The Tipitaka – An Overview
The Tipitaka (Pali ti, “three,” + pitaka, “baskets”), or Pali canon, is the collection of primary Pali language texts which form the doctrinal foundation of Theravada Buddhism. The Tipitaka and the paracanonical Pali texts (commentaries, chronicles, etc.) together constitute the complete body of classical Theravada texts.
Vinaya Pitaka
The collection of texts concerning the rules of conduct governing the daily affairs within the Sangha — the community of bhikkhus (ordained monks) and bhikkhunis (ordained nuns). Far more than merely a list of rules, the Vinaya Pitaka also includes the stories behind the origin of each rule, providing a detailed account of the Buddha’s solution to the question of how to maintain communal harmony within a large and diverse spiritual community.
Suttapitaka
The Sutta Pitaka, the second division of the Tipitaka, consists of more than 10,000 suttas (discourses) delivered by the Buddha and his close disciples during and shortly after the Buddha’s forty-five year teaching career, as well as many additional verses by other members of the Sangha.
The suttas are grouped into five nikayas, or collections:
- DighaNikaya
- MajjhimaNikaya
- SamyuttaNikaya
- AnguttaraNikaya
- KhuddakaNikaya
DighaNikaya
The “Long” Discourses (Pali digha = “long”) consists of 34 suttas, including the longest ones in the Canon. The subject matter of these suttas ranges widely, from colorful folkloric accounts of the beings inhabiting the deva worlds (DN 20) to down-to-earth practical meditation instructions (DN 22), and everything in between.
MajjhimaNikaya
The “Middle-length” Discourses (Pali majjhima = “middle”) consists of 152 suttas of varying length. These range from some of the most profound and difficult suttas in the Canon (e.g., MN 1) to engaging stories full of human pathos and drama that illustrate important principles of the law of kamma (e.g., MN 57, MN 86)
SamyuttaNikaya
The “Grouped” Discourses (Pali samyutta = “group” or “collection”) consists of 2,889 relatively short suttas grouped together by theme into 56 samyuttas.
AnguttaraNikaya
The “Further-factored” Discourses (Pali anga = “factor” + uttara = “beyond,” “further”) consists of several thousand short suttas, grouped together into eleven nipatas according to the number of items of Dhamma covered in each sutta. For example, the Eka-nipata (“Book of the Ones”) contains suttas about a single item of Dhamma; the Duka-nipata (“Book of the Twos”) contains suttas dealing with two items of Dhamma, and so on.
KhuddakaNikaya
KhuddakaNikaya The “Division of Short Books” (Pali khudda = “smaller,” “lesser”), consisting of fifteen books (eighteen in the Burmese edition):
- Khuddakapatha — The Short Passages
- Dhammapada — The Path of Dhamma
- Udana — Exclamations
- Itivuttaka — The Thus-saids
- Sutta Nipata — The Sutta Collection
- Vimanavatthu — Stories of the Celestial Mansions
- Petavatthu — Stories of the Hungry Ghosts
- Theragatha — Verses of the Elder Monks
- Therigatha — Verses of the Elder Nuns
- Jataka — Birth Stories
- Niddesa — Exposition
- Patisambhidamagga — Path of Discrimination
- Apadana — Stories
- Buddhavamsa — History of the Buddhas
- Cariyapitaka — Basket of Conduct
- Nettippakarana (Burmese Tipitaka only)
- Petakopadesa (Burmese Tipitaka only)
- Milindapañha — Questions of Milinda
Abhidhammapitaka
The seven books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the third division of the Tipitaka, offer an extraordinarily detailed analysis of the basic natural principles that govern mental and physical processes. Whereas the Sutta and Vinaya Pitakas lay out the practical aspects of the Buddhist path to Awakening, the Abhidhamma Pitaka provides a theoretical framework to explain the causal underpinnings of that very path. In Abhidhamma philosophy the familiar psycho-physical universe (our world of “trees” and “rocks,” “I” and “you”) is distilled to its essence: an intricate web of impersonal phenomena and processes unfolding at an inconceivably rapid pace from moment to moment, according to precisely defined natural laws.
List of Tipitaka Books Published
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Kannada Tipitaka Translation Project
Tipitaka is in pali language and in different scripts. As such the Venerable Acharya Buddharakkhita was the Founder President of Mahabodhi Society, Bangalore. He came to Bangalore in 1956 June and started many spiritual, humanitarian and medical activities. As a part of spiritual program he started giving dhamma discourses lectures. He was a scholar and Tipitakaacharya, studied in Sri Lanka and partcipated in the ChattaSangaayana as an Editor in 1956. His Dhamma mission was so great from the day one he started Pariyatti, Patipatti and Pativedha. He was a great writer and author also.
He started Buddha Vachana Trust in 1965. He wrote and published many Dhamma books through this Trust. He started a monthly magazine titled Swayam Sahayaieself help which is the aim and motto of Buddhism. Because he knew that there are no Tipitaka Translations in Indian regional languages except in Hindi. So he initiated a great project of translating and publishing the Tipitakas into Kannada language. The program started in 1984.
