Buddhist canons


There are several Buddhist canons, which refers to the various scriptural collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures or the various Buddhist scriptural canons. Some of these collections are also called Tipiṭaka or Tripiṭaka , meaning "Triple Basket", a traditional term for the three main divisions of some ancient canons. In ancient India, there were several Buddhist scriptural canons that were organized into three main textual divisions: Vinaya, Sutra and Abhidharma. For example, the Pāli Tipiṭaka is composed of the Vinaya Piṭaka, the Sutta Piṭaka, and the Abhidhamma Piṭaka. In East Asian Buddhism meanwhile, the traditional term for the canon is Great Storage of Scriptures.
The Pāli Canon maintained by the Theravāda tradition in Southeast Asia, the Chinese Buddhist Canon maintained by the East Asian Buddhist tradition, and the Tibetan Buddhist Canon maintained by the Tibetan Buddhist tradition are the three main important scriptural canons in the contemporary Buddhist world. The Nepalese canon, particularly its Buddhist Sanskrit literature has also been very important for modern Buddhist studies scholarship since it contains many surviving Sanskrit manuscripts. The Mongolian Buddhist canon is also important in Mongolian Buddhism.
While Tripiṭaka is one common term to refer to the scriptural collections of the various Buddhist schools, most Buddhist scriptural canons do not really follow the strict division into three piṭakas. Indeed, many of the ancient Indian Buddhist schools had canons with four or five divisions rather than three. Likewise, neither the East Asian Buddhist canon nor the Tibetan canon is organized in a traditional Indian Tripiṭaka schema.

Textual categories

Tipiṭaka, or Tripiṭaka, means "Three Baskets". It is a compound of the Pali ti or Sanskrit word of tri, meaning "three", and piṭaka, meaning "basket". These "three baskets" recall the receptacles of palm-leaf manuscripts and refer to three important textual divisions of early Buddhist literature: Suttas, the Vinaya, and the Abhidhamma.
Sutras were the doctrinal teachings in aphoristic or narrative format. The historical Buddha delivered all of his sermons in Magadhi Prakrit. This language was related to other Prakrits like Pali, though its exact nature is not fully known. The sutras were transmitted orally until eventually being written down in the first century BCE. Even within the Sūtra Piṭaka it is possible to detect older and later texts.
The Vinaya Piṭaka appears to have grown gradually as a commentary and justification of the monastic code, which presupposes a transition from a community of wandering mendicants to a more sedentary monastic community. These monastic codes have been transmitted across generations by vinayadharas, that is, "Bearers of the Discipline". The Vinaya focuses on the rules and regulations, or the morals and ethics, of monastic life that range from dress code and dietary rules to prohibitions of certain personal conducts.
The Abhidharma refers to more scholastic philosophical works. Many of these texts are later than the sutras and are school specific. Hence, the Sarvastivada school's Abhidharma Pitaka contains a completely different set of texts than the Theravada school's Abhidhamma collection.
While these three textual categories were very common in the canons of the early Buddhist schools, they were not the only ones. Some schools also had additional Pitakas other than the main three. These extra Pitakas included collections of incantations, magical spells or Dhāraṇī which were called Vidyādhāra Piṭaka, Mantra Piṭaka or Dhāraṇī Piṭaka. Likewise, some Buddhist schools in India also maintained Bodhisattva Piṭakas, which contained texts that were later termed "Mahayana".

The twelvefold division

The Dvādaśāṅga refers to a traditional Indian classification scheme for the Buddhist scriptures, especially in early Indian Buddhism. It outlines twelve distinct types of discourse found in the Buddha's teachings. These categories are likely earlier than the later scriptural divisions. This twelvefold division appears in both Śrāvakayāna and Mahāyāna sources, including the Lalitavistara, the Mahāyāna Sūtrālaṃkāra, and the Chinese Āgama and Mahāyāna sūtra traditions. Some textual traditions have slightly different lists of aṅgas. Pali sources, for example, generally only list nine aṅgas. The aṅga categories served both as a cataloging method and as a doctrinal affirmation of the Buddha's varied pedagogical methods.
The twelve aṅgas are:
  • Sūtra – Discourses in prose, often beginning with an introduction that starts with the phrase “Thus have I heard” which indicates it is being recounted and remembered by Ānanda. These present the direct teachings of the Buddha.
  • Geya – Mixed prose and verse; teachings are first presented in prose, followed by verses summarizing or elaborating the point.
  • Gāthā – typically standalone didactic verses or poems.
  • Nidāna – Introductory explanations of the events that lead to the teaching of a particular discourse.
  • Itivṛttaka – Accounts of past lives of the Buddha's disciples, or sayings of the Buddha taught in specific circumstances.
  • Jātaka – Past life stories, narrating the Buddha's previous lives as a bodhisattva.
  • Abhutadharma – Accounts of the marvelous or supernatural, such as Buddha's miracles.
  • Avadāna – Exemplary stories, usually of virtuous deeds and karmic results, often involving previous lives.
  • Upadeśa – Detailed doctrinal teachings or instructions, usually in question and answer format. A classic teaching is typically analyzed in more extensive detail than in other scriptures.
  • Udāna, often spontaneous exclamations made by the Buddha under specific circumstances without being asked by anyone.
  • Vaipulya, "expanded" scriptures, technically meaning broad in scope, but in Mahayana traditions, this almost always refers to Mahayana sutras
  • Vyākaraṇa – Predictions, often foretelling the future awakening of disciples.

