TripiṠaka

(Sanskrit; Pāli, Tipiṭaka). ‘Three baskets’. Collective name for the Buddhist canon, which consists of a threefold collection of sacred texts, namely: (1) the Sūtra Piṭaka (Pāli, Sutta Piṭaka) or ‘Basket of Discourses’; (2) the Vinaya Piṭaka or ‘Basket of Monastic Discipline’; and (3) the Abhidharma Piṭaka (Pāli, Abhidhamma Piṭaka) or ‘Basket of Higher Teachings’. According to tradition, the composition of the Tripiṭaka was determined at the Council of Rājagṛha in the year of the Buddha's death, although some schools (notably the Theravāda) maintain that only the first two divisions were established at this time. The tradition that the canon was fixed at this early date is unlikely to be correct since there is internal evidence of evolution and change within the three collections. The third in particular shows the greatest variation, suggesting that it is the latest of the three. Each of the early schools (see Eighteen Schools of Early Buddhism) preserved its own version of the Tripiṭaka, and the only one that survives intact is the canon of the Theravāda school in the Pāli language. By the end of the 1st century ce all the different versions had been committed to writing in a variety of Indian languages and dialects. Only fragments of these originals remain, although longer extracts have survived in Chinese translations. While the early schools regarded the canon as closed, the Mahāyāna believed that it was still open and continued to incorporate new literature for over a thousand years after the death of the Buddha. New sūtras, śāstras, and finally tantric compositions were incorporated and given canonical status, with the result that in the Chinese and Tibetan Tripiṭakas the threefold structure breaks down. The Tibetan canon, for example, reflects essentially a twofold structure being divided into the Kanjur (Tibetan, bka'-'gyur), or word of the Buddha (over 100 volumes), and the Tenjur (bstan-'gyur), or commentarial literature (over 200 volumes). See also Chinese Tripiṭaka; Taishō; Tripiṭaka Koreana.

Literally the “Triple Basket” in Sanskrit, the TripiṠaka is the collection of Buddhist (see Buddhism) texts traditionally kept in three baskets. The collection differs according to the Buddhist sect (see Xuanzang).