SUTTA PITAKA

( (Pali: Basket of Discourse), ) Sanskrit Sutra Pitaka, extensive body of texts constituting the basic law, or doctrinal, section of the Buddhist canonproperly speaking, the canon of the so-called Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) doctrinal schools, including the Theravada (Way of the Elders) form of Buddhism predominant in present-day Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and Southeast Asia. The contents of the Sutta Pitaka are attributed, with few exceptions, to the Gautama Buddha himself. The schools whose works were written in Sanskrit divided this body of literature into four collections, called Agamas. Roughly comparable collections, called Nikayas, comprise the Pali texts of the Theravada school, but with a fifth group addedthe Khuddaka Nikaya (q.v.; Short Collection). The other four Nikayas are as follows: 1. Digha Nikaya (Long Collection; Sanskrit Dirghagama), 34 long suttas including doctrinal expositions, legends, and moral rules. The first, the Brahmajala (Divine Net) Sutta, renowned and much quoted, deals with fundamental Buddhist doctrines and with rival philosophies and tells much about everyday life and religious practices of the period. The Ambattha (a personal name) Sutta denounces the principles of caste and the pretensions of Brahmins. The Mahanidana (Great Origin) Sutta gives the fullest canonical treatment of the doctrine of dependent origination, or the chain of causation. The famous Mahaparinibbana Sutta (Discourse on the Great Final Extinctioni.e., the Buddha's release from the round of rebirths), one of the oldest texts in the canon (though containing later interpolations), narrates the activities and teachings of the Buddha's last year and describes his death. The Sigalovada (a personal name) Sutta, the only one of these discourses directly addressed to laymen, is a comprehensive treatment of domestic and social ethics. 2. Majjhima Nikaya (Medium Collection; Sanskrit Madhyamagama), 152 suttas, some of them attributed to disciples, covering nearly all aspects of Buddhism. Included are texts dealing with monastic life, the excesses of asceticism, the evils of caste, Buddha's debates with the Jains, and meditation, together with basic doctrinal and ethical teachings and many legends and stories. 3. Samyutta Nikaya (Cluster Collection; Sanskrit Samyuktagama), a total of 7,762 individual suttas, some quite brief, arranged more or less by subject matter into 56 samyuttas, or clusters. The best known of these is the Dhammacakkappavattana-sutta (Discourse on the Turning of the Wheel of the Law), which contains the Buddha's first sermon. 4. Anguttara Nikaya (Item-more Collection; Sanskrit Ekottarikagama), a numerical arrangement, for mnemonic purposes, of 9,557 terse suttas. Its first nipata (group) contains suttas dealing with single things, such as the mind or the Buddha; the suttas in the second nipata speak of pairse.g., 2 kinds of sin; in the third there are triplets; and so on up to 11. Examples are the 3 praiseworthy acts, the 4 places of pilgrimage, the 5 obstacles, the 6-fold duty of a monk, 7 kinds of wealth, 8 causes of earthquake, 9 types of person, 10 objects of contemplation, and 11 kinds of happiness.