The sacred book of Buddhism, in its beginnings arose from the oral tradition among the priests, they were transmitting the knowledge from one to another. They were later composed and performed in various Indo-Aryan dialects, reaching what is known today.
What is it?
The early Buddhist passages that make up the holy book of Buddhism were taught orally by early monastics in Indo-Aryan languages. After this they were put into writing and composed as scripts in various dialects of Asia. They can be categorized in various ways such as master texts, commentaries, and pseudo-canons. Coming from the oral tradition, many interpretations were made when writing them.
The customs of the Buddhists usually divide these texts with their own classes and partitions, such as the one in buddhavacana or word of Buddha, many of which are known as sutras and other texts, such as shastras or treatises or abhidharma. To learn more about this interesting topic you can read ¿how many books does the new testament have?
Mystical texts are drawn up in different languages and with different documents, and memorizing, reading and reproducing them are of great pious value to Buddhists. Even after the progress of printing, Buddhists chose to maintain their original practices with these texts. Of course, this practice does not prevent the printing of the texts, since there is always the fear of misrepresentation when reciting from memory.
Holy Book of Buddhism or buddhavacana
Since the recitation of the texts of the sacred book began, the criteria were established to know which ones should be seen as buddhavacana, these are very clear and unambiguous criteria that have existed since the beginning. The first definitions do not propose that the dharma is limited to what was spoken by the authentic Buddha.
El mahāsāṃghika and mūlasarvāstivāda They always took into account that both the word of the Lord Buddha as that of his followers were from Buddha. Different specific creatures, for example, the buddhas, the followers of the buda, rsis and devas they were distinguished as skilled in transmitting buddha yavacana. Although they dedicated their lives to the oral transmission of knowledge, it is certain that it was not recited faithfully and accurately.
The most relevant and substantial of these words had to be united with the elaboration of the differentiated sūtras and the vinaya, and compared in contrast to the idea of dharma. These transcribed texts can thus be confirmed as the obvious buddhavacana by a buda, Sangha, a sacred gathering of elders, or an elder of the highest level of wisdom.
For some time, many researchers on the subject have been confident that some parts of the Pali canon and agamas may have in their text the central and realistic idea of identifiable and verifiable lessons, even the word directly said by the teacher. Buddha. Few followers considered themselves fit to say the exact talk of the BuddhaThis is why there are so many different sutras.
In the practice of Buddhism in the East Asian area, when it comes to the text, they consider buddhavacana to be contained in the Chinese Buddhist pattern. The text of this version that has the greatest recognition is the taishō tripitaka. This was treated by the venerable hsuan hua From the convention of Chinese Buddhism, there are five kinds of creatures that can speak of the sutras of Buddhism.
These wise creatures are: a buda, a practitioner of a buddha, a deva, rsi or an expansion of these creatures; whatever consideration is made, they must seek to begin with the approval of a buddha where he certifies that his substance is the dharma genuine. It is at this time that the sutras could be considered a buddhavacana totally legitimate.
It is the case that when they pass the message, for some followers they are simple speeches about Buddhism, but for others, for some spiritual reason these messages are considered as buddhavacana. Those consider that they are listening directly to the teachings, and not an interpretation of them, they trust that they are the exact words of the Buddha.
The branch of Buddhism called Shingon built a structure that shared the instruction of the initial sutras to the Buddha gautama in its physical premise, from the sutras ekayana Budas as sambhoghakaya, and from the Vajrayana texts to Buddha as dharmakaya. From this combination was born one of the most used versions of the sacred book of Buddhism.
In the practice of Buddhism that is done in the Tibet, what is considered buddhavacana clumps into the kangyur. The Buddhist groups of Eastern Asia and the Tibet found a common point in the use of texts in the buddhavacana along with other sacred writings that are used in their most common versions.
