Buddha's Teachings: Being the Sutta-Nipata or Discourse Collection

Buddha's Teachings contains a metrical English rendering of an important

Buddhist work in Pali named 'Sutta-Nipata' with the original text in

Romanized version on the opposite page. The Pali Canon, as it has come down

to us, is divided into three Pitakas or 'baskets', viz. Vinaya-Pitaka

Sutta-Pitaka and Abhidhamma-Pitaka. The Sutta-Nipata, translated here,

contains an ancient, probably the most ancient, part of the Sutta-Pitaka.

It belongs to that portion of the Sutta-Pitaka which is named Khuddaka

Nikaya or 'Collection of Short Treatises' as distinct from the four long

Nikayas called Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta and Anguttara. Of the five Vaggas

(or 'books') of the present Sutta-Nipata the fifth stands out from its

fellows by reason of its purposeful unity. Whle the Uraga, Maha, Cula and

Atthaka Vaggas consist each of a collectioin of independent and unconnected

poems (sometimes interspersed with prose) called Suttas, the Parayana aims

at a dramatic synthesis. Its prologue and epilogue serve as a setting to

the sixteen Questions which elicit Gotama's gradual exposition of the

saving 'Way Across'.