Buddhism's Original Texts 2: The Canon — Councils, Pali Canon & Tripitaka

Thank you for visiting. This article is the second installment in a series explaining the original texts of Buddhism.

Last time (Article 1), I explained the Buddha’s life and root teaching. This time, I look at how that teaching was gathered into the scriptures (the Tripitaka) after the Buddha’s death, and how it came to divide into the two streams of Theravada and Mahayana.

For an overview map of Buddhism’s original texts as a whole, please see this summary article.

Buddhism's Original Texts: The Tripitaka and the Major Sutrasen.senkohome.com/myths-religions-origins-buddhism/

The Buddha Left Not a Single Book Behind

First, what I want to grasp is that the Buddha himself left no teaching written down at all.

The Buddha’s teaching was, to the last, oral preaching to his disciples. This is because, in the India of the time, sacred teaching was held to be more precious recited and inherited accurately than written in letters (in common with the oral transmission of the Vedas). So, after the Buddha’s death, the remaining disciples faced a great task. “How can we transmit the master’s teaching to later ages correctly, without scattering it?” The answer was the “council,” described next.

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The Council — the Editorial Meeting of the Teaching

A “council” is a meeting in which the disciples gathered, brought together the Buddha’s teaching that each remembered, confirmed it with one another, and edited and fixed it as the official teaching.

The first council is told to have been held right after the Buddha’s passing, with about 500 excellent disciples (arhats) gathering at Rajagriha. The one who served as facilitator was the elder “Mahakashyapa.”

At this time, the attendant “Ananda,” who always followed the Buddha and had heard more sermons than anyone, recited the teaching he remembered. That a sutra begins with the phrase “Thus have I heard” derives from this form of “Ananda heard and transmitted it.” Also, “Upali,” versed in the discipline, recited the rules of the order.

After that too, the councils were repeated, in response to the order’s development and differences of interpretation. At the second council, about 100 years after the passing, opinions clashed over the fine interpretation of the discipline (whether receiving money is allowed, etc.), and the order divided into the strict “Sthavira (Elders)” and the flexible “Mahasangha (Great Assembly).” This is called the “root schism,” and from here Buddhism branched into about twenty schools (sectarian Buddhism). Further, in the era of King Ashoka (3rd century BC), who deeply protected Buddhism, the third council was held, and missionaries are told to have been sent to various lands.

And what was decisive was the “writing down.” The teaching, long kept by oral transmission, was at last written down in letters (on palm leaves) in Sri Lanka around the 1st century BC, by the hands of monks who feared the bearers of recitation would die out through famine and war. It was the moment the teaching transmitted mouth to mouth first became a “book.” Thus the Buddha’s teaching escaped scattering and came to be transmitted to the present.

The Tripitaka — the Three Classifications of the Canon

The canon organized through the councils was classified into three by its character. This is the “Tripitaka.” “Pitaka” means “basket, container,” representing the container that holds the teaching.

Of these, the “Abhidharma Pitaka” is not the Buddha’s own words, but a philosophical study and organization of the teaching by later disciples. A monk versed in all three baskets is called a “Tripitaka master,” and the Tripitaka master of “Journey to the West” (Xuanzang) is known by that title.

The Oldest Original Text — the Pali Canon

Of the surviving canon, what is held to convey an old form closest to the Buddha’s time is the “Pali Canon (the Pali Tripitaka).”

This is the Tripitaka transmitted in “Pali,” close to the colloquial speech of the time, and is held to have been written down in letters in Sri Lanka around the 1st century BC, after long oral transmission. It is the fundamental scripture on which present Theravada Buddhism (described below) relies.

Its Sutra Pitaka is divided into five collections (nikayas) by content and length.

Among them, the “Dhammapada,” contained in the last “Minor Collection,” is widely read and loved around the world as a gem of a sutra expressing the Buddha’s teaching in short verses. Plain and powerful words such as “the mind precedes all things; the mind is the master, and is made by the mind” line up, and it is also enjoyed as an introductory book to Buddhism.