A general idea of what the text does and does not represent has developed over time. buddhavakan, this sacred book of Buddhism is, in a very broad way, compared between the Buddhism of Eastern Asia and Tibetan Buddhism. The kangyur Tibetan, which has a place with the different schools of Tibetan Buddhism Vajrayana despite containing sutras and vinaya, it also contains trantras.
textual traditions
The most specific versions of the sacred book of Buddhism were passed orally from one generation to another, in different Indo-Aryan dialects, using means known by the name of prakrits, these versions included the Gāndhārī dialect, the magadhan Early and Pali, using reiteration, public recitation, and memory aids as a resource.
The texts strictly considered doctrines were protected in the books of abhidharma and a little later in the karikas, which are sayings articles. Buddhism is a practice that has spread throughout the world, this made these texts become the dialect of all, for example, Chinese and Tibetan. For the first time the worldwide practice of Buddhism began to be standardized in some way, a great effort was made to take the most relevant from each writing.
The Pali decree was enshrined in Sri Lanka, it is here that it was initially fixed in the main century BC and the written convention theravadan pali created there. The Pali Pact of Sri Lanka, contributed to the founding of great atthakatha publishing houses and furthermore, sub-discounts for the Pali canon and also treatises on abhidhamma.
Many analyzes have been made of the Sutra and the works of abhidharma, these can be found in dialects of the Tibet, Chinese, Korean and from other areas of the Eastern Asia. The so-called critical patterns of these unauthorized Pali texts are the visuddhimagga, buddhaghosa, which is a great summary of the lessons of Theravada and mahayamsa, a verifiable narrative of Sri Lanka.
There is knowledge of some original Buddhist copies in specific places, they were rescued from the ancient human advancement of Gandhara in the north of central pakistan, this is close to taxila, south west of the capital, Islamabad. They are dated to the XNUMXst century and comprise the literary custom of Buddhism Gandharan, which was a critical connection between Indian Buddhism and that of Eastern Asia.
After raising the calls kushans in the India, Sanskrit was widely used to make the written records of the holy book of Buddhism. The Sanskrit script used by Buddhists later became the predominant convention in the India until the decline of Buddhism in that country.
At the beginning of the so-called Christian period, another type of Sutra transcription was used, it began to be composed emphasizing the ideas of the Sutra. Bodhisattva, which was generally known as Mahayana or Incredible Vehicle Sutras. A significant number of the Mahayana sutras were composed in Sanskrit and later became the Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist ordinances. To learn more about religious issues you can read contributions of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
These ordinances are kangyur and taishō tripiṭaka Individually, at the time they were used, they were used to make their own narratives from the same sacred book of Buddhism. The Mahayana sutras are generally considered by scholars Mahayanists as the expression of Buddha, but transmitted either in mystery, through the ancestors of heavenly creatures.
An example of this is the nagas, these were clearly manifested from different Buddha or bodhisattvas. About six hundred Mahayana sutras were written in Sanskrit or Chinese and also in Tibetan interpretation. This variation of languages gave rise to different interpretations of the original oral tradition, which led to variations in the practice of religion.
In the Mahayana tradition there are critical texts known as shastras, or writings that strive to make a structure that contains the different lessons of the Sutra and protect or expand them. It was performed by rational imperative Buddhists such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu y Dharmakirti These are generally called shastras, and were composed in Sanskrit.
The awakening book of faith in the Mahayana, which is validated by the unwavering a asvaghosa, caused a great impact when presented at the Mahayana convention of Eastern Asia and triggered a series of criticisms composed by early Korean and Chinese Buddhist educators.
In the last years of the seventh century it was possible to appreciate the rise of another new type of Buddhist messages, the tantras, these gave shape to new practices of yogic ceremonies and methodology, for example, the use of mandalas, mudras and fire penances. . The Buddhist tantras are messages of entry into Vajrayana Buddhism, which is the type of Buddhism that prevails in the Tibet.
The segmentation of the texts in the so-called three standard yanas, can obscure the improvement procedure that followed, despite everything in these texts the usual characteristics of the sacred book of Buddhism are covered. For example, there are so-called proto-mahayana writings, or the sutra ajitasena, which lack the key points that relate to the Mahayana writings.
