Talk:Pali Canon

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Some bullshit about Aleph a.k.a Aum Shinrikyou is the only gropu to have performed translation into modern language. Firstly, Pali Text Society has done entire translation though they have not published all of it in books format due to financial reason. Secondly, Japanese translation was done waaaaaaaay before. The title is "南伝大蔵経". FWBOarticle 06:21, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If a text has been translated but hasn't been published then it is essentially not available and regardless of the reasons, that transaction hasn't happened since no one's been a beneficiary of it. Stevenmitchell 17:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

In any case it's not true. PTS has published, and keeps in print, translations of about 3/4 of the Canon. It has no translations unpublished for financial reasons. Peter jackson 11:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

What is this "myth" about manuscripts kept in baskets? Is it a purely western myth or does it actually occur in the tradition? The term pitaka in an obviously scriptural sense is found in inscriptions of the second century BC, i.e. before the writing down of the texts. Peter jackson 17:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Pali Canon 2 Post-canonical Pali texts 3 Forms of names 4 Abhidhamma 5 flowing sentences 6 Wiki style

[edit] Pali Canon

Is it a Buddhist scripture??

Yes. Ashibaka (tock) 08:36, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Post-canonical Pali texts

The article "Pali literature" is redirected here so, instead of overwriting that redirection, I thought it best for now to include in this article on the "Pali canon" a paragraph on non-canonical Pali texts. If however someone wants to move this information to a different article, etc., feel free! And I apologize ahead of time if my inclusion of this material here offends anyone. LarryR 03:56, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Forms of names

If I understand right, Wikipedia policy is that entries should be under the commonest form used in English. Here are the results of Google search for divisions of the Canon.

Vinaya-Pitaka, Sutta Pitaka, Abhidhamma Pitaka.

Digha-Nikaya, Majjhima Nikaya, Samyutta Nikaya, Anguttara Nikaya, Khuddaka Nikaya/Khuddaka-Nikaya (equal).

What are we supposed to do about this? Peter jackson 09:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abhidhamma

an anonymous use added: No early scool of Buddhism is known not to have had an Abhidhamma Pitaka As far as I understand, the Mahasanghikas did not have a Abhidhamma, or at least that is what user:Stephen Hodge told me if I remember correctly. Any opinions on this? Greetings, Sacca 02:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm obviously still not sufficiently familiar with how this system works. I thought my changes got automatically signed in the history, but that doesn't seem to have happened in this case for some reason. It has certainly been said, e.g. by Lance Cousins, that the Mahasanghikas had no abhidhamma, but I don't know of any proof of this. On the contrary, the translation of Fa-hsien says he acquired a copy of it. Personally, I don't want all this stuff cluttering up this article, but we haven't been able to agree on a simpler formulation. If we could manage that, I'd prefer to move most of it to subarticles. What I'm concerned to avoid is any wording that seems to suggest that there's some sort of inner Canon of the original teaching, to which later material has been added. No such sharp distinction can be established. Peter jackson 09:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right, a sharp distinction cannot be established, but: a distinction can be established. I read the 2004 Macmillan encyclopedia of Buddhism on its abhidharma entry, and it mentions this information also:

In the centuries after the death of the Buddha, with the advent of settled monastic communities, there emerged new forms of religious praxis and modes of transmitting and interpreting the teaching... ...Although begun as a pragmatic method of elaborating the received teachings, this scholastic enterprise soon led to new doctrinal and textual developments and became the focus of a new form of scholarly monastic life... ...The products of this scholarship became revered tradition in their own right, eventually eclipsing the dialogues of the Buddha and of his disciples as the arbiter of the true teaching In the next paragraph the writer says this enterprise was called abhidharma.

These sentences are not to be included in the article, I copied two small parts of the introduction to the article (by COLLETT COX), just to show that this information is an accepted viewpoint according to the Macmillan 2004 enyclopedia of Buddhism. I would like some mention of this information to remain, as I believe it's quite fundamental knowledge, relevant to people who want to know about the Pali Canon or the Tipitaka.

