At the First Buddhist Council, convened shortly after the Buddha died, Ananda was called upon to recite many of the discourses that later became the Sutta Pitaka of the Pāli Canon.

In contrast to most of the figures depicted in the Pāli Canon, Ananda is presented as an imperfect, if sympathetic, figure.

This tension is best exhibited in the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta ( Digha Nikaya 26 of the Sutta Pitaka of the Pāli Canon ), the story of humanity's decline from a golden age in the past.

* Pāli Canon

Besides this, Prakrit appears in literature in the form of Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhists, Prakrit canon of the Jains, Prakrit grammars and in lyrics, plays and epics of the times.

** Pāli Canon

Buddhist texts describe a vast array of tortures and realms of torment in Naraka ; an example is the Devadūta-sutta from the Pāli Canon.

Four developments of samādhi are mentioned in the Pāli Canon:

These are found in several places in the Pāli Canon, as well as in some Sanskrit sources.

Buddhaghosa was reputedly responsible for an extensive project of synthesizing and translating a large body of Sinhala commentaries on the Pāli Canon.

According to Walpola Rahula, all the elements of the Yogācāra storehouse-consciousness are already found in the Pāli Canon.

He writes that the three layers of the mind ( citta, manas, and vijñana ) as presented by Asaṅga are also mentioned in the Pāli Canon:

It should be noted that however weak claim to historicity that the Mahāyāna sutras hold, this does not mean that all scholars believe that the Pāli Canon is historical ; some scholars believe that it is not.

There are scriptural supports for this perspective even in the Pāli Canon.

According to Walpola Rahula, all the elements of the Yogācāra storehouse-consciousness are already found in the Pāli Canon.

He writes that the three layers of the mind ( citta, manas, and vijñana ) as presented by Asaṅga are also mentioned in the Pāli Canon:

The society first compiled, edited, and published Latin-script versions of a large corpus of Pāli literature, including the Pāli Canon, as well as commentarial, exegetical texts, and histories.

The work of bringing out the Roman text editions of the Pāli Canon was not financially rewarding, but was achieved with the backing of the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka who underwrote the printing costs.

The most important sources are the Puranas, the Buddhist Chronicles of Sri Lanka, and other Jain and Buddhist texts, such as the Pāli Canon.

One of the central texts of the Pāli Canon in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, the Digha Nikaya, describes the appearance of the historical Buddha with a list of 32 physical characteristics.

Category: Pāli Canon

Classical Sanskrit literature flourished in the first few centuries of the first millennium CE, as did the Tamil Sangam literature, and the Pāli Canon.

The ( Pali, " Octet Chapter ") and the Pārāyanavagga ( Pali, " Way to the Far Shore Chapter ") are two small collections of suttas within the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism.

As far as its terminology goes there is much in the Yoga Sutras that reminds us of Buddhist formulations from the Pāli Canon and even more so from the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma and from Sautrāntika.

While there are widely differing theories regarding the relationship of this language to Pāli, it is certain that Pāli is much closer to this language than Sanskrit is.

In a subsequent discourse regarding the threefold training, the Buddha indicates that higher wisdom entails the application of concentration and insight to end " fermentations " ( or " mental intoxicants "; Pāli: āsava ), effectively achieving arahantship:

Still later, at some point prior to the Dipavamsa ( 4th century ), the Pāli name " Theravāda " was adopted and has remained in use ever since for this group.

The name Maitreya ( Metteyya in Pāli ) is derived from the Sanskrit word maitