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The subcommentaries (Pali: tika, ṭīkā) are primarily commentaries on the commentaries (Pali: atthakatha) on the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, written in Sri Lanka. [1] This literature continues the commentaries' development of the traditional interpretation of the scriptures. (Note that some commentaries are apparently also named with the term tika.) These subcommentaries were begun during the reign of Parakramabahu I (1123–1186) under prominent Sri Lankan scholars such as Sariputta Thera, Mahakassapa Thera of Dimbulagala Vihara and Moggallana Thera. [2]
Aṭṭhakathā refers to Pali-language Theravadin Buddhist commentaries to the canonical Theravadin Tipitaka. These commentaries give the traditional interpretations of the scriptures. The major commentaries were based on earlier ones, now lost, in Prakrit and Sinhala, which were written down at the same time as the Canon, in the last century BCE. According to Theravada tradition, the major commentary were authored by five hundred senior monks at the First Buddhist council. Some material in the commentaries is found in canonical texts of other schools of Buddhism, suggesting an early common source.
Theravāda is the most ancient branch of extant Buddhism today, and the one that preserved their version of the teachings of Gautama Buddha in the Pāli Canon. The Pāli Canon is the only complete Buddhist canon which survives in a classical Indian language, Pāli, which serves as both sacred language and lingua franca of Theravāda Buddhism. For more than a millennium, Theravāda has focused on preserving the dhamma as preserved in its texts, and it tends to be very conservative with regard to matters of doctrine and monastic discipline. Since the 19th century, meditation practice has been re-introduced, and has become popular with a lay audience, both in traditional Theravada countries and in the west.
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea. The island is historically and culturally intertwined with the Indian subcontinent, but is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the commercial capital and largest city, Colombo.
The official Burmese collected edition contains the following texts: [3]
Sāriputta Thera was a 12th century Sri Lankan scholar monk of Theravada Buddhism. He was the first leader (Mahasvami) of the Sri Lankan Buddhist Sangha after Parakramabahu I's reforms and one of Theravada's greatest exegetes. He was the student of Mahakassapa Thera, who presided over the Buddhist council convened by Parakramabahu I and was likely present at the council himself. He was later abbot of the Jetavana Vihara of Polonnaruwa. He wrote at least five sub-commentaries (tika) on Buddhaghosa's commentaries to the Pali Canon as well as various compendiums and manuals on Vinaya and Buddhist Meditation practice. His Sarattha-dipani, a sub-commentary on the Vinaya Commentary of Buddhaghosa, explains issues in Buddhaghosa's text and deals with further points from the Pali Canon and other Vinaya texts no longer extant.
Mahākassapa Thera was a 12th-century Sri Lankan forest monk and an abbot of Dimbulagala Raja Maha Vihara, a forest monastery outside of Polonnaruwa. Mahākassapa who was well versed in Vinaya, presided over the Buddhist council convened by King Parakramabahu I (1153-1186) whose main goal was to reorganize, reform and unify the Sangha. An inscription at Gal Vihara states that with Mahākassapa's advice, the council expelled hundreds of corrupt monks and unified the Sangha under one single monastic Nikaya, the Mahavihara sect. Mahākassapa also wrote several works on Vinaya.
The Visuddhimagga, is the 'great treatise' on Theravada Buddhist doctrine written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th Century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and systematizing the 5th century understanding and interpretation of the Buddhist path as maintained by the elders of the Mahavihara Monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.
There are other tikas without this official recognition, some printed, some surviving in manuscript, some apparently lost. The name tika is also applied to commentaries on all non-canonical works, such as the Mahavamsa . There are also some subcommentaries in vernacular languages.
The Mahavamsa is an epic poem written in the Pali language. It relates the history of Sri Lanka from its legendary beginnings up to the reign of Mahasena of Anuradhapura covering the period between the arrival of Prince Vijaya from India in 543 BCE to his reign. It was composed by a Buddhist monk at the Mahavihara temple in Anuradhapura about the fifth century A.D.
Extracts from some of these works have been translated, usually along with translations of commentaries.
Buddhaghosa was a 5th-century Indian Theravada Buddhist commentator, translator and philosopher. He worked in the Great Monastery (Mahāvihāra) at Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka and saw himself as being part of the Vibhajjavāda school and in the lineage of the Sinhalese Mahāvihāra.
Nikāya is a Pāḷi word meaning "volume". It is often used like the Sanskrit word āgama to mean "collection", "assemblage", "class" or "group" in both Pāḷi and Sanskrit. It is most commonly used in reference to the Buddhist texts of the Sutta Piṭaka but can also refer to the monastic divisions of Theravāda Buddhism.
