Pali Canon
The Pāḷi Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language.
The Tipitaka that was transmitted to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Asoka was initially preserved orally and later written down on palm leaves during the Fourth Buddhist Council in 29 BC, approximately 454 years after the death of Gautama Buddha.
[10] The earliest textual fragments of canonical Pali were found in the Pyu city-states in Burma dating only to the mid-5th to mid-6th century CE.
[11] The Pāli Canon falls into three general categories, called pitaka (from Pali piṭaka, meaning "basket", referring to the receptacles in which the palm-leaf manuscripts were kept).
[13] The Canon is traditionally described by the Theravada as the Word of the Buddha (buddhavacana), though this is not intended in a literal sense, since it includes teachings by disciples.
[15] A spokesman for the Buddha Sasana Council of Burma states[16] that the Canon contains everything needed to show the path to nirvāna; the commentaries and subcommentaries sometimes include much speculative matter, but are faithful to its teachings and often give very illuminating illustrations.
[17] Although the Canon has existed in written form for two millennia, its earlier oral nature has not been forgotten in Buddhist practice: memorization and recitation remain common.
Even lay people usually know at least a few short texts by heart and recite them regularly; this is considered a form of meditation, at least if one understands the meaning.
A Burmese monk named Vicittasara even learned the entire Canon by heart for the Sixth Council (again according to the usual Theravada numbering).
[24] The geographic setting of identifiable texts within the Canon generally corresponds to locations in the Ganges region of northeastern India, including the kingdoms of Kosala, Kasi, Vajji, and Magadha.
"[27] A variety of factors suggest that the early Sri Lankan Buddhists regarded canonical literature as such and transmitted it conservatively.
[25] Prayudh Payutto argues that the Pali Canon represents the teachings of the Buddha essentially unchanged apart from minor modifications.
His thesis is based on study of the processes of the first great council, and the methods for memorization used by the monks, which started during the Buddha's lifetime.
They base this on many lines of evidence including the technology described in the canon (apart from the obviously later texts), which matches the technology of his day which was in rapid development; that it doesn't include back written prophecies of the great Buddhist ruler King Ashoka (which Mahayana texts often do) suggesting that it predates his time; that in its descriptions of the political geography it presents India at the time of Buddha, which changed soon after his death; that it has no mention of places in South India, which would have been well known to Indians not long after Buddha's death; and various other lines of evidence dating the material back to his time.
[7] The views of scholars concerning the authorship of the Pali Canon can be grouped into three categories:[citation needed] Several scholars of early Buddhism argue that the nucleus of the Buddhist teachings in the Pali Canon may derive from Gautama Buddha himself, but that part of it also was developed after the Buddha by his early followers.
Warder stated that there is no evidence[clarification needed] to suggest that the shared teaching of the early schools was formulated by anyone else than the Buddha and his immediate followers.
"[34] Alex Wynne said that some texts in the Pali Canon may go back to the very beginning of Buddhism, which perhaps include the substance of the Buddha's teaching, and in some cases, maybe even his words.
[e] He suggests the canon was composed soon after Buddha's paranirvana, but after a period of free improvisation, and then the core teachings were preserved nearly verbatim by memory.
[37][f] Much of the Pali Canon is found also in the scriptures of other early schools of Buddhism, parts of whose versions are preserved, mainly in Chinese.
[37] Geoffrey Samuel[40] says the Pali Canon largely derives from the work of Buddhaghosa and his colleagues in the 5th century AD.
Western scholarship suggests that the composition of the Abhidhamma Pitaka likely began around 300 BCE, but may have drawn on an earlier tradition of lists and rubrics known as "matrika".
[12][43] Traditional accounts include it among the texts recited at the First Buddhist Council and attribute differences in form and style to its composition by Sariputra.
Masefield says records in Thailand state that upon the third re-introduction of Theravada Buddhism into Sri Lanka (The Siyamese Sect), large number of texts were also taken[where?].
The identification of most of the other titles is less certain, but Schmithausen, following Oldenberg before him, identifies what Asoka calls the Laghulovada with part of a prose text in the Majjhima Nikaya, the Ambalatthika-Rahulovada Sutta (M no. 61).
A Japanese translation of the Canon, edited by Takakusu Junjiro, was published in 65 volumes from 1935 to 1941 as The Mahātripiṭaka of the Southern Tradition (南伝大蔵経 Nanden daizōkyō).
According to the stories, the rules were devised on an ad hoc basis as the Buddha encountered various behavioral problems or disputes among his followers.
These Brahmanical motives are sometimes introduced in order to "establish a link with the deeds and beliefs of Brahmins," referencing "shared ideas" that were part of the culture of ancient India.
The standard modern edition of the Chinese Buddhist Canon is the Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka, with a hundred major divisions, totaling over 80,000 pages.
[90] The Tibetan Kangyur comprises about a hundred volumes and includes versions of the Vinaya Pitaka, the Dhammapada (under the title Udanavarga) and parts of some other books.
The Chinese and Tibetan canons are not translations of the Pali and differ from it to varying extents, but contain some recognizably similar early works.