By the way, the entry on Abhidharma in this Macmillan encyclopedia takes 7 (A4) pages. The encyclopedia itself is well done I believe, and it gives some very detailed maps also. It's a pdf-file. Greetings, Sacca 15:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

This point of view is mentioned in the article as it stands. So is the alternative (Cousins/Gethin) one. What I want the article to make clear is that all books of the Canon evolved over a long period of time and that the details of this evolution are often obscure but that some books can be said to have earlier or later average dates than others (and it would say which ones). If you're happy with that way of putting it then I can start transferring most of the details to separate articles on books of the Canon. I assume it will be easy to find out from the system how to do this. Is that what they call transclusion? Peter jackson 17:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I would be happy with that. I think some info can go, and some info can stay. Just the very basic notions can be mentioned here, with more details on the individual pages. I don't know what transclusion is, I am not familiar with it. I liked the previous desciption of the Abhidhamma that you deleted, I think it was very NPOV, didn't make any claim about Adhidhamma just says that it aims at something. And the idea that it's based on some earlier methodology can be incorporated into it.

from old version, description of abhidhamma pitaka

The third category, the Abhidhamma Pitaka (literally "beyond the dhamma", "higher dhamma" or "special dhamma", Sanskrit: Abhidharma Pitaka), is a collection of texts which attempt to identify the underlying doctrinal principles presented in the Sutta Pitaka, and rework and reorganize these into a systematic philosophical description of the nature of mind, matter and time. There are seven books in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.

Greetings, Sacca 00:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

You still don't seem to have got the point. The Cousins/Gethin view of abhidhamma is that it's not an attempt to systematize the ideas of the suttas, but a different approach. Anyway, I'll rewrite the origins section now and sort out the rest when I have time. Peter jackson 09:24, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, so that's their view. But what if it is both? One doesn't have to exclude the other. For me they can go together, they can both be true as far as can see: an attempt to systematize, using a different approach. These do not exclude eachother; they can very well go together.

Maybe Cousins and Gethin think the same group of persons (Buddha or later monks) wrote both the Suttapitaka and Abhidhamma, and they believe the SP and AP have the same amount of authenticity? Do they think the Buddha had anything to do with the Suttas? And what about the Buddha's involvement with the Abhidhamma? How do they explain the quite fundamental differences between the Abhidhammas? Their views seems a bit unlikely to me.

Don't tell me I don't seem to have gotten the point, please... You can use that one only once a week and you're past your quota already. ;-) Greetings, Sacca 09:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it might be both, but it might not, as well. You can't simply say it is (an attempt at) a systematization unless you can show a consensus of scholars on the point, which I don't think you can. I think it's very important to keep clearly in mind the idea of the evolution of the teachings. Lance Cousins' view, as I understand it, is that the suttas and vinaya are indeed, on average, older than the abhidhamma, but that the (or some) basic ideas of the abhidhamma go back to early times and evolved differently in different lineages. Lance also thinks that attempts to stratify the earlier material are not establishable with our present state of knowledge. He also thinks that the dates of things are not of fundamental importance because of the principle of accepting teachings that harmonize with what's already there.

Now, the more general matter. You asked for a citation for the stratification. I doubt that's possible, as scholars tend not to go in for such simplistic formulations. If we stick to the principle of citation literally, as perhaps we're meant to, then the whole business looks likely to be either very complicated ro excessively simple. Either we can clutter up the article with all sorts of detailed discussion of historical evidence and scholarly opinions, leaving very little space to tell people about the Canon itself, or we can leave out the historical material altogether. Perhaps we should have a separate article for it. I think they do things like that for the Bible. Peter jackson 09:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] flowing sentences

hello, some parts of the article are now almost only composed of short quotes from scholars. Generally short sentences with a reference. It doesn't give a natural impression, it's just fact after fact after fact, there's no flow to the text... I think we need to look at this, and try to make the sentences a bit longer, combine sentences, make it nice to read.Greetings, Sacca 12:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. However, there's only so much time. I'm doing one thing at a time. I've just been adding these scholars' opinions as I find them. The next stage is to try to see how to combine all these statements into a fair summary of scholarly opinion that reads better and preferably shorter. I can get on with that next,when I have time, unless you think there are some important scholarly opinions I haven't come across. Peter jackson 15:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiki style

Guidelines say avoid links in summary section. Peter jackson 16:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Is what I say above wrong? The last edits ignore it. Peter jackson 09:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)