    Early canons

Each of the early Buddhist Schools likely had their own versions of the Tripiṭaka. According to some sources, there were some Indian schools of Buddhism that had five or seven piṭakas.
According to Yijing, an 8th-century Chinese pilgrim to India, the Nikaya Buddhist schools kept different sets of canonical texts with some intentional or unintentional dissimilarities. Yijing notes four main textual collections among the non-Mahayana schools:
Yijing notes that though there were numerous sub-schools and sects, the sub-sects shared the Tripiṭaka of their mother tradition. However, this does not mean that the various sub-schools did not possess their own unique Tripiṭaka. Xuanzang is said to have brought to China the Tripiṭaka of seven different schools, including those of the above-mentioned schools as well as the Dharmaguptaka, Kāśyapīya, and Mahīśāsaka.
According to A. K. Warder, the Tibetan historian Bu-ston said that around or before the 1st century CE there were eighteen schools of Buddhism each with their own Tripiṭaka transcribed into written form. However, except for one version that has survived in full and others, of which parts have survived, most of these texts are lost to history or yet to be found.

Mahāsāṃghika

The Mahāsāṃghika were a major early Buddhist branch, arising from the first schism in the Buddhist sangha. While there is no single complete collection from any of the Mahāsāṃghika school branches, there are several surviving texts including the Mahāvastu, the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya, the Lokānuvartanā sūtra and the Śariputraparipṛcchā.
Various ancient sources also indicate that the different branches of the Mahāsāṃghika tradition had a Bodhisattva Piṭaka in their canon. The 6th century CE Indian monk Paramārtha wrote that 200 years after the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha, much of the Mahāsāṃghika school moved north of Rājagṛha, where they became divided over whether the Mahāyāna sūtras should be incorporated formally into their Tripiṭaka. According to this account, they split into three groups based upon the relative manner and degree to which they accepted the authority of these Mahāyāna texts. Paramārtha states that the Kukkuṭika sect did not accept the Mahāyāna sūtras as buddhavacana, while the Lokottaravāda sect and the Ekavyāvahārika sect did accept the Mahāyāna sūtras as buddhavacana. Also in the 6th century CE, Avalokitavrata writes of the Mahāsāṃghikas using a "Great Āgama Piṭaka," which is then associated with Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Prajñāparamitā and the Daśabhūmika Sūtra.
According to some sources, Abhidharma was not accepted as canonical by the Mahāsāṃghika school. The Theravādin Dīpavaṃsa, for example, records that the Mahāsāṃghikas had no Abhidharma. However, other sources indicate that there were such collections of Abhidharma, and the Chinese pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang both mention Mahāsāṃghika Abhidharma. On the basis of textual evidence as well as inscriptions at Nāgārjunakoṇḍā, Joseph Walser concludes that at least some Mahāsāṃghika sects probably had an Abhidharma collection, and that it likely contained five or six books.

Caitika

The Caitikas included a number of sub-sects including the Pūrvaśailas, Aparaśailas, Siddhārthikas, and Rājagirikas. In the 6th century CE, Avalokitavrata writes that Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Prajñāparamitā and others are chanted by the Aparaśailas and the Pūrvaśailas. Also in the 6th century CE, Bhāvaviveka speaks of the Siddhārthikas using a Vidyādhāra Piṭaka, and the Pūrvaśailas and Aparaśailas both using a Bodhisattva Piṭaka, implying collections of Mahāyāna texts within these Caitika schools.