Tripitaka
The Sanskrit name for the early Buddhist scripture, called the P€li Canon. It is a compound word formed from tri, “three,” and pi˜aka, “basket” and refers to the fact that the early Buddhist manuscripts, written on long strips of palm leaf, were stored in three large baskets, one each for the Sutta (Sk. S™tra) or collection of Buddha’s discourses, the Vinaya or monastic disciplinary rules, and Abhidhamma (Sk. Abhidharma) or “development of the “dharma,” sometimes thought erroneously to be metaphysical speculation. The term p€li literally means “limit” and probably indicated that it was considered to be a final version of the Canon, decided at a council of monks in the 3rd cent. BCE during the reign (c. 269-c. 232 BCE) of the remarkable Mauryan Buddhist Emperor, King Asoka (Sk. Aoka). The British who took India and Ceylon (i.e., ®r… Lanka) as part of their Empire, misunderstood the meaning of the term “p€li” and it has now come to refer to the language (probably a version of the Magadha dialect) in which the Canon was written.
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