17 Facts About Pali Canon

Pali Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pali language.

The earliest textual fragments of canonical Pali were found in the Pyu city-states in Burma dating only to the mid 5th to mid 6th century CE.

Pali Canon is traditionally described by the Theravada as the Word of the Buddha, though this is not intended in a literal sense, since it includes teachings by disciples.

An official view is given by a spokesman for the Buddha Sasana Council of Burma: the Pali Canon contains everything needed to show the path to nirvana; the commentaries and subcommentaries sometimes include much speculative matter, but are faithful to its teachings and often give very illuminating illustrations.

Relation of the scriptures to Buddhism as it actually exists among ordinary monks and lay people is, as with other major religious traditions, problematic: the evidence suggests that only parts of the Pali Canon ever enjoyed wide currency, and that non-canonical works were sometimes very much more widely used; the details varied from place to place.

Related searches

Much of the material in the Pali Canon is not specifically Theravadin, but is instead the collection of teachings that this school preserved from the early, non-sectarian body of teachings.

Prayudh Payutto argues that the Pali Canon represents the teachings of the Buddha essentially unchanged apart from minor modifications.

Pali Canon argues that it incorporates teachings that precede the Buddha, and that the later teachings were memorized by the Buddha's followers while he was still alive.

Pali Canon's thesis is based on study of the processes of the first great council, and the methods for memorization used by the monks, which started during the Buddha's lifetime.

Pali Canon suggests that the canon was composed early on soon after Buddha's paranirvana, but after a period of free improvisation, and then the core teachings were preserved nearly verbatim by memory.

Much of the Pali Canon is found in the scriptures of other early schools of Buddhism, parts of whose versions are preserved, mainly in Chinese.

Geoffrey Samuel says the Pali Canon largely derives from the work of Buddhaghosa and his colleagues in the 5th century CE.

The style of many translations from the Pali Canon has been criticized as "Buddhist Hybrid English", a term invented by Paul Griffiths for translations from Sanskrit.

Pali Canon describes it as "deplorable", "comprehensible only to the initiate, written by and for Buddhologists".

Japanese translation of the Pali Canon, edited by Takakusu Junjiro, was published in 65 volumes from 1935 to 1941 as The Mahatripitaka of the Southern Tradition .

The Indian works preserved in the Chinese Pali Canon were translated mostly from Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, or from regional Prakrits.

Chinese and Tibetan canons are not translations of the Pali and differ from it to varying extents, but contain some recognizably similar early works.