Talk:Tripiṭaka

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A time of writing / publication would be handy. Jachin 01:49, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

It's not really possible to assign such a date to the Tripitaka as a whole. The Pali Canon was first written down in Sri Lanka about 100 years after the life of the Buddhja (making it around 400-300 BCE, depending on the date you like); some of the texts in the sutta pitaka and the Vinaya may date to the time of the Buddha. The Pali Abhidhamma was still being added to during the reign of Ashoka Maurya. Some Mahayana texts were composed in China but given a-historical Sanskrit pedigrees. Some Tibetan texts came directly from the Indian scholastic tradition; others were composed in Tibet. There should be some additional detail thrown in about the various dates, but there's still a lot of discussion over dating; for instance, the fact that a text appears in a written form later than another text doesn't necesarily mean that the text that was written down later was a new composition or something- a particular oral tradition may have just made the jump to writing later on. The various versions of the Tripitika have been in publication in several different languages and a dozen more scripts pretty much continuously for the last 2000 years. --Clay Collier 03:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
The first half of the second sentence is wrong: the Pali canon was written down in the last century BC.The second half is correct, but the next is understated: additions were almost certainly being made to the Kathavatthu up to the time of writing down, if not later. I think material about dating is better placed in more specialized articles. Tripitaka is really an artificial concept, a word for a variety of things which are better dealt with separately. This should be almost a disambiguation article. Peter jackson 16:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Simple anyone?

The article seems to be excessivly long, I am not sure if that is just me, but if at all possible, it would be nice to get a Simple English version.

[edit] How to pronounce it

Does anyone know how to pronounce tripitaka?

Strictly speaking, it should probably be pronounced TRIPitterker in English or TRIPittuhkuh in American. In practice I suspect a variety of otlher pronunciations are used. Peter jackson 11:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links

The article gives links to the 3 pitakas. The article on Vinaya Pitaka details the various fairly similar vinayas. The article on Abhidharma Pitaka details the various quite different abhidharmas. The article on Sutra Pitaka has been deleted & replaced by a disambig, pointing to Sutta Pitaka & Buddhist texts. The latter has no section heading for SP. Is there any sense to all this? Peter jackson (talk) 18:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

On a quick look, Buddhist texts appears to give no explanation of what Sutra Pitaka is. Peter jackson (talk) 18:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Murge?

Shouldn't this page be murged with the Tipitaka page? They are the same thing!!! 86.143.22.237 (talk) 10:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Tripitaka is a largely meaningless title for Buddhist scriptures in general. Tipitaka is the native name for the Pali Canon, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. Peter jackson (talk) 11:01, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
That's not what this article says. The first paragraph implies that the Tipitaka and the Tripitaka are the same thing --- except Tipitaka is the Pali name and Tripitaka is the Sanskrit name. Can this be cleared up? 86.143.22.237 (talk) 11:02, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
You're right. Have a look at my rewrite. Peter jackson (talk) 15:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's both, I think. The native name for the Pali Canon is a word that means "the Buddhist scriptures". What else would they call it? As in certain other cases, when you use these jargon terms in the Pali form rather than the Sanskrit, it strongly implies that you mean to refer to the Theravada form specifically. For instance, you wouldn't normally say "sutta" unless you were talking about a sutta from the Pali Canon. That said, I suppose that hypothetically, if there were a Mahayana Buddhist raised as a native Pali speaker (somewhere in Palistan or Palinesia, perhaps) he would probably refer to the Heart Sutra and the Lotus Sutra, etc., as suttas.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 17:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
What's both what? I don't see what you're getting at here. T(r)ipitaka doesn't mean Buddhist scriptures; it means 3 baskets. It came to be the conventional name for Buddhist canons of scripture because many of them were in fact in 3 baskets & individually called that. I think the article says that, tho' perhaps it should say it earlier. I'll have a look. Peter jackson (talk) 10:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
It says at the start that it means 3 baskets. I've corrected a few later statements.
As usual, the convention is to use Sanskrit for pan-Buddhist terminology, even tho' modern Buddhists themselves don't use it. Perhaps that should be made clear. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
see what you think of how I've worded it now. Peter jackson (talk) 10:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
What I meant was, "tipiṭaka" is a word that means both "tripiṭaka" and "Pāli Canon", since the people who tend to use tipiṭaka usually see those as the same thing. The current wording seems to suggest that Sanskrit was the original Buddhist language and that other Buddhist languages only began to be used after the decline of Sanskrit.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 12:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
You're right, it's misleading, so I've changed it again. The rest of what you say gets into quite complicated areas of logic & philosophy of meaning. The literal meaning of the 2 terms is of course the same, but their references are different. In between, we have secondary meanings. In Mahayana, tripitaka can mean either Buddhist scriptures or "Hinayana" scriptures. Peter jackson (talk) 15:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

We still ought to consider consistency. Why is there an article on Abhidharma Pitaka in addition to this article, but only a dab for Sutra Pitaka? That last linked only to Sutta Pitaka & Buddhist texts, with the last link being pretty useless. I've changed it to go to Sutta Pitaka, Agama (text)#Buddhism & Mahayana sutras, which seems nuch more sensible if we're going to have a dab. But why the distinction? All 3 are terms applied to radically different collections of texts by different Buddhists. Is there some good reason for treating them differently? Peter jackson (talk) 14:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)