In some of the texts pali You can also find thoughts that later culminated in other Mahayana names. The garbhāvakrānti sutra is included in the vinaya pitaka for the musarvastivada, one of the first schools, as in the ratnakuta, a standard gathering of the Mahayana sutras.
Some of these Mahayana texts, according to scholars of the subject, could show a special tantric character, especially in a portion of the sutras that is shorter than the perfection of wisdom. A more primitive tantra, the mahavairocana abhisambodhi tantra, is also known as the Sutra of Mahavairocana. It is likely that some versions of the kangyur incorporate the heart sutra into the tantra division.
This content is not limited only to the adjoining yanas: at least 9 writings sravakayana Hinayana can be found in the tantra portions of some Tantra texts. kangyur. There is one in particular, the athanative Sutra, is also included in the division mikkyō obscure, from the current standard version of Chinese-Japanese Buddhist script. A variation of it is found in the digha nikaya of the Pali canon.
There are some Buddhist texts that were developed by virtual groups, and they are mentioned as vaipulya or expanded sutras. The Flower Garland Sutra is an example of these, it is a solitary sutra, made up of different sutras, many of which especially the Sutra of gandavyuha, are still independent writings.
In the practice of Tibetan Buddhism, there is a unique and rare type of text known as terma, in Tibetan it means gter-mamma. These are ceremonial items and other texts, admittedly crafted or covered up by tantric experts and further downloaded or encoded naturally into the components and recovered, arrived or rediscovered by other tantric chiefs at the time of placement.
The different termas were found by the tertöns in Tibetan means gTer-stons, who has the special ability to discover these writings. There are a class of termas that are concealed in sinkholes or points of comparison, however, a pair are said to be mental termas, found in the psyche of the terton.
At the convention of Bon and at school nyingma, there is a large number of terma texts. A large number of these texts in terma were made with the composition by padmasambhava, this is essential for Nyingmas. It is very likely that the best known content of the terma is the supposed Tibetan book of the dead, the bardo thodol.
Texts of the early Buddhist schools
As initially the tradition to preserve the knowledge of the holy book of Buddhism, was oral, many forms of the texts of the early Buddhist schools, the most important of the later gatherings of writings to survive, can be found in a Middle Indo-Aryan dialect is the tipitaka or triple box, from the school Theravadin.
You can find texts, which were alternative adaptations of the tripitakas, of the primitive schools, these incorporate the agamas, which in turn have incorporated the messages of the sarvastivada and the dharmauptaka. The Chinese Buddhist statute contains a complete accumulation of the early sutras in Chinese interpretation, its substance fundamentally the same as that of the Pali.
Both the Chinese and the Pali sutras have differences in detail but in the substance of their central doctrine they are the same. Some fragments of what is being considered to be the standard of the dharmauptaka, can be found in Gandharan Buddhist texts. Some of the earliest forms of vinaya pitaka, from different schools, are further preserved in the Mahayana Chinese canon.
vinaya
The way of carrying the text in vinaya is basically concerned with preserving the ascetic order. However, the vinaya as a definition stands out from the so-called dharma, where a coincidence can be noted, dhamma-vinaya, this means something like precept and control. The vinaya writing actually contains a large amount of writing.
Objections can always be found on the part of those who mention the regulations of religion, doubts about how the final text was reached, how it was created and if they were connected or not. Regardless of these arguments, the vinaya also contains some doctrinal pieces, formal and customary writings, anecdotal stories and some components of the jatakas or birth stories.
It cannot be understood as the main content that connects the vinaya, and the one that is used the most, the pratimoksha, is not in itself a text that is authorized in Theravada, despite the custom that every bit of it may very well be found in the standard. To know more about these topics you can read founder of buddhism.
It can be found in the sacred book of Buddhism, that six different finishing vinayas are supported, all of them with the same importance in the practice of Buddhism:
Theravada, written and reproduced in Pali.
Mule – Sarvāstivāda, written and reproduced in Sanskrit, despite this, it is complete only in its Tibetan version.
