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 collection 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'. |