The Chinese Buddhist Canon — the Enormous Body of Scriptures Transmitted to East Asia

On the other hand, when Buddhism was transmitted to China, an enormous body of scriptures was translated into Chinese. The compendium of these Chinese-translated scriptures is called the “Buddhist canon (Daizokyo)” or “the complete sutras.” The Buddhism of Japan and Korea relies mainly on this Chinese canon.

In fact, the early sutras corresponding to the Pali five collections earlier also properly remain within the Chinese translation. They are the “Agama sutras.” Consisting of four (the four Agamas) — Dirgha, Madhyama, Samyukta, and Ekottara Agama — they roughly correspond respectively to the Pali Long, Middle, Connected, and Numbered collections. The Pali five collections and the Chinese four Agamas are “siblings” of the same early body of sutras, transmitted by separate schools in separate languages, and by reading and comparing the two, one can approach the oldest form of the Buddha’s teaching.

Great monks who left their names in history took part in the translation.

• Kumarajiva: a translator-monk active around the 5th century. He translated into Chinese, in fine prose, many of the scriptures familiar in Japanese Buddhism, such as the “Lotus Sutra,” “Prajnaparamita Sutra,” and “Amitabha Sutra”
• Xuanzang: in the 7th century, he set out on a perilous journey to India to seek the Dharma, brought back a great quantity of scriptures, and translated them. The model for the Tripitaka master of “Journey to the West”

Since the modern age, in Japan, the “Taisho Tripitaka,” which collated and compiled these enormous Chinese-translated scriptures, was compiled and has become the standard of Buddhist research today. Its scale reaches 100 volumes and several thousand sutras, a body of religious literature among the world’s largest, far surpassing the Bible.

Theravada and Mahayana — Buddhism’s Two Great Currents

Indispensable in speaking of the making of the canon is that Buddhism divided greatly into two streams.

A while after the Buddha’s death, the order gradually divided over the interpretation of the discipline and teaching (the root schism). In time the age of “sectarian Buddhism,” dividing into many schools and studying the teaching, came, and the Abhidharma developed.

And around the turn of the era, against such a current, a new Buddhist movement arose.

The new movement criticized the conventional Buddhism, centered on renunciants and valuing “one’s own enlightenment,” as the “small vehicle,” and called itself the “Mahayana (Great Vehicle),” in the meaning of “a great vehicle that carries all people to salvation” (* “small vehicle” is a designation from the Mahayana side; today it is neutrally called “Theravada”).

This Mahayana Buddhism produced, one after another, new sutras of a form different from the Buddha’s direct words, such as the “Prajnaparamita Sutra,” “Lotus Sutra,” and “three Pure Land sutras.” Many of the scriptures familiar to us Japanese are these Mahayana ones. I explain their rich world in detail in the next Article 3.

To Learn More

Here are some related books. Reading them alongside this series lets you savor this world even more deeply.

A Complete History of Philosophy and ReligionView on Amazon → The Origins of Religion: Why We Needed a ‘God’View on Amazon →

Conclusion

In this article, I explained in detail the making and composition of Buddhism’s original texts, the “Tripitaka.” How was it?

The teaching the Buddha did not write down was recited and edited through the disciples’ “councils,” and became the three baskets of sutra, discipline, and treatise. It was transmitted as the oldest Pali Canon and the enormous Chinese Buddhist canon, and in time divided into the two great currents of Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism.

In the next Article 3, I will clearly explain “Mahayana Buddhism,” the mainstream of Japanese Buddhism, and major scriptures such as the Prajnaparamita, Lotus Sutra, and three Pure Land sutras.

Buddhism's Original Texts: The Tripitaka and the Major Sutrasen.senkohome.com/myths-religions-origins-buddhism/

I hope you’ll read the next article too.