Philosophy of language in the Five Nikayas
by K.T.S. Sarao | 2013 | 141,449 words
This page relates ‘The Buddhist Pali Tipitaka (Introduction)’ of the study of the Philosophy of language in the Five Nikayas, from the perspective of linguistics. The Five Nikayas, in Theravada Buddhism, refers to the five books of the Sutta Pitaka (“Basket of Sutra”), which itself is the second division of the Pali Tipitaka of the Buddhist Canon (literature).
2. The Buddhist Pāli Tipiṭaka (Introduction)
The Tipiṭaka ‘Three Collections of the Buddhist Canon/Three Baskets/Three separate divisions of the Buddha’s Teachings’ is a tremendous body of the Pāli Canonical literature in which are enshrined the Buddha’s Teachings regarded by the Theravāda school of Buddhism, which is found today in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Three months after the Parinibbāna ‘Eternal peace’ of the Buddha, the great disciples recited together all the Teachings of their Master. They attempted to compile the Buddha’s Teachings systematically and carefully, and then classified them under different heads into specialised sections.
The Pāli Canonical literature consists of the three Piṭakas, literally ‘basket’, or Tipiṭaka for Pāli/Tripiṭaka for Sanskrit; that is,
- the Vinaya Piṭaka ‘Basket of Discipline’,
- the Sutta Piṭaka ‘Basket of Sutra’, and
- the Abhidhamma Piṭaka ‘Basket of Philosophical treatises of the Doctrine’.
Before going to briefly introduce and discuss the Vinaya Pitaka, to deal with and examine the Sutta Piṭaka in detail, and to take a general view on the Abhidhamma Piṭaka respectively, we should generally know the history of Buddhist Councils from which the Tipiṭaka were established.