[Cnbaapuy]

Why do we call it the Pali Canon? Wouldn't Pali Anthology or Pali Compilation be more appropriate? Or is "canon" in this sense a conventional synonym for "anthology" or "compilation." Is asking what's the Pali for The (Pali) Canon the same thing?

[KLIMOV25gyi]

In its many meanings, a Canon is about a group of rules, prescriptions or precepts of some kins of discipline mostly used for religious oeuvres but also it is used to denote something that has set the proper rules to do something , the "state of art" or an standard due to its perfection. Like saying that Beethoven's symphonies are Canonical for the art of Symphonic composition.

[oraltyrap]

Various definitions of 'canon'...
http://oxforddictionaries.com/defini...m_en_gb0120370
a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine http://www.thefreedictionary.com/canon
5. a. A group of literary works that are generally accepted as representing a field: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/canon
[Middle English, from Late Latin, from Latin, standard]
a : an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture
b : the authentic works of a writer
c : a sanctioned or accepted group or body of related works Elsewhere...
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/
The Tipitaka (Pali ti, "three," + pitaka, "baskets"), or Pali canon, is the collection of primary Pali language texts which form the doctrinal foundation of Theravada Buddhism. The Tipitaka and the paracanonical Pali texts (commentaries, chronicles, etc.) together constitute the complete body of classical Theravada texts.
The Pali Canon is a vast body of literature: in English translation the texts add up to thousands of printed pages. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/...theracanon.htm
The Pali Canon is the complete scripture collection of the Theravada school. Is asking what's the Pali for The (Pali) Canon the same thing? See below... http://www.dictionary.tamilcube.com/...ictionary.aspx
Close Match: canon : dhammaganthāvali ; niyamāvali . vinayapiṭaka . dhammādhikārī
Related:
buddhist canon : tipiṭaka .
तिपिटक ; tipiṭaka ; the 3 divisions of the Buddhist Canon .
तिपिटकपाळि ; tipiṭakapāḷi ; the Buddhist Canon (having three baskets or portions)

[awagsFare]

Kaarine & plwK:
Perfect. Practical. Thanks. I lake calling it (the Pali Canon) scripture or the teachings sometimes, & that dictionary link is awesome. I'm going to look all this up myself, but I also am looking for some clarity regarding the relationship of the term "Pali Canon" to the the terms , "Pali Dhamma" & "buddhadhamma." My guess is that Pali Dhamma is simply the Dhamma as understood from the Pali Canon, and buddhadhamma is the "essence" of those teachings.
metta

[Precturge]

My guess is that Pali Dhamma is simply the Dhamma as understood from the Pali Canon, and buddhadhamma is the "essence" of those teachings.

I like the term Pali Dhamma which IMO, it could be the same as to say the Buddhadhamma because, as always, I feel that the Pali is the nearest teaching to the historical Buddha... Yes, I know, all the fingers point to the moon... but each tradition has made a personal interpretation from the Pali. The Pali, as it was left and recorded, is at the source of all traditions understanding that modifications were made from it and not to it.

How it was recorded, who recorded it, how was taken into a scripture do not detract from the fact that it is the first in time.

In this way, if the historical Buddha was a single person or a group of sages it is not so important as to know that the Pali is the first set, in the historical arrow of time, to state a really new systematized interpretation of the anatta nature of mind and reality (namarupa) grouped coherently in terms of time, style, date, language and issues clearly exposed to everybody.

For example, and not knowing much about Bible, and giving a wrong opinion, it seems to be a heterogeneous group of diverse books in terms of their culture, origin, language, literature style, teachings and historical time; also we have several "Bibles" while we have got just one and only one Pali Canon.

Traditions from Theravada to Vajrayana and the many Zen and Cha'an schools have their own Canonical oeuvres like the Shobogenzo for the Soto. The Shobogenzo is Canonical in terms of a "state of art" for Soto practitioners. Any Soto has the Shobogenzo as its fundamental Canonical set of instructions. It is not a Buddhadhamma but a Dhamma in its own value even when it is assumed that Dogen Zengi was a Buddha because of his enlightenment through his meditative approach but not because following the Canon Pali but taking out from it his teaching.

This can seem arrogant but I think are important distinctions where historical precision can clarify rather than confuse.

People fear difference and distinction because we are not aware that having set differences we have a huge tendency to make the mistake of doing hierarchies from them. Once we are aware of this, differences are always welcome. I really feel there are important differences from a Canon Pali and the Shobogenzo. Because first in time, I consider, it is fare to say Buddhadhamma for the former and Dhamma for the later.

[cefunonge]

Thanks Kaarine! You're so smart! Personally, I'm trying to suspend my judgments on this until I've sorted out all the information, but some of the references in the new Tricycle article, Who's Buddhism Is Truest? (there's a thread here about it with Gandhari Scrolls in the title), challenges the "first in time" contention.

How it was recorded, who recorded it, how was taken into a scripture do not detract from the fact that it is the first in time[BuckyG's emphasis].

[cl004]

challenges the "first in time" contention.

Thanks Bucky!

I will check the Gandhari document... it is also important to know what is being challenged... if it is the systematization or the anatta exposition of mind and matter because if the challenge is just for date and historical time the collection of the Pali can result in a long period of time until it was coherently set but once being coherently set, again, it is the first in time.

It is like the elucidation of the DNA. The first ones that coherently bring it into light the DNA were Watson and Crick even when Rosalin Franklin and Erwin Chargaff knew of the helical structure of that molecule but they could not give a coherent and systematized model of it.