Mahāsānghika, Sarvāstivāda, Mahīshāsika, and Dharmagupta, at first it was performed in different Indian dialects, but still, the one used in the Chinese version.
In addition to those mentioned, several fragments have been made due to the existence of different vinayas in different dialects. is the Mahavastu constituted by the sub school lokottaravadin de mahāsānghika, was perhaps initially the prelude to his vinaya that ended up segregated; therefore, unlike handling the principles themselves, it appears as a complete account of the Buddha.
This story made in this way, can come to represent all its movements by means of ten bhumis, or phases. This method was later used by the Mahayana in an adjusted model such as Vasubandhu's Ten Stage Sutra.
Sutra
When speaking of the sutras that comes from the sanskrit pali sutta, these are mostly parts of talks that are attributed to Buddha or to one of its close instructions. All of these sutras, including the ones not actually spoken by him, are regarded as buddhavacana, the expression of the Buddha, in the same way that because of all the sanctioned writing.
The different talks attributed to the Buddha were initially considered as can be seen from the style in which they were transmitted. At first nine were considered, but a little later it was taken as twelve. The Sanskrit forms are:
sutra: expository conversations, specifically short explanatory conversations. The word spoken by the original Buddha.
Gaya: It is a shared exhibition and sectional conversation. It is related to the sagāthāvagga of the saṁyutta nikāya.
Vyakarana: justification, interrogation. Conversations are sent to others and replies are organized.
Gāthā: Unit. What a group of Buddhists, of any tendency, must achieve.
Udana: stimulating harangue. Learning the dogmas of religion.
Ityukta: beginning with in this way Bhagavân' has said.
Jātaka: tradition of a past life.
abhutadharma: about musings and situations that cannot be explained.
vaipulya or extended talks or those who give happiness, Mahayana texts.
nidana: in which the teachings are located within their birthplace contexts.
Avadana: adventure stories, teaching by example of life.
upadesha: differentiated and deliberate in the guidelines.
Each of the nine initials are in the records of each of the Imperishable Agamas, with the other three included in some later texts. On TheravadaHowever, they are treated as an arrangement of all the sacred texts, not simply suttas. The plan is also found in Mahayana writings. However, some time later another authoritative plan was forced into the ordinance, which is currently the best known.
Abhidharma
Abhidharma in Pali it is abhidhamma, this means more dharma, and he is mortified by the study of wonders. It was originally made from different arrangements of teachings, for example, the thirty-seven bodhipakshika – dharmas or the thirty-seven factors that push awakening. Abhidharma scripture is primarily concerned with the examination of wonders and the connections between them.
The Theravāda Abhidhamma is associated with the Pali canon. From outside the practicing communities of Buddhism, Theravada Pali Abhidharma writings are not notable. A sarvastivada abhidaharma, created in Sanskrit, was arranged in Chinese and Tibetan conventions. Despite the fact that the Abhidhamma Theravadin it is protected and better known.
It is a remarkable fact that of the 18 schools of the XNUMXs, each had its own particular abhidharma with the compendium of writings that they regularly used and shared in particular cases. Not all schools recognize abhidharma as sanctioned. The sautrantika, for example, held that the group stopped with the vinaya and the sutras.
There are the records that several of the schools accept that the dharmas, that is, the wonders, are considered by them to be authentic, which means that the Theravada abhidhamma, for example, is a requirement that it be an essential factor in the starting point of the Mahayana. Considering the existence of wonders is what eventually allows you to rise and consider yourself enlightened.
other writings
There is an early text that most Buddhists do not consider to be buddhavacana, this is the \ It \ him milinda panha can be taken as milinda's questions. This is also a holy book of Buddhism. This text is a kind of exchange between Nagasena and the Indo-Greek king Menander in Pali is milinda. It is a summary of the teaching, and covers a wide range of topics. It is incorporated into some Pali canon.
Other early texts that are generally not authorized are the nettipakarana and petakopadesa. the sutras dhyana o chan-jing, are a group of early Buddhist texts containing Sarvastivada school contemplation lessons along with some early proto-Mahayana reflections. Following the teachings of these texts enables Buddhists to attain enlightenment.
