The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pali language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down. It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in the 1st century BC, approximately three hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni. ...
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The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pali language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down. It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in the 1st century BC, approximately three hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni. The Pali Canon was first printed in the nineteenth century, and is now also available in electronic form and on the Internet.
The Pāli Canon falls into three general categories, called pitaka (piṭaka, basket) in Pali. Because of this, the canon is traditionally known as the Tipitaka (Tipiṭaka; three baskets). The three pitakas are as follows:
The Vinaya Pitaka and the Sutta Pitaka are remarkably similar to the works of other early Buddhist schools. The Abhidhamma Pitaka however is a strictly Theravada collection, and has little in common with...
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