SUTRA

(Sanskritthread) Pali sutta in Hinduism, a brief, aphoristic composition; in Buddhism, a more extended exposition, the basic form of the scriptures of both the Theravada (Way of Elders) and Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) traditions. The early Indian philosophers did not work with written texts and later often disdained the use of them; thus, there was a need for explanatory works of the utmost brevity that could be committed to memory. The earliest sutras were expositions of ritual procedures, but their use spread. Panini's grammatical sutras (5th6th century BC) became in many respects a model for later compositions. All the Indian philosophical systems (except the Samkhya, which had its karikas, or doctrinal verses) had their own sutras, most of which were preserved in writing early in the Christian Era. Different from its usages in Hindu literature, the Buddhist sutra denotes a doctrinal work, sometimes of considerable length, in which a particular point of doctrine is propounded and deliberated. The most important collection of the Theravada sutras is to be found in the Sutta section of the Pali canon, which contains the discourses attributed to the Gautama Buddha. In Mahayana Buddhism the name sutra is applied to expository texts.