[foonlesse]

This is where the challenge is most explicitly covered in this article (emphases added).
[A] 2006 talk by Salomon...first unveiled...the importance of the translator's findings.... Salomon...explained [that] scholars had traditionally expected that if they traced the various branches of the tree of Buddhist textual history back far enough, they would arrive at the single ancestral root.... As scholars scrutinized the Gandhari texts, however, they saw that history didn’t work that way at all.... It was a mistake to assume that the foundation of Buddhist textual tradition was singular, that if you followed the genealogical branches back far enough into the past they would eventually converge. Traced back in time, the genealogical branches diverged and intertwined in such complex relationships that the model of a tree broke down completely. The picture looked more like a tangled bush, he reported.... [T]hese newly found manuscripts, he declared, strike the coup de grâce to a traditional conception of Buddhism’s past that has been disintegrating for decades. It is now clear that none of the existing Buddhist collections of early Indian scriptures—not the Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, nor even the Gandhari—“can be privileged as the most authentic or original words of the Buddha” (http://www.tricycle.com/feature/whose-buddhism-truest).

[GVsdJZ2H]

The Tricycle article attempts to put inauthentic mahayana stories on an equal footing with the Buddha's liberative teachings in the Nikayas on the dubious basis that the Gandhari scrolls are the oldest surviving written documents. They are playing an archeological shell game.


The "Buddhadhamma" is the Buddha's Noble, liberative teachings, as can be found in the Nikayas.

[gvataler]

The Tricycle article attempts to put inauthentic mahayana stories on an equal footing with the Buddha's liberative teachings in the Nikayas on the dubious basis that the Gandhari scrolls are the oldest [surviving written documents.

That's only one thing the article "does." See my post above for the part relevant to this discussion.

[DrCeshing]

That's only one thing the article "does." See my post above for the part relevant to this discussion.

I am addressing precisely that mahayana-revisionist assertion. Again, they are comparing surviving textual (written) documents against teachings that are known to have been passed down for a very long time by oral tradition, by folks who had vested interest in conveying them accurately and nothing else to do. At the same time, the Buddha's liberative teachings are easily identified by criteria that counterfeit stories based on superstition and speculative view cannot hope to mimic.

[HondasMenFox]

Again, they are comparing surviving textual (written) documents against teachings that are known to have been passed down for a very long time by oral tradition, by folks who had vested interest in conveying them accurately and nothing else to do.

Yes, this is what I mean by a coherent systematization which have bring into live a written teaching. The effort is two fold: First to write coherently, for the first time, a set of teachings from here and there; then to make them work properly. This is what matters in terms of historical authenticity.

The given example of the DNA can make clear this: Two researchers, Rosalind Franklin and Erwin Chargaff had for many years a bunch of scattered data about the probability of Nucleic Acids arranged in a helix model but neither Rosalind nor Erwin could bring them into light as was done by Watson and Crick. The same thing... we can have here and there many scrolls but they have not been brought into live as has been the Pali. At any case, if the Gandhari Scrolls are to be brought into life one day, we will have textual teachings before and after the Pali so to have a clear understanding of its evolution.

Also the title of "Truest" can be misleading. It is not about True of False. The Shobogenzo is true in itself. It is Canonical for Soto schools. The same for the textual corpus of the Mahayana Religions; they have their own "True" Canonical religious oeuvres. What is important, again, is that the Pali Dhamma is the first one that come to be a systematic and coherent teaching which is uniform in language, time and issue: The anatta nature of things and mind.

[payowlirriply]

The "Pali" in The Pali Canon simply distinguishes it from those latter sutras written in Sanskrit or other languages, I think.

[pharweqto]

The "Pali" in The Pali Canon simply distinguishes it from those latter sutras written in Sanskrit or other languages, I think.

Yeah, but it is also a rather arbitrary and modern designation. Back in the day it was pretty much just "the Dhamma" or "this Dhamma" (distinguishing the Buddha's own)...

[hjyAMqqT]

stuka: according to the article the Gandhari scrolls are older than the Pali scrolls

[VitaliyMurnov]

Yes, this is what I mean by a coherent systematization which have bring into live a written teaching. The effort is two fold: First to write coherently, for the first time, a set of teachings from here and there; then to make them work properly. This is what matters in terms of historical authenticity....

How can we be so sure of authenticity so far after the fact?

What is important...is that the Pali Dhamma is the first one that come to be a systematic and coherent teaching which is uniform in language, time and issue: The anatta nature of things and mind.

Yes, it's important, but not to the exclusion of other things of importance. Are you contending that the "essence" of the Pali Dhamma and/or Buddha Dhamma are the anatta teachings?

[shinesw]

Yes, this is what I mean by a coherent systematization which have bring into live a written teaching. The effort is two fold: First to write coherently, for the first time, a set of teachings from here and there; then to make them work properly. This is what matters in terms of historical authenticity....

How can we be so sure of authenticity so far after the fact?

What is important...is that the Pali Dhamma is the first one that come to be a systematic and coherent teaching which is uniform in language, time and issue: The anatta nature of things and mind.

Yes, it's important, but not to the exclusion of other things of importance. Are you contending that the "essence" of the Pali Dhamma and/or Buddha Dhamma are the anatta teachings?

[kertionderf]

The "Pali" in The Pali Canon simply distinguishes it from those latter sutras written in Sanskrit or other languages, I think.

It is a simple distinction; except calling the Nikayas collection a "canon" complicates such simplicity.

[QQ9ktYrV]

according to the article....

Is there a link to the mentioned article for others looking at this topic thread ? I can't seem to find it...

[Idonnaink]

Is there a link to the mentioned article for others looking at this topic thread ? I can't seem to find it...

http://www.tricycle.com/feature/whos...ruest?page=0,0 page 2, pargraph 3

i think it's also linked in the Gandhari scrolls thread