Pali Canon

The Pali Canon is the scripture collection of Theravada Buddhism and, in the view of most scholars, the most important source for early Buddhism. It was written down from oral tradition in the last century BC.

The English name comes from Pali, its language. The commonest name in the tradition is Tipitaka (tipiṭaka), meaning "thee baskets", after the commonest arrangement of the Canon:

1. Vinaya Pitaka, on monastic discipline
2. Sutta or Suttanta Pitaka, discourses
3. Abhidhamma Pitaka, higher or special teaching, more formal and analytical than the discourses

The Sutta Pitaka is in turn divided into five nikayas (nikāya). The first four of these are in a fairly uniform style, mainly prose. The fifth, the Khuddaka Nikaya, is a miscellaneous collection of books in prose and/or verse.

Authorship and date

The Canon is traditionally described as "The Word of the Buddha" (Buddhavacana). This is not intended literally, the Canon in fact including teachings by followers and accounts of events after the Buddha's death. Being actually said by the historical Buddha is not a necessary requirement for counting as Buddhavacana. Nevertheless, most of the Canon is presented by itself, and accepted by traditional Theravadins, as his actual words, though modern Theravadins do not always take this view.

Among scholars, three approaches have been identified. One group of scholars argue that substantial parts of the Canon, all or most in the first four nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka, show such coherence that they must in substance be the work of a single mind, that of the Buddha himself (around the 5th century BC). A second group, on the contrary, argue that the lack of hard evidence before the writing down of the Canon, or even later, makes it impossible to reach any definite conclusions. The third group avoid such generalizations, focusing on detailed studies of particular points.

Text

The climate of Theravada countries is not conducive to the survival of manuscripts. Apart from brief quotations in inscriptions, and a two-page fragment from the 8th or 9th century found in Nepal, the oldest known manuscripts date from the 15th century, and there are few from before the 18th. Thus the manuscripts available are the result of multiple copying, with the inevitable errors accumulated. This is compounded by transcription between alphabets, as Pali has none of its own, each country generally using its own. This problem is exacerbated by more than one occasion on which some texts were lost in one country and had to be reimported from another. Manuscripts tend to follow different national recensions, though with some interaction. The same applies to the printed editions of the Canon: these have been published in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Sri Lanka, but not yet in Laos. The Burmese edition is nominally the "official" edition for the whole of the Theravada, having been approved by the sixth ecumenical council of the Theravada, representing all five Theravada countries. The Council, however, was dominated by Burmese monks, and the other countries tend to pay only lip-service to it, though the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand did sponsor a transcript of its edition in 2005. Modern scholars try to compare these editions, which is made easier by the existence of electronic transcripts, except for the Khmer edition, of which few copies survived the Khmers Rouges.

Canon

A standard list of books in the Canon appears in a number of classic commentaries (5th century?). One of those commentaries, however, gives some alternative listings of contents of the Khuddaka Nikaya. A subcommentary on this, probably written in the 10th century, explains the apparent differences in lists by saying that books not mentioned were in fact counted as parts of other books, and a later subcommentary, written about 1800, uses the same method to include in the Canon at least two books not known to have been ever before mentioned as such. The Sixth Council edition of the Canon includes three such books, two of which are also in the Sinhalese Buddha Jayanti edition. At least some Thai editions and the Khmer edition omit them. However, inclusion in printed editions is not necessarily the same as canonicity. For example, the original King James Bible of 1611 included the Apocrypha, which the Church of England did not and does not consider canonical. Nevertheless, Professor George D. Bond says of one of these books, the Netti, that it is

Regarded as quasi-canonical by some Theravādins and canonical by other Theravādins, especially in Burma

There is disagreement on whether it is still possible for material to be added to the Canon.

For details, see the Catalogs subpage.

Role

In theory, the Canon is the highest authority for the teaching. In practice, its great bulk means few are familiar with it as a whole. Therefore there is a tendency to specialize. The Vinaya Pitaka mentions vinaya and sutta specialists. The Milindapanha mentions specialists in each of the five nikayas. The commentaries mention abhidhamma specialists. In modern times, those wishing to be ordained as monks in Sri Lanka have had to memorize the Dhammapada. In Myanmar one can earn the title Teacher of Religion (Dhammācariya) by passing an examination where the set texts are the first volume of each pitaka.

Like Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, and unlike Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada emphasizes the original scriptural language. Study and recitation are usually in Pali. The Canon was composed, or evolved, for the most part orally, and is adapted to that medium, and so to memorization. There are rare cases of monks who know the whole Canon by heart, and many know substantial parts. Even lay people usually know a few short passages.

Comparison

Versions of the Vinaya and most of the Sutta exist in Chinese. These are inherited from other schools of ancient Indian Buddhism and differ somewhat from the Pali versions. Similarly, there is a version of the Vinaya in Tibetan.

Notes

See the /Addendum for a more detailed account of the Canon.