THE TRIPITAKA

The Tripitaka, or The Three Baskets, is the the Buddhist canon.  It consists of the basic documents of Buddhism collected, collated, and edited (and sometimes expanded) by the Buddha's disciples. 

Some scholars believe that the Tripitaka achieved near-final form within a century of the Buddha's death, while others are convinced that it represents a slow accumulation and editing.  There are, however, parts of the collection that are the actual words of the Buddha himself, albeit more or less changed.

The Tripitaka covers a wide range of material, with some of the texts being ancient, insofar as they are in an archaic form of Pali.  Other texts date from more recent  periods.  Not only do they report sermons and sayings of the Buddha and many incidents in his life, some obviously fanciful, but they also include numerous directives for living.  They also consist of  parables, fables, proverbs, aphorisms, songs, and stories, many of great literary, artistic, cultural, and sociological value. 

The baskets are:  Conduct (Vinaya), Discourses (Sutta), and Supplementary Doctrines (Abdhidhamma).  The Vinaya Pitaka is mostly codes of disciplines for the men and women who entered the Sangha, the Buddhist Brotherhood.  The Sutta Pitaka, by far the most interesting and significant, contains discourses, dialogues, many talks, conferences and sermons of the Buddha and his followers. The Abdhidhamma Pitaka is a highly complex later collection of seven works dealing with Buddhist metaphysics, psychology (one section lists and defines over three hundred different human types), answers to common questions raised by the faithful, and refutations of unorthodox teachings.

Much of what the Buddha said was taken down by his favorite disciple Ananda, this according to the text itself.  The style is plainly indicative of direct preaching to the public, and the material includes parables, allegories, stories, and poetic matter, with much repetition for emphasis.  In the Sutta Pitaka are also many works called Jatakas, which are accounts of the lives of other Buddhas.  Found here as well, the famous Dhammapada, a concise collection of the Buddha's sayings. The Dhammapada may not contain the actual words of the Buddha, but it does embody the spirit of his teachings as recalled by the first generation of disciples.