Standard edition of the Thai Pali Canon

The Pali Canon is one the earliest existing scripture collections of the Buddhist tradition. These scriptures were recited orally from the time of the Buddha and were put into writing in Sri Lanka around 30 BC. Written in the Pali language, these texts form the scriptures of the Theravada school of Buddhism. Versions of many Pali canon scriptures also form the basis of the canon of many non-Theravada schools. These schools canons typically contain an incomplete selection of scriptures from the Pali canon, often with minor additions or alterations, and are usually recorded in Sanskrit, Chinese, or another language other than Pali. Download high resolution version (1320x1733, 337 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (1320x1733, 337 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Many religions and spiritual movements hold certain written texts (or series of spoken legends not traditionally written down) to be sacred. ... Buddhism (Pāli Buddhadhamma or Sanskrit Buddhadharma) is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived in the 5th century BCE. Buddhism spread throughout the ancient Indian sub-continent in the five centuries following his death, and propagated into Central, Southeast, and... Standing Buddha, ancient region of Gandhara, northern Pakistan, 1st century CE, Musée Guimet. ... Centuries: 2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century Decades: 80s BC 70s BC 60s BC 50s BC 40s BC - 30s BC - 20s BC 10s BC 0s BC 0s 10s Years: 39 BC 38 BC 37 BC 36 BC 35 BC 34 BC 33 BC 32 BC 31 BC 30... For the town and district in Rajasthan, see Pali, Rajasthan For the Ganapati temple of pali and place in Maharastra, see Ballaleshwar Pali Pāli (Devanagari पालि) is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect or prakrit. ... Many religions and spiritual movements hold certain written texts (or series of spoken legends not traditionally written down) to be sacred. ... Theravada (Pali; Sanskrit: Sthaviravada) is one of the eighteen (or twenty) Nikāya schools that formed early in the history of Buddhism. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम्) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ...

The writings fall into three general categories, called pitaka (basket) in Pali. Because of this, the Buddhist canon is traditionally known as the tipitaka (Sanskrit: tripitaka) (three baskets). According to myth, this name resulted from the practice of keeping the scrolls on which the suttas were recorded in three baskets. However, calling the collection of Buddhist teachings the tipitaka may well predate the use of writing in preserving Buddhist scriptures- 'basket' may have been used figuratively to indicate a collection, or a carrier of an oral tradition. The three-fold pitaka division replaced a simpler, two-part division into Sutta (prose) and Vinaya (disciplinary rules). The Tripitaka (Sanskrit, lit. ... The Tripitaka (Sanskrit, lit. ...

The first category, the Vinaya Pitaka, is mostly concerned with the code of ethics to be obeyed by the early sangha, both monks and nuns. Some rules and practices were regarded by the Buddha as essential and foundational to the pursuit of his teachings. Others were devised on an ad hoc basis as the Buddha encountered various behavioral problems or disputes among his followers. The Vinaya (a word in Pali as well as in Sanskrit, with literal meaning discipline) is the textual framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha. ... In the context of a code adopted by a profession or by a governmental or quasi-governmental organ to regulate that profession, an ethical code may be styled as a code of professional responsibility, which may dispense with difficult issues of what behavior is ethical. Some codes of ethics have... Sangha is a word in Indian languages that can be translated roughly as association or assembly. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups. ... A Roman Catholic monk A monk is a person who practices monasticism, adopting a strict religious and ascetic lifestyle, usually in community with others following the same path. ... Nun in cloister, 1930; photograph by Doris Ulmann In general, a nun is a female ascetic who chooses to voluntarily leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent. ...

The second category is the Sutta Pitaka (literally "basket of threads", Sanskrit: Sutra Pitaka) which consists primarily of accounts of the Buddha's life and teachings. The Sutta Pitaka has numerous subdivisions. The suttas it contains are considered authentic by every Buddhist school, although Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists also recognize many additional sutras. Practitioners outside the Theravada school refer to Pali Canon suttas as agamas or nikayas. The Sutta Pitaka (or Sutra Pitaka) is the second of three divisions of the Tipitaka, the great Pali collection of Buddhist writings. ... Sutra (सूत्र) in Sanskrit is derived from the verb siv-, meaning to sew (these words, including English to sew and Latinate suture, all derive from PIE *syū-). It literally means a rope or thread, and more metaphorically refers to an aphorism (or line, rule, formula), or a collection of such aphorisms... Relief image of the bodhisattva Kuan Yin from Mt. ... A mandala used in Vajrayana Buddhist practices. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Nikaya is a word of Pali origin and Sanskrit usage which was adopted into English in reference to Buddhist texts. ...

Ancient style of scripture used for the Pali Canon

The third category, the Abhidhamma Pitaka, is a collection of texts in which the underlying doctrinal principles presented in the Sutta Pitaka are reworked and reorganized into a systematic framework as applied to an investigation into the nature of mind and matter. The Abhidhamma per se is specific Theravada Buddhism; however, other schools have their own collections of commentaries that take the place of the Abhidhamma Pitaka in their respective tipitakas. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1905x1388, 1900 KB) Ancient style of scripture of the Pali Canon. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1905x1388, 1900 KB) Ancient style of scripture of the Pali Canon. ... Abhidharma (Sanskrit; Pāli Abhidhamma) is a category of Buddhist scriptures that attempts to use Buddhist teachings to create a systematic, abstract description of all worldly phenomena. ...

The Pali Text Society, founded by British civil servant T.W. Rhys Davids, publishes both English translations and Romanized Pali versions of all the books of the Pali Canon. While some of the major sections of the Canon (such as the Digha Nikaya, Samyutta Nikaya, and Majjhima Nikaya) have been given more recent translations, the PTS versions remain the only English translations of some of the less accessible texts. The Pali Text Society was founded in 1881 by T.W. Rhys Davids to foster and promote the study of Pali texts. Pali is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism is preserved. ... Thomas William Rhys Davids (May 12, 1843 - December 27, 1922) was an English scholar of the Pāli language and founder of the Pali Text Society. ... The Digha Nikaya (Collection of Long Discourses) is the first part of the Sutta Pitaka- one of the three baskets that compose the Pali Tipitaka. ... The Samyutta Nikaya, the third Nikaya (division) of the Sutta Pitaka of the Tipitaka, contains 2,889 suttas grouped into five sections (vaggas). ... The Majjhima Nikaya, or Middle-length Discourses of the Buddha, is the second of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka of the Tipitaka. ...

See also

• Buddhist texts
• Dhammapada
• List of sutras
• Tripitaka Koreana

There are a great variety of Buddhist texts. ... The Dhammapada (Pali, translates as Path of the Dharma. ... Below is a list of sutras organized alphabetically under the broad categories of Hinduism and Buddhism. ... The Tripitaka Koreana (lit. ...

External links

• Access to Insight has many suttas translated into English
• Hundreds of free buddhist talks and huge forum.
• The Pali Text Society
• Most of the Pali Canon, in Pali, Sinhala and English
• Tipitaka Network
• Online Pali-English Dictionary
• Buddhist Teachings