It was a big task. First of all to train people who can understand Buddha Dhamma and Pali language. So he selected a few of his upasakas and started training them in Dhamma and Translation work. During that time there was no Pali text available in kannada script. So first of all we have to write the Pali original in kannada script and read in front of BuddharakkhitaBhante. He will compare it with the original pali text then approve Many corrections, again the final work. Sutta after Sutta we wrote in kannada script. Mr H V Srirangaraj, B V Rajaram, J Sreenivasa Murthy, H S Shivaprakash and B N Chandraiah. Were the team members, the first five were at translation work. Venerable Acharya Buddharakkhita Thera was the Editor in chief and H V Srirangaraj and others were given one text each of 25 suttas to translate with the help of English Translations – published by Pali Text Society, London and to be read and approved both in letters and meaning by Acharya ji. It was a tough time to decide the meanings of the Pali words. So some rules, norms were discussed in the sittings of reading and were incorporated in translations. Translating a text is a another type of creative work which needs a lot of knowledge in the kannada language, The grammer of constructing a sentence, conveying the correcting meaning, readability and the poetry and prose constructions and many things that goes into the work.
H V Srirangaraju was in Govt. service and a good writer. B.V. Rajaram was a MA in Kannada and MA in Sanskrit, J Sreenivasa Murthy was a Sanskrit scholar, a lecturer in Sanskrit in MES College and Good writer in kannada. H S Shivaprakash was a good poet and a kannada Lecturer in Govt. College. Dr B N Chandraiah was a Hindi Lecturer in Govt. College. It was a good and dedicated
team which worked under the guidance of Venerable Acharya. It was not easy to work with Badabhante. He was a task master. Every day we have to report to him about the progress. If he is not satisfied about the words used or the construction of the sentence and any other mistake he used to make us re-write. It was all hand writing, hundreds of pages to written and re-written. He was telling that this is a pioneering work and work of Dhamma .So there should not be any mistake or wrong communication of Dhamma. Let us not hurry to complete the work. First you should understand the Dhamma in the sutta, then only you can communicate through words to public. Firstly HVS took to translate DighaNikaya. Majjima Nikaya first 25 suttas. JSM the 26 to 50 suttas of M N. HSS from 51 to 75 suttas of MN. BNM Jataka stories. Like this we were able to complete 13 volumes of 750 pages each. In the printed book – Left side page contains original Pali text and facing right page correspondingly the kannada translation. Bhante had the idea of the seeker of truth should be able to read the pali in original – the words of Bhagawan Buddha.
There are about over 100 volumes of Pali-Tipitaka only. The Atthakatha, Tika and Anya totaling about over 450 volumes. Now MBS -BVT has completed about 30 volumes. The work is going on. After seeing the Kannada Tipitaka Translation Project one Upasaka Mr. Anjaneya Reddy from Hyderabad took interest to do Telugu translations. 13 volumes have been done in Telugu. (List is attached)
The first writing getting ok from Bada Bhante and getting it hand composed, proof reading, printing and publishing all the works were supervised by B.V Rajaram under the guidance of Ven. Acharyaji. For that purpose Mahabodhi Printing Press was established by Acharyaji. It was difficult to publish due to lack of finance. The first set of 13 volumes were published by MBS-BVT, Bangalore with their finance. Then Ven. Acharyaji and Mr HV Srirangaraj approched the Govt. to help. After a long exercise at the Govt. level they agreed to give us some definite amount of grant. That is we have to print the 1000 copies and supply 500 copies to Govt. then submit the bill and get the amount back. Again it was a stressful exercise. But the Govt. of Karnataka, financial assistance was there in support of this Tipitaka printing and publishing project. Govt. of Andhra Pradesh also gave financial support for the Telugu project on the basis of Karnataka Govt. grant.
The Sacred Buddha Vachana has to be brought in all the Indian languages as Buddhism is being practiced by many Vipassana Meditation and Research Centre at Igatpuri, Maharashtra state established by Meditation Master Sri. Satyanarayana Goenka has greatly contributed in promoting and propagating Pali-Tipitakas by making Pali original text available in many Indian scripts. Now MBS -BVT project is using these kannadapali scripts of Vipassana Research Centre and Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi’s english translation to grasp the meaning.
After the passing away of Venerable Acharya BuddharakkhitaMahathera in 2013 at his 93rd years of age, Ven. KassspaThera President of MBS and Ven. Bhikkhu Ananda, Gen. Secretary of MBS, Bengaluru, are taking the lead to do the work. They are the Editors now for this project. This is an on-going project which needs financial support to take Buddha Vachana to public. These volumes are given free as Dhammadana to genuine seekers of truth and readers. Now, we have a different translating team of about 12 members who are at translation work in kannada. Sri. Molakalmur Srinivas Murthy, Sr. S. Narasimahaiah, Prof. Mohan Habbu, Sri. Ramachandra S Habbu, Sri. Uday Kumar Habbu, Sri. Muniyal Ganesh Sheynoy, Sri. Aneesh Bodh, Smt. Rukmini Girimaji, Sr. Arun Kumar Habbu, Dr. MudnakuduChinnaswamy and Sri Parshuram. This is a brief detail about the Kannada Tipitaka Translation project.