The Tipitaka (Pali: Tipiṭaka, “three baskets”) is the collection of the Buddha’s teachings preserved by the Theravāda tradition. It is written in Pali, a language closely related to the one the Buddha spoke. For more than two thousand years it has been memorised, chanted, copied and studied by monks and lay people across Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, and today it is read all over the world. This guide explains what is in it, how it reached us, and how a beginner can start reading.
The three baskets
The name “basket” may come from the way workers in ancient India passed baskets of earth from hand to hand — a fitting image for teachings handed down from teacher to student. The canon has three divisions:
- Vinaya Piṭaka — the discipline for monks and nuns: the training rules, the stories of how each rule came to be laid down, and the procedures that keep the Sangha in harmony.
- Sutta Piṭaka — the discourses of the Buddha and his leading disciples, arranged in five collections (Nikāyas): the long, the middle-length, the connected, the numerical and the minor collections.
- Abhidhamma Piṭaka — a systematic analysis of mind and matter in seven books, describing experience in precise, impersonal terms.
The Khuddaka Nikāya, the “minor” collection of the Sutta Piṭaka, holds some of the best-loved texts of all, including the Dhammapada, the Sutta Nipāta, the verses of the elder monks and nuns (Theragāthā and Therīgāthā), and the Jātaka tales of the Bodhisatta’s past lives.
The three councils
According to the Theravāda tradition, the teaching was preserved through a series of great recitations, or councils (saṅgīti, literally “chanting together”).
- The First Council was held at Rājagaha a few months after the Buddha’s passing, under the leadership of Venerable Mahākassapa. Five hundred arahants gathered. Venerable Upāli, the expert in discipline, recited the Vinaya, and Venerable Ānanda, the Buddha’s attendant who had heard so many of his talks, recited the discourses. This is why so many suttas begin “Thus have I heard” (evaṃ me sutaṃ).
- The Second Council met at Vesālī about a century later, to settle a dispute over a number of relaxed practices in monastic discipline. The assembled elders rejected them and recited the teaching again.
- The Third Council was held at Pāṭaliputta during the reign of Emperor Asoka, presided over by Venerable Moggaliputta Tissa. The tradition holds that the Kathāvatthu, a book of the Abhidhamma, was set out at this time. After the council, teachers were sent to many lands — among them Venerable Mahinda, Asoka’s son, who brought the Dhamma to Sri Lanka.
From memory to palm leaf
For centuries the canon was passed down orally. Groups of monks known as reciters (bhāṇakas) each specialised in memorising a particular collection, and group chanting helped catch any mistakes. This may sound fragile, but oral traditions of this kind were remarkably careful, and the repetitive style of the suttas — which can seem strange to a modern reader — is partly a memory aid.
In Sri Lanka, in the first century BCE, during a time of war and famine that threatened the survival of the reciting monks, the Sangha decided to write the teachings down. The canon, together with its commentaries, was inscribed on palm leaves at Aluvihāra, a rock temple near Matale, during the reign of King Vaṭṭagāmaṇī Abhaya. This is remembered as one of the earliest occasions on which the Buddha’s word was committed to writing, and it remains a treasured moment in Sri Lankan Buddhist history. Visitors to Aluvihāra today can still see monks preparing palm-leaf manuscripts.
Commentaries
Alongside the canon are the commentaries (aṭṭhakathā). Many were preserved for centuries in the Sinhala language at the Mahāvihāra in Anurādhapura. In the fifth century CE the great scholar Buddhaghosa came to Sri Lanka and rendered them into Pali, and he also wrote the Visuddhimagga, “The Path of Purification”, a classic summary of Theravāda practice. The commentaries explain difficult passages and preserve the background stories of many discourses, such as those told in the commentary to the Dhammapada.
How to start reading
- Begin with the Dhammapada. Its short verses can be read one at a time — try the opening twin verses.
- Move on to a few well-known suttas from the Majjhima Nikāya, such as the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta.
- Read a short sutta from the Saṃyutta or Aṅguttara Nikāya each day; many are only a page long.
- Use a good modern translation with notes, and do not be discouraged by repetition — read it slowly, as if hearing it chanted.
- Whenever possible, discuss what you read with a teacher or a study group at your local temple.
The Tipiṭaka is not meant to be consumed like a novel. It is a set of instructions for living and for freeing the mind, and its value appears when we put it into practice.
Where to start: the Dhammapada, then a few suttas from the Majjhima Nikāya. Read slowly — a short passage understood well is worth more than many pages skimmed.