abhidhamma basket
The final “basket” of the tripitaka is the abhidhamma pitaka. this translates as the basket of higher doctrine and does not contain any direct teaching of the buddha dharma. Instead, it contains commentary, analysis, and discussion of the teachings of the Buddha and the philosophy of Buddhism. believers say it describes reality, time and matter.
The contents of the Abhidhamma Pitaka are not commonly used or studied in Mahayana or Vajrayana Buddhism, but are held in high regard by both monks and laity in the Theravada tradition. for example, some of its contents are often sung at funeral ceremonies throughout the Theravada world. monks throughout Southeast Asia devote many hours of their lives to its study.
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first tripitakas
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The canon Pali version of the Tripitaka is the oldest Buddhist text. According to tradition, it contains the exact words of the Buddha and his first followers. however, it was not originally written. instead, it was passed down orally during the early centuries of Buddhism. It was finally written at the Fourth Buddhist Council, a major Theravada convention held in Sri Lanka around 25 BC.
The Mahayana tradition began to develop its canon around this same period. some scholars believe that it developed from some of the earliest separate schools of Buddhism that no longer exist today, with names such as mahasamghika, sarvastivada, sthavira, and sammitiya. These ancient schools of Buddhism were heavily influenced by the Tripitaka Pali canon used in Theravada Buddhism, but with slightly different texts and written in different languages, such as Sanskrit. Some of these ancient texts no longer exist in their original form, although translations are available in languages such as Chinese. many of these translations were compiled into the taisho tripitaka, a Japanese project to collect all extant texts of the Chinese Buddhist canon during the 1920s and 1930s.
famous tripitakas
tripitaka tablets at kuthodaw pagoda
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There are many famous translations of different versions of the Tripitaka. In addition to scholarly published works like the Taisho Tripitaka or the encyclopedic multi-volume sets of the Pali Canon found in Theravada monasteries worldwide, some versions of the Tripitaka take unique physical forms. For example, a Burmese translation of the Pali Canon has been compiled on 730 tablets, each encased in its stupa or monument, at Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay, Myanmar. The Tripitaka Koreana is a set of over 80,000 wooden blocks written in an ancient form of Korean. It was compiled nearly 800 years ago and is considered to be a complete set of the Korean language version of the Chinese Buddhist Canon. It is kept in a monastery in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula.
lesson summary
the tripitaka is the name of one of the main versions of the sacred scriptures of Buddhism. its original form is called the Pali canon and it is alleged that it contains the actual words of the Buddha himself, along with other texts. his name means “triple basket”. it is divided into three sections or baskets. These are the vinaya pitaka, which contains rules for monks, the traditional leaders of Buddhist believers; the sutta pitaka, which contains the dharma or teachings of the buddha, including famous works such as the dhammapada or the buddha exposition on the law, and the abhidhamma pitaka, which contains commentaries on dharma and has been described as the basket of philosophy due to its content.
the tripitaka has been published in many forms over the years. The Pali Canon followed by Theravada Buddhism still exists in its original form first compiled in the 1st century BC. Mahayana Buddhism follows a version of the Tripitaka called the Chinese Buddhist canon. the vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism has its version of the scriptures called the Tibetan Buddhist Canon and is complemented by many other texts. famous versions of the tripitaka include the tablets of the kuthodaw pagoda and the thousands of wooden blocks of the tripitaka koreana.
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