Buddhist texts
Buddhist texts are religious texts that belong to, or are associated with, Buddhism and its traditions. There is no single textual collection for all of Buddhism. Instead, there are three main Buddhist Canons: the Pāli Canon of the Theravāda tradition, the Chinese Buddhist Canon used in East Asian Buddhist tradition, and the Tibetan Buddhist Canon used in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.[1]
The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha.[2] The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, found in Afghanistan and written in Gāndhārī, they date from the first century BCE to the third century CE.[3] The first Buddhist texts were initially passed on orally by Buddhist monastics, but were later written down and composed as manuscripts in various Indo-Aryan languages (such as Pāli, Gāndhārī, and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit).[1] These texts were collected into various collections and translated into other languages such as Buddhist Chinese (fójiào hànyǔ 佛教漢語) and Classical Tibetan as Buddhism spread outside of India.[1]
Buddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized into canonical, commentarial, and pseudo-canonical. Buddhist traditions have generally divided these texts with their own categories and divisions, such as that between buddhavacana "word of the Buddha," many of which are known as "sutras", and other texts, such as "shastras" (treatises) or "Abhidharma".[1][4][5]
These religious texts were written in different languages, methods and writing systems. Memorizing, reciting and copying the texts was seen as spiritually valuable. Even after the development and adoption of printing by Buddhist institutions, Buddhists continued to copy them by hand as a present authenticity exercise and spiritual practice [6]
In an effort to preserve these scriptures, Asian Buddhist institutions were at the forefront of the adoption of Chinese technologies related to bookmaking, including paper, and block printing which were often deployed on a large scale. Because of this, the first surviving example of a printed text is a Buddhist charm, the first full printed book is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra (c. 868) and the first hand colored print is an illustration of Guanyin dated to 947.[7]
Buddhavacana[edit]
The concept of buddhavacana (word of the Buddha) is important in understanding how Buddhists classify and see their texts. Buddhavacana texts have special status as sacred scripture and are generally seen as in accord with the teachings of the historical Buddha, which is termed "the Dharma". According to Donald Lopez, the criteria for determining what should be considered buddhavacana were developed at an early stage, and that the early formulations do not suggest that Dharma is limited to what was spoken by the historical Buddha.[8]
The Mahāsāṃghika and the Mūlasarvāstivāda considered both the Buddha's discourses and those of his disciples to be buddhavacana.[8] A number of different beings such as Buddhas, disciples of the Buddha, ṛṣis, and devas were considered capable to transmitting buddhavacana.[8] The content of such a discourse was then to be collated with the sūtras, compared with the Vinaya, and evaluated against the nature of the Dharma.[9][10] These texts may then be certified as true buddhavacana by a buddha, a sangha, a small group of elders, or one knowledgeable elder.[9][10]
In Theravāda Buddhism, the standard collection of buddhavacana is the Pāli Canon, also known as the Tripiṭaka ("three baskets"). Generally speaking, the Theravāda school rejects the Mahāyāna sūtras as buddhavacana (word of the Buddha), and do not study or see these texts as reliable sources.[11] In East Asian Buddhism, what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Chinese Buddhist canon; the most common edition of this is the Taishō Tripiṭaka, itself based on the Tripiṭaka Koreana. This collection, unlike the Pāli Tripiṭaka, contains Mahāyāna sūtras, Śāstras (scholastic treatises), and Esoteric Buddhist literature.
According to Venerable Hsuan Hua from the tradition of Chinese Buddhism, there are five types of beings who may speak the sutras of Buddhism: a Buddha, a disciple of a Buddha, a deva, a ṛṣi, or an emanation of one of these beings; however, they must first receive certification from a buddha that its contents are true Dharma.[12] Then these sutras may be properly regarded as buddhavacana.[12] Sometimes texts that are considered commentaries by some are regarded by others as buddhavacana.[13]
In Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Kangyur ('The Translation of the Word'). The East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist Canons always combined buddhavacana with other literature in their standard collected editions. However, the general view of what is and is not buddhavacana is broadly similar between East Asian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan Kangyur, which belongs to the various schools of Tibetan Vajrayāna Buddhism, in addition to containing sutras and Vinaya, also contains Buddhist tantras and other related Tantric literature.
Mahāyāna texts[edit]
Mahāyāna sūtras[edit]
See Mahāyāna sūtras for historical background and a list of some sutras categorised by source.
