Tripiṭaka

Pali Canon
    Vinaya Pitaka    
   
                                       
Sutta-
vibhanga		 Khandhaka Pari-
vara
               
   
    Sutta Pitaka    
   
                                                      
Digha
Nikaya		 Majjhima
Nikaya		 Samyutta
Nikaya
                     
   
   
                                                                     
Anguttara
Nikaya		 Khuddaka
Nikaya
                           
   
    Abhidhamma Pitaka    
   
                                                           
Dhs. Vbh. Dhk.
Pug.		 Kvu. Yamaka Patthana
                       
   
         


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The Tripiṭaka (Sanskrit; Devanagari: त्रिपिटक; lit. three baskets) is the Sanskrit term used by Westerners for a Buddhist canon of scriptures[1]. Asian Buddhists of the Theravada Buddhist school use the term Tipitaka to refer to the Pali Canon. Other Buddhist schools use other terms for their own collection of scriptures, such as Kangyur (Tibetan Buddhism) and 大藏經 Dà Zàng Jīng (Chinese Mahayana Buddhism).

Each of the Early Buddhist Schools had their own recension of the Tripitaka, which mainly differed on the subject of Abhidhamma. In terms of Vinaya and Sutras, the contents were remarkably similar.

Contents

Early Buddhism

The Tripitaka writings of some or all the Early Buddhist Schools, which were originally memorized and recited orally by disciples, fall into three general categories and are traditionally classified in three baskets (tri-piṭaka). The following is the most common order.

The first category, the Vinaya Piṭaka, was the code of ethics to be obeyed by the early saṅgha, monks and nuns. According to the scriptural account, these were invented on a day-to-day basis as the Buddha encountered various behavior problems with the monks.

The second category, the Sūtra Piṭaka (literally "basket of threads", Pāli: Sutta Piṭaka), consists primarily of accounts of the Buddha's teachings. The Sūtra Piṭaka has numerous subdivisions: it contains more than 10,000 sūtras.

The third category is the Abhidharma Piṭaka. This is applied to very different collections in different versions of the Tripiṭaka. In the Pāli Canon of the Theravāda there is an Abhidhamma Piṭaka consisting of seven books. An Abhidharma Piṭaka of the Sarvāstivāda school survives, also in seven books, six in Chinese and one in Tibetan. These are different books from the Pali ones though there are some common material and ideas. Another work surviving in Chinese, the Śāriputrābhidharmaśāstra, may be all or part of another Abhidharma Piṭaka. At least some other early schools of Buddhism had Abhidharma Piṭakas, which are now lost.

According to some sources, some early schools of Buddhism had five or seven pitakas.[2] According to some scholars, some early schools of Buddhism had no Abhidharma.

Mahayana Buddhism

In the Mahāyāna a mixed attitude to the term Tripiṭaka developed. On the one hand, a major Mahāyāna scripture, the Lotus Sutra, uses the term to refer to the above literature of the early schools, as distinct from the Mahāyāna's own scriptures, and this usage became quite common in the tradition. On the other hand, the term Tripiṭaka had tended to become synonymous with Buddhist scriptures, and thus continued to be used for the Chinese and Tibetan collections, even though their contents do not really fit the pattern of three piṭakas.[3] In the Chinese tradition, the texts are classified in a variety of ways,[4] most of which have in fact four or even more piṭakas or other divisions. In the few that attempt to follow a genuine threefold division the term Abhidharma Pitaka is used to refer vaguely to non-canonical literature, whether Indian or Chinese, with only the other two piṭakas being regarded as strictly canonical. In the Tibetan tradition, on the other hand, when attempts are made to explain the application of the term Tripiṭaka to the Kanjur, the Tibetan canon of scripture, the Abhidharma Piṭaka is considered as consisting of the Prajñāpāramitā.

The Chinese form of Tripiṭaka, "Sanzang" (三藏), was sometimes used as an honorary title for a Buddhist monk who has mastered all the Tripiṭaka canons, most notably in the case of the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang, whose pilgrimage to India to study and bring Buddhist text back to China was portrayed in the novel Journey to the West as "Tang Sanzang". Due to the popularity of the novel, the term in "Sanzang" is often erroneously understood as a name of the monk Xuanzang. One such screen version of this is the popular 1979 Monkey (TV series).

Versions

  1. The Āgamas contain the Majjhima Nikāya and Saṃyutta Nikāya of the Sārvāstivāda.
  2. The Āgamas contain the Dīgha Nikāya of (probably) the Dharmaguptaka.
  3. The Āgamas contain the Aṅguttara Nikāya (Ekottara Āgama) of (possibly) the Mahāsaṅghika.
  4. The Vinaya Piṭakas of Sārvāstivāda, Mahāsaṅghika, Dharmaguptaka, Mahīśāsaka.
  5. Mahāyāna sūtras and some Buddhist tantras

Notes

  1. ↑ www.mapsofworld.com/referrals/books/non-printed-books/religious-books/buddhist-religious-books.html
  2. ↑ Journal of the Pali Text Society, volume XVI, page 114
  3. ↑ Mizuno, Essentials of Buddhism, 1972, English version pub Kosei, Tokyo, 1996
  4. ↑ Nanjio, Catalogue of the Chinese Translations of the Buddhist Tripitaka, Clarendon, Oxford, 1883

External links

Pali Tipitaka:

East-Asian tradition:

Tibetan tradition: