The Tripiṭaka (Sanskrit त्रिपिटक, lit. three baskets), Tipiṭaka (Pāli) is the formal term for a Buddhist canon of scriptures. Many different versions of the canon have existed throughout the Buddhist world, containing an enormous variety of texts. The oldest and most widely-known version is the Pāli Canon of the Theravāda school. The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect or prakrit. ... Standard edition of the Thai Pali Canon The Pali Canon is one the earliest existing scripture collections of the Buddhist tradition. ... Theravada (Pali; Sanskrit: Sthaviravada) is one of the eighteen (or twenty) Nikāya schools that formed early in the history of Buddhism. ...

The Tripitaka writings of early schools of Buddhism, which were originally memorized and recited orally by disciples, fall into three general categories and are traditionally classified in three baskets (tri-piṭaka). The commonest order is the following.

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. 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 are... Sangha (संघ saṃgha) is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as association or assembly or community. It is commonly used in several senses to refer to Buddhist or Jain groups. ... St. ... For other uses, see Nun (disambiguation). ...

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. Abhidharma (Sanskrit: अभिधर्मा) Sinhala: අභිධර්ම) or Abhidhamma (Pāli: अभिधमा) is a category of Buddhist scriptures that attempts to use Buddhist teachings to create a systematic, abstract description of all worldly phenomena. ...

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.^[1] In the Chinese tradition, the scriptures are classified in a variety of ways,^[2] 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. Mah is an ancient Persian god of the moon, one of the Yazatas. ...

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). A portrait of Xuanzang Xuanzang (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Hsüan-tsang; CantoneseIPA: jyn4tsɔŋ1; CantoneseJyutping: jyun4zong1) was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler and translator that brought up the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period. ... The four heroes of the story, left to right: SÅ«n Wùkōng, Xuánzàng, ZhÅ« Bājiè, and Shā Wùjìng. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Versions

• Tipiṭaka (Pali Canon) of the Theravada school.
• Tripiṭaka preserved in the East-Asian Mahayana tradition (Chinese translations):

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

• The Mūlasārvāstivādin Vinaya Piṭaka is preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, along with Mahāyāna sūtras and tantras.
• The Gandharan Buddhist texts contains some books and fragments of the Tipiṭaka of (probably) the Dharmaguptaka school.

Standard edition of the Thai Pali Canon The Pali Canon is the standard scripture collection of the Theravada Buddhist tradition. ... Theravada (Pāli: theravāda; Sanskrit: स्थविरवाद sthaviravāda; literally, the Way of the Elders) is the oldest surviving Buddhist school, and for many centuries has been the predominant religion of Sri Lanka (about 70% of the population[1]) and most of continental Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand). ... Agama (Sanskrit:आगम) literally means that which has come down (i. ... The Dharmaguptaka are one of the eighteen schools of early Buddhism. ... The Mahāsāṃghika was one of the early buddhist schools in ancient India which is now extinct (i. ... The Mahāsāṃghika was one of the early buddhist schools in ancient India which is now extinct (i. ... The Dharmaguptaka are one of the eighteen schools of early Buddhism. ... Mahisasaka is one of the twenty schools of early Buddhism according to a Mahayana record. ... The Tantra (Looms or Weavings), refer to numerous and varied scriptures pertaining to any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. ... Tibetan Buddhism is the body of religious Buddhist doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, the Himalayan region (including northern Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh), Mongolia, Buryatia, Tuva and Kalmykia (Russia), and northeastern China (Manchuria: Heilongjiang, Jilin). ... The Gandhāran Buddhist Texts are the earliest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, and indeed the earliest Indian manuscripts yet discovered. ... The Dharmaguptaka are one of the eighteen schools of early Buddhism. ...

Notes

1. ^ Mizuno, Essentials of Buddhism, 1972, English version pub Kosei, Tokyo, 1996
2. ^ Nanjio, Catalogue of the Chinese Translations of the Buddhist Tripitaka, Clarendon, Oxford, 1883

External links

Pali Tipitaka:

• Access to Insight has many suttas translated into English
• Pali Canon on-line (in Pali and English)
• Tipitaka Network
• List of Pali Canon Suttas translated into English (ongoing)
• The Pali Tipitaka Project(texts in 7 Asian languages)
• The Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project Pali Canons has a searchable database of the Pali texts
• The Vietnamese Nikaaya(continuing, text in Vitenamese)
• Search in English translations of the Tipitaka

East-Asian tradition: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

• English translations of many Mahayana Buddhism texts
• BuddhaNet's eBook Library(English pdfs)
• WWW Database of Chinese Buddhist texts(English index of some East Asian Tripitakas)
• Index of Electronic Buddhist Texts (English index)

Tibetan tradition:

• Kangyur & Tengyur Projects (Tibetan texts)