DESCRIPTION

The first session of this course presents the traditional Buddhist account of the origin of sutras and the creation of the Buddhist Canon. It should be noted that the Buddhist canon as a whole, also called the Tipiṭaka or Tripiṭaka, consists of three divisions: Vinaya (’discipline’), Sūtras, and Abhidharma (’metaphysics’ and/or commentary). This course focuses exclusively on sūtras.

PART ONE: THE FIRST COUNCIL

Shortly after the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha, Mahākāśyapa presided over the First Council of Elders in a cave near Rājagṛha. The former barber, Upāli, recalled all the disciplinary rules established by the Buddha and the occasions which led to him doing so. Śāriputra would recall the ‘higher wisdom’ that was taught to him by the Buddha upon his return from Trāyastriṃśas Heaven after the rainy season retreats. And it was Ānanda, the Buddha’s young cousin who had attended or heard about every teaching the Buddha ever gave, and who was gifted with a perfect memory, who recalled all the sutras.

There are six traditional characteristic features of any sutra. All sutras begin Evaṁ me sutaṁ—ekaṁ samayaṁ bhagavā…

1. That is was ‘Thus’ - Evaṁ, attesting to the accuracy of the account
2. That ‘I heard’ - me sutaṁ, there is a rapporteur (an ‘ear witness’)
3. That ‘Once’ - ekaṁ samayaṁ, the time
4. That is was ‘the Buddha’ - Bhagavā, the World-Honored One
5. The location is then given - from Śrāvastī to the Tuṣita Heaven
6. Then there is a description of the assembly - from five to five hundred, to five asaṃkhyeyas

PART TWO: THE CANONS

There are three primary canons of Buddhist texts in the world today containing sutras:

• The ‘Pāḷi Canon’ - This is a canon of Buddhist texts preserved in the Pāli language (in a variety of scripts) maintained by the Theravāda traditions of Southeast Asia. It contains thousands of sutras that range vastly in length. They are considered to be the oldest and most original teachings of the Buddha. All the primary texts of the Pali canon have been translated into English multiple times. The sutras are grouped into five divisions, called nikāyas or āgamas, which are also subdivided into smaller groups of sutras called vaggas:
• Dīgha - Long Discourses
• Majjhima - Middle Length Discourses
• Samyutta - Connected Discourses
• Anguttara - Increasing Discourses
• Khuddaka - Minor Discourses

• The ‘Taisho Canon’ - This is an abbreviation for Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, a definitive, 100-volume edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon initiated by the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Tokyo Imperial University and published from 1880 to 1885. This canon was complied from numerous versions of the Chinese canon from different historic periods. It includes all of the sutras found in the above Pāli canon in Chinese translations dating from the early centuries of the common era, along with an even larger corpus of additional Mahāyāna and Vajrayana sutras. A fraction of the Taisho Canon has been translated into English, with some sutras, such as the Lotus Sutra, being translated many times. The sutras in this canon are grouped as roughly follows:
• Āgama sūtras - corresponding to the Pali Canon
• Birth Story sūtras
• Prajñāpāramitā sūtras
• Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra (Lotus Sutra) and related sūtras.
• Avataṃsaka and related sūtras
• Mahāratnakūṭa collection and related sūtras
• Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra and related sūtras  
• Mahāsannipāta collection and related sūtras
• Sūtrasannipāta (’Misc’ sūtras)
• Esoteric sūtras
• The ‘Kangyur Canon’ - This is the term used for the Tibetan Buddhist Canon maintained by the Tibetan Buddhist traditions in the Tibetan language. It contains, more or less, the same sutras as the Chinese canon, with similar divisions, often translated from versions found in the above Chinese canon. The research, study, and translation of the Kangyur Canon is an on-going project and the state of the canon is still in flux.

* There is also a Nepalese canon that is very important for modern Buddhist studies scholarship since it contains many surviving Sanskrit manuscripts of important sutras. There is also a Mongolian Buddhist canon, which is mostly a translation from the Tibetan canon into Classical Mongolian.

PART THREE: ORAL VS. TEXTUAL TRADITIONS

While it does appear that Buddhist sutras were likely preserved through an oral tradition of spoken exchange for centuries before eventually being preserved in various scripts and languages, it is important to understand that sutras are, in and of themselves, deliberately constructed poetic narratives that recycle ‘stock’ structures and content, and which use names as odd, almost second-person explicative punctuation marks that can draw the listener or reader into a hypnotic meditative state. In that sense, they can be read not as ‘records of past events’ but as events themselves when properly understood.

Suggested Reading

📖 Steven Collins, “On the very idea of the Pali Canon” Journal of the Pali Text Society, XV (1990), p. 89-126

Bibliography

Lewis R. Lancaster, ed., The Korean Buddhist Canon: A Descriptive Catalogue (Center for Korean Studies, UC Berkeley; 1980)

Paul Hackett, A Catalogue of the Comparative Kangyur (bka' 'gyur dpe bsdur ma) (Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences) American Institute of Buddhist Studies; 2013