 | Buddhist texts: Encyclopedia II - Buddhist texts - Canonical texts
Buddhist texts - Canonical texts
These are, in some way or other, texts associated with Gautama, the historical Buddha. Different schools, however, are not always in agreement about which texts are canonical, and the various recensions of the Buddhist Canon contain widely varying numbers and types of texts. Broadly speaking, the texts come in three types: sutras (i.e. discourses), vinaya (relating to the rules of monastic discipline), and abhidharma (analytical texts). Together these three make up what is known in Sanskrit as the Tripitaka and in Pali as the Tipitaka. Both the sutras and the vinaya of every Buddhist school contain a huge variety of documents including discourses on the Dharma, commentaries on other teachings, cosmological and cosmogonical texts, stories of the Buddha's previous lives, and various lists.
The Theravada and other Nikaya schools believe, more or less literally, that these texts contain the actual words of the Buddha. The Theravada canon, also known as the Pali Canon after the language it was written in, contains some four million words.
Later texts, such as the Mahayana Sutras, are also considered to be the word of the Buddha, but were transmitted either in secret, via lineages of mythical beings (such as the nagas), or came directly from other Buddhas or bodhisattvas. Some 600 Mahayana Sutras have survived in Sanskrit, or in Chinese and/or Tibetan translation. The most complete Mahayana Canon is in Chinese, though it was originally in Sanskrit. It contains texts from many strands of earlier tradition.
The earliest Mahayana texts were composed in a 'Middle Indo-Āryan' language which was Sanskritised during the Gupta era when Sanskrit became the official language of the Indian court. Most of the Mahayana sutra texts are composed in what is called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, a Middle Indo-Āryan Prakrit with ornaments and flourishes designed to imitate Sanskrit. Some later Buddhist texts, particularly those originating at the university at Nalanda, were composed in true Sanskrit.
The Tibetan canon which belongs to the various schools of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, in addition to containing the earlier three classes of texts, also contain tantric texts, and commentaries on them.
The division of texts into the traditional three yanas may obscure the process of development that went on. For instance there are so-called proto-Mahayana texts, such as the Ajitasena Sutra which are missing key features which are associated with Mahayana texts. Some Pali texts also contain ideas that later became synonymous with the Mahayana. Some Mahayana texts are also thought to display a distinctly tantric character - particularly some of the shorter Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. An early tantra, the Mahavairocana Abhisambodhi Tantra, is also known as the Mahavairocana Sutra.
Some Buddhist texts evolved to become a virtual canon in themselves, and are referred to as vaipulya or extensive sutras. Scholars think for instance that the Golden Light Sutra constellated around the celebrated third chapter. The Avatamsaka Sutra is another example of a single Sutra made up of many other sutras, many of which, particularly the Gandhavyuha Sutra still circulate as separate texts. The Avatamsaka Sutra and the White Lotus Sutra are associated with the idea of the Ekayana or One Vehicle. The texts claim to unify all the teachings that have come before into a greater whole.
Shingon Buddhism developed a system which assigned authorship of the early sutras to Gautama Buddha in his physical manifestation; of the Ekayana sutras to the Buddhas as Sambhoghakaya; and the Vajrayana texts to the Buddha as Dharmakaya.
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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Canonical texts", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
