Burmese-Pali Manuscript.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
It is my intention to provide as much Dhamma as possible. It may sound grandiose but I feel that it is my calling. If I were to live my life again, I would take ordination and live as a Therevadin Monk, hopefully an Ajahn, and thus provide the community with the resources needful to learning the Dhamma. But this life prevents me from doing so, I have other obligations I must tend too, and I enjoy my life as it is, so I have no regrets.
However, the internet allows me to do something for the population of this planet, and so, with promulgation of the Dhamma in mind, I have found four more documents to add to the Sutta Library.
The following documents are all provided and translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu of dhammatalks.org, and are all for free distribution; so I am taking full advantage of being able to provide four popular documents from the fifth division of the Sutta Pitaka, namely the Khuddaka Nikaya, or ‘Division of Short Books’.
The following books are all part of the Khuddaka Nikaya which contains several other documents as well, but these four are a very good beginning. The Dhammapada especially, because of it’s brevity and popularity.
The description of each document has been taken directly from Wikipedia.
The Dhammapada
The Dhammapada (Pāli; Prakrit: धम्मपद Dhammapada;) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures. The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Khuddaka Nikaya, a division of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism.
The Itivuttaka
The Itivuttaka (Pali for “as it was said”) is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism and is attributed to Khujjuttara’s recollection of Buddha’s discourses. It is included there in the Sutta Pitaka’s Khuddaka Nikaya. It comprises 112 short teachings ascribed in the text to the Buddha, each consisting of a prose portion followed by a verse portion. The latter may be a paraphrase of the former, or complementary. Some scholars consider it one of the earliest of all Buddhist scriptures, while others consider it somewhat later.
The Sutta Nipata
The Sutta Nipata (literally, “Suttas falling down”) is a Buddhist scripture, a sutta collection in the Khuddaka Nikaya, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. All its suttas, thought to originate from before the Buddha’s parinibbana, consist largely of verse, though some also contain some prose. It is divided into five sections:
- Uraga Vagga
- Cula Vagga
- Maha Vagga
- Atthaka Vagga
- Parayana Vagga
Some scholars believe that it describes the oldest of all Buddhist practices. Others such as Bhikkhu Bodhi and KR Norman agree that it contains much early material.
The Udana
The Udana (udāna) is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. It is included there in the Sutta Pitaka’s Khuddaka Nikaya. The title might be translated “inspired utterances”. The book comprises 80 such utterances, most in verse, each preceded by a narrative giving the context in which the Buddha utters it.
The famous story of the Blind men and an elephant appears in Udana, under Tittha Sutta
The above documents are concise compared to other books of the Sutta Pitaka. Their descriptions are taken directly from Wikipedia. It is best to take them in small, bite sized chunks and meditate on the message that is being put across.
May you all benefit.
May you all live in peace
The Prajñāpāramitā Suttas