Pali Canon

The Pali Canon is the scripture collection of Theravada Buddhism and, in the view of most scholars, the most important source for early Buddhism. It was written down from oral tradition in the last century BC. Pali is the name given to its language.

Authorship and date

The Canon is traditionally described as "The Word of the Buddha" (Buddhavacana). This is not intended literally, the Canon in fact including teachings by followers and accounts of events after the Buddha's death. Being actually said by the historical Buddha is not a necessary requirement for counting as Buddhavacana. Nevertheless, most of the Canon is presented by itself, and accepted by traditional Theravadins, as his actual words, though modern Theravadins do not always take this view.

Among scholars, three approaches have been identified. One group of scholars argue that substantial parts of the Canon show such coherence that they must in substance be the work of a single mind, that of the Buddha himself (around the 5th century BC). A second group, on the contrary, argue that the lack of hard evidence before the writing down of the Canon, or even later, makes it impossible to reach any definite conclusions. The third group avoids such generalizations, focusing on detailed studies of particular points.

Canon

A standard list of books in the Canon appears in a number of classic commentaries (5th century?). The Canon is arranged in three "baskets":

1. Vinaya Pitaka, on monastic discipline
2. Sutta or Suttanta Pitaka, discourses
3. Abhidhamma Pitaka, higher or special teaching, more formal and analytical than the discourses

The Sutta Pitaka is in turn divided into five nikayas. The first four of these are in a fairly uniform style, mainly prose. The fifth, the Khuddaka Nikaya, is a miscellaneous collection of books in prose and/or verse.

One of the above commentaries, however, gives some alternative listings of contents of the Khuddaka Nikaya. A subcommentary on this, probably written in the 10th century, explains the apparent differences in lists by saying that books not mentioned were in fact counted as parts of other books. A later subcommentary, wriiten about 1800, uses the same method to include in the Canon at least two books not known to have been ever before mentioned as such. The inscriptions of the Canon approved by the Fifth Council, and the printed edition approved by the Sixth Council, include three such books. These councils are generally recognized by all Theravada countries, all of them took part in the Sixth Council, and a transcript of the Sixth Council edition, including these books, has been sponsored by the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand. Nevertheless, the Thai national edition omits them, and the Sinhalese national edition includes only two of them.

For details, see the Catalogs subpage.