Buddhist texts were initially passed on orally by monks, but were later written down and composed as manuscripts in various Indo-Aryan languages which were then translated into other local languages as Buddhism spread. They can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized into canonical, commentarial and pseudo-canonical. Buddhist traditions have generally divided these texts with their own categories and divisions, such as that between buddhavacana "word of the Buddha," many of which are known as "sutras," and other texts, such as shastras (treatises) or Abhidharma.
The Sutta Pitaka is the second of the three divisions of the Tripitaka or Pali Canon, the Pali collection of Buddhist writings of Theravada Buddhism. The Sutta Pitaka contains more than 10,000 suttas (teachings) attributed to the Buddha or his close companions.
Theravada Buddhism is the State religion of Sri Lanka practiced by 70.2%. Buddhism has been given special privileges in the constitution and also declared country's official religion by 2nd president of sri Lanka J.R Jayawardene. Sri Lanka is traditionally oldest religious Buddhist country where Buddhist aryan culture is protected and preserved. The island has been a center of Buddhist scholarship and learning since the introduction of Buddhism in the third century BCE producing eminent scholars such as Buddhaghosa and preserving the vast Pāli Canon. Throughout most of its history, Sri Lankan kings have played a major role in the maintenance and revival of the Buddhist institutions of the island. During the 19th century, a modern Buddhist revival took place on the island which promoted Buddhist education and learning. There are around 6,000 Buddhist monasteries on Sri Lanka with approximately 15,000 monks.
The Majjhima Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the second of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism. Composed between 3rd century BCE and 2nd century CE. This nikaya consists of 152 discourses attributed to the Buddha and his chief disciples.
The Khuddaka Nikāya is the last of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. This nikaya consists of fifteen (Thailand), seventeen, or eighteen books (Burma) in different editions on various topics attributed to the Buddha and his chief disciples.
The Buddhist Publication Society is a charity whose goal is to explain and spread the doctrine of the Buddha. It was founded in Sri Lanka in 1958 by two Sri Lankan Buddhist laymen, A.S. Karunaratna and Richard Abeyasekera, and a European-born Buddhist monk, Nyanaponika Thera. Originally conceived as a limited effort to publish small, affordable books on fundamental Buddhist topics, the Society expanded its scope in response to the reception of their early publishing efforts. Reflecting its Sri Lankan roots, the Buddhist Publication society's publications reflect the perspective of the Theravada branch of Buddhism, drawing heavily from the Pali Canon for source material.
The Abhidhamma Piṭaka is the last of the three pitakas constituting the Pali Canon, the scriptures of Theravāda Buddhism.
Dhammapāla was the name of two or more great Theravada Buddhist commentators.
Pali literature is concerned mainly with Theravada Buddhism, of which Pali is the traditional language. The earliest and most important Pali literature constitutes the Pāli Canon, the scriptures of Theravada school.
The Nettipakarana is a Buddhist scripture, sometimes included in the Khuddaka Nikaya of Theravada Buddhism's Pali Canon. The main theme of this text is Buddhist Hermeneutics through a systematization of the Buddha's teachings. The Sri Lankan scholar Dhammapala wrote a commentary on this text in the fifth century. An English translation titled The Guide by Bhikkhu Nanamoli was published in 1962 by the Pali Text Society.
The term "paracanonical texts" is used by Western scholars to refer to various texts on the fringes of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, usually to refer to the following texts sometimes regarded as included in the Pali Canon's Khuddaka Nikaya:
The Tripiṭaka or Tipiṭaka, is the traditional term for the Buddhist scriptures. The version canonical to Theravada Buddhism is generally referred to in English as the Pali Canon. Mahayana Buddhism also holds the Tripitaka to be authoritative but, unlike Theravadins, it also includes in its canon various derivative literature and commentaries that were composed much later.
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon.
Early Buddhist Texts (EBTs) or Early Buddhist Literature refers to the parallel texts shared by the Early Buddhist schools, including the first four Pali Nikayas, some Vinaya material like the Patimokkhas of the different Buddhist schools as well as the Chinese Āgama literature. Besides the large collections in Pali and Chinese, there are also fragmentary collections of EBT materials in Sanskrit, Khotanese, Tibetan and Gāndhārī. The modern study of early pre-sectarian Buddhism often relies on comparative scholarship using these various early Buddhist sources.
Bhāṇakas were Buddhist monks who specialized in the memorization and recitation of a specific collection of texts within the Buddhist canon. Lineages of bhāṇakas were responsible for preserving and transmitting the teachings of the Buddha until the canon was committed to writing in the 1st Century BC, and declined as the oral transmission of early Buddhism was replaced by writing.