These texts were usually handwritten, performed by Kashmiri Buddhist yoga trainers, and accepted into Chinese Buddhism. The Buddhist Artificer aśvaghoṣa composed an epic ballad about the life of Buddha called a buddhacarita in the early XNUMXnd century AD
Texts in the Theravada tradition
The Theravada school arises from the first compilation of the sacred book of Buddhism, which was made in the first century. Its about tripitaka, better known as the Pali canon. This is the only text that is considered to contain the words taken directly from the Buddha, is the one authorized to give the teachings. The canon was compiled at the first three Buddhist councils. To learn more about spiritual topics you can read healing mantra.
These councils were held in the first three centuries after the death of the Buddha. The first was held in rajagriha, the next one, which was a century later, was held in vaishali and the last one was made two hundred years later in Pataliputra, with the patronage of asoka. The canon was kept in the now extinct Middle Indian language, Pali, and has three parts:
viva pitaka: dealing with monastic behavior. The rules of the vinaya dictate how the daily life of the monk and nun should be.
sutta pitaka: is the collection of the talks of the Buddha.
abhidhamma pitaka: it is the study and the comments that the experts give about the dhamma, with explanations based on philosophy, psychology and ethics. Most of these analyzes of the Theravada doctrine are gathered in the third part of the Tripitaka and is considered the jewel of the sacred book of Buddhism.
All Pali texts are annotated, but not all of them are translated. These comments were made by the researchers in Sri LankaEg buddhaghosa in the fifth century and dhammapala. You can also find in them the so-called secondary reviews or tikka, these are analyzes as an editorial. buddhaghosa He was also the creator of visukkhimagga, or path of purification.
This text functions as a manual that sets the conventions and the way of working, as indicated by the Mahavihara tradition of Sri Lanka and as he dictates nanamoli Bhikkhu, he is seen as the Theravada's non-standard vital expert. A comparative but shorter text is vimuttimagga. Another profoundly powerful work of Theravada Pali is the abhidhammattha-sangaha, which is a summary of abhidhamma.
It is a historical fact that buddhaghosa worked from Buddhist editions in the Sinhala dialect of Sri Lanka, which is currently lost. These vernacular writings contain many of the original parts of the sacred book of Buddhism, including the traditional Sinhala lyrics, for example, muvadevāvata, or the story of the bodhisattva's birth as king. Mukhadeva.
This text also contains sasadavata, or the story of the birth of the Bodhisattva like a hare, in it you can find comments like the dhampiyātuvā gätapadaya, which is considered the blessed doctrine. The Pali literary assembly spread to South Asian countries, where Pali scholarship continued to thrive with as much padding as the aggavamsa de saddaniti and jinakalamali de ratanapanña.
Texts of the sacred book of Buddhism, of the Theravada tantric, can be found, especially in the southeast of Asia. This form was widely accepted Cambodia and Thailand before the reform of Branch IV in the nineteen century. One of these writings has been distributed in English by the Pali Text Society and is known as the "manual of a mystic".
The texts of Buddhism in Burmese are notable for their beautiful structures, which dictated the pattern in the years XNUMX onwards, a way of writing the verses with long interpretations and decorated with the Buddhist works of Pali, mostly jatakas. An acclaimed case of verse pyui is kui khan pyui. The Burmese speeches or nissayas and were used to instruct Pali.
Mahayana texts
The Mahayana sutras form a large part of the sacred book of Buddhism. They are texts that cover a great tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, and are canonically accepted. They are written in the Chinese Buddhist canon, the Tibetan Buddhist canon, and they were written in Sanskrit. These Mahayana sutras are passed down as the legacy of Gautam Buddha.
The first versions were not written, but taught orally. This is how the verses were preserved in the oral tradition, the disciple called Ananda, was considered in particular the substitute to give the current speech of the Buddha after his parinirvana or death. It must be taken into account that each Buddha reincarnation of one who was already living on this earth.
