Sutta Pitaka The Basket of Suttas*

Sutta Pitaka
The Basket of Suttas
© 2005–2013

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. More than one thousand sutta translations are available on this website.

The suttas are grouped into five nikayas, or collections:


Digha Nikaya

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
PTS: D ii 253
Maha-samaya Sutta: The Great Meeting

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.20.0.than.html

to down-to-earth practical meditation instructions ...

(DN 22)
Maha-satipatthana Sutta: The Great Frames of Reference
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.22.0.than.html

and everything in between. Recent scholarship suggests that a distinguishing trait of the Digha Nikaya may be that it was "intended for the purpose of propaganda, to attract converts to the new religion." [1]

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/index.html

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Majjhima Nikaya

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)


MN 1
Mulapariyaya Sutta: The Root Sequence

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.001.than.html


to engaging stories full of human pathos and drama that illustrate important principles of the law of kamma (e.g., MN 57, MN 86).

MN 57 Kukkuravatika Sutta: The Dog-duty Ascetic
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.001.than.html

MN 86
Angulimala Sutta: About Angulimala
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.086.than.html

READ MORE
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/index.html

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Samyutta Nikaya

The "Grouped" Discourses (Pali samyutta = "group" or "collection") consists of 2,889 relatively short suttas grouped together by theme into 56 samyuttas.

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/index.html

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Anguttara Nikaya

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.

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/index.html

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FUTURE LINKS BELOW


Khuddaka Nikaya

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

Petavatthu — Stories of the Hungry Ghosts

Theragatha — Verses of the Elder Monks

Therigatha — Verses of the Elder Nuns

Jataka — Birth Stories

JATAKA TALES OF THE BUDDHA PART II

JATAKA TALES OF THE BUDDHA PART III

JATAKA TALES OF THE BUDDHA PART IV

JATAKA TALES OF THE BUDDHA PART V

See Also at the Khuddakapatha ...
Niddesa — Exposition -
Patisambhidamagga — Path of Discrimination
Apadana — Stories
Khuddakapatha — The Short Passages


Sutta Pitaka The Basket of Suttas

Notes

1.
Bhikkhu Bodhi, Connected Discourses of the Buddha (Somerville, Mass.: Wisdom Publications, 2000), p.31, referring to Joy Manné's "Categories of Sutta in the Pali Nikayas and Their Implications for Our Appreciation of the Buddhist Teaching and Literature," Journal of the Pali Text Society 15 (1990): 29-87.

See also: "Befriending the Suttas: Tips on Reading the Pali Discourses"

Provenance:©2005 John T. Bullitt.
Prepared by jtb for Access to Insight.
This Access to Insight edition is ©2005–2013
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Sutta Pitaka
The Basket of Suttas
© 2005–2013

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