piyadassi, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1981; translation of the

paritta Paritta (Pali), generally translated as "protection" or "safeguard," refers to the Buddhist practice of reciting certain verses and scriptures in order to ward off misfortune or danger, as well as to the specific verses and discourses recited ...

* ''In the Buddha's Words'', ed & tr Bodhi, Wisdom Pubns, 2005 * ''Early Buddhist Discourses'', ed & tr John J. Holder, 2006 * ''Sayings of the Buddha'', ed & tr Rupert Gethin, Oxford University Press, 2008 * ''Basic Teachings of the Buddha'', ed & tr Glenn Wallis, New York: Random House, 2007

Notes

External links

SuttaCentral

Public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

translations in multiple languages from the Pali Tipitaka as well as other collections, focusing on Early Buddhist Texts.
Access to Insight translations of Pali Suttas

- Alexander Wynne, St John's College, Oxford University, 2003. {{Buddhism topics Theravada Buddhist texts