Buddhist Literature

In monasteries perched on hillsides in the arid moonscape of Laddakh and among emerald rice fields in Thailand, young saffron clad monks sway and recite the same prayers. The Buddha's teachings are inscribed on prayer wheels in Mongolia, tangkha paintings in Tibet and palm leaf manuscripts in Sri Lanka. After 2500 years, Gautama Buddha still lives in his teachings, which have not been forgotten.

After the Mahaparinirvana of the Buddha at Kushinagar, the legends and myths, the commentaries and analyses began. Buddhist literature began with what the Buddha said and around it a body of canonical and non-canonical writing emerged. The earliest Buddhist literature to have survived is in Pali.

The Pitakas

The oldest Buddhist canonical writings like the Vinaya and Sutra Pitakas began as oral literature. Buddhist tradition has it that at the First great Council of monks at Rajgir after the death of the Master, his two disciples recited his teaching from memory. Upali recalled the Vinaya Pitaka and Ananda the Sutra Pitaka.

The earliest pali canon the Tripitaka, consists of three anthologies of writings, Vinaya, Sutra and Abhidharma pitakas. It is an immense body of writing, with each Pitaka divided into a number of books and further subdivided into commentaries and abstracts.

Vinaya Pitaka, the book of Discipline deals with the rules of monastic order, while Sutra Pitaka, the Book of Discourses, deals with the ethical principles of the Buddha's teachings. Abhidharma Pitaka, a collection on abstract philosophy, elaborates on the metaphysical principles underlying the dictrine.

Dhammapada, or in the steps of the Dharma, is a book people instantly connect with the sermons of Gautama Buddha. Its terse sayings are in pali verse, on a variety of subjects ranging from happiness, anger and craving to Enlightenment. These verses, memorized by young monks and lay believers of all ages across the world, embody the very spirit of the Buddha's teachings.



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Poetic Writings

In the verses of the Theragatha and Therigatha one can still heat the poetic voices of bhikshus and bhikshunis describing how their lives were transformed by the teachings of the Buddha. Many of the poets were contemporaries of Sakyamuni. The verses by the bhikshus in the Theragatha are often spiritual and meditative, with may beautiful passages on nature while the nuns strike a more personal note and sing to the joys, sorrows and complexities of life. The Therigatha is the earliest anthology of women's writing in India, and includes verses by Amrapali, the courtesan of Vaishali who became a bhikshuni.

The Jataka Tales

Children across the Buddhist world grow up listening to the Jataka tales. Jataka means 'birth stories' and they chronicle the former incarnations of the Buddha as a man and as an animal. The stories have been told and retold for centuries to popularise the teachings of the Master. More than 500 stories still exist, many of them with animals as the main characters and have the humour and liveliness of folk tales and fables.

Though many of the Jataka stories have a moral, some are simple adventure tales. At the end of each story the hero is identified as a Bodhisattva. Episodes from the tales are carved on the gateway of the stupas of Sanchi and Bharhut among other sites, and also painted in the Ajanta Caves.


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Milindapanha

One of the most interesting non-canonical works is Milindapanha or Questions of Milinda, which was written in Sanskrit in India in the beginning of the Christian era. The book is a dialogue between Milinda (Menander), a Greco-Bactrian king of Sakala (modern Sialkot in Pakistan) and a Buddhist monk, Nagasena. Milinda begins as a doubting man but by the end he is converted by Nagasena's brilliant replies and becomes an ardent believer.

Life Stories of the Buddha

The most famous life stories of the Buddha are Lalitavistara of the Sarvastivadin sect and Buddhancharita composed by the poet Aswaghosha in the 1st century AD. Then there are the three great Sri Lankan verse chronicles - Dipavamsa, the Island Chronicle; the Mahavamsa, the Great Chronicle; and Culavamsam the Lesser Chronicle. There are works in progress with monks constantly adding to them. They narrate the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

Buddhist literature is a gift to the world from thousands of forgotten monks and nuns who preserved the manuscripts in their monasteries with care and devotion. In their fragile pages we can still hear the wise, compassionate voice of one of the greatest thinkers of world civilization.