With the ancient texts of the Mahayana now available, there is a broader view of Buddhism. These texts represent the strict observance of the path of a bodhisattva, and the obligation to the ascetic ideal of a life within the monasteries located in the great deserts of Asia. The ancient views of Mahayana as a separate devotional and lay-inspired sect.
The main written evidence of the Mahayana comes from sutras originating around the beginning of the common era. In early Mahayana texts like the ugrapariprchā sutra, use the term Mahayana, but there is no literary distinction between Mahayana in this context and the early schools, and that Mahayana is meant rather as the rigorous emulation of Mahayana. Gautam Buddha in the way of a Bodhisattva.
The various agreements with prajna, this is cunning or understanding. Cunning in this space means the ability to meditate on reality as it really is. This is not to be an extended philosophical consideration, rather they are simply trying to point out the genuine idea of the real world, particularly using the Mahayana sutra. The fundamental preface is a radical non-dualism.
This radicalism in the text is a denial of the dichotomous method to observe life: according to this version of the sacred book of Buddhism, the wonders do not exist, nor are they non-existent, here it is stated that they are separated by the sunyata, the void, a non- appearance of any basic perpetual nature. In these texts opposites are not considered as in the traditional sense.
Each letter of the text is considered the perfection of wisdom in itself, this shows a methodology when speaking that is considered impeccable before the prajna with the short Pali Sanskrit vowel, which being as a prefix, nullifies the meaning of a word. For this reason, the phrases, although they seem contradictory, make sense in the original language, this is usually lost in the translation.
Saddharma-pundarika
This text is known as the Lotus Sutra, White Lotus Sutra, or White Lotus Sutra of Sublime Dharma. This doesn't really represent three different forms and three targets, rather it's one form, with three summons and a single target. The above lessons are said to be of apt means with the ultimate goal of helping creatures of restricted boundaries.
This text stands out because it contains the Prabhutaratna Buddha, that he had died a few ages already past, since it is a proven fact, that any form of Buddha is not out of reach after your parinirvana, or death, and furthermore that his life expectancy is said to be incomprehensibly long in view of gaining legitimacy in past lives.
This idea of reincarnation, although it does not come from this text of the sacred book of Buddhism, embodies the principle of what should be taught and learned after death. trikaya. The idea of being able to reincarnate in successive lives, with the knowledge accumulated in the different reincarnations, is what has allowed the enrichment of the sutras, over the centuries, and allows trust in the teachings of the texts.
This thought, although not actually coming from this source, frames the premise of the later teaching of Trikaya. It is later associated especially with the Tien Tai in China, the Tendai school in Japan, and the Nichiren schools in Japan. Japan. Being accepted by these important schools, these particular sutras can be considered to faithfully represent the teaching of Buddha.
sutra texts
The so-called sutras are the compilations of the talks and discourses given by Buddha or some of his closest students. In general the term is used for any traditional Eastern writing, but is more widely used when referring to the sacred book of Buddhism. These sutras arise from the need to preserve the teaching, which would otherwise have been lost over the centuries.
In the practice of Buddhism, this word refers to the writings in which what must be learned is preserved and exposed, and the dogmas that are related to the different means to learn the knowledge necessary to achieve enlightenment or complete spiritual realization of the being. human. Centuries after the death of Buddha and to preserve their teachings they passed from the oral tradition to the sutra.
According to experts, the three most relevant sutras that should be taken into consideration are: the sutra of imperishable existence, or better known as the sutra of the great pure orb; the sutra amitabha, also called the Small Pure Orb Sutra; and the contemplation sutra, also known as the visualization sutra. Here they describe the beginning and nature of the Western Pure Land in which the Amitabha Buddha.
In these sutras can be found the description of the forty-eight offerings left by the Amitabha Buddha, as a bodhisattva for which he dedicated himself to build a purified orb where beings can practice the dharma without problems or distractions. The sutras state that creatures can be awakened there by unadulterated lead and practices. To know more about these topics you can read parables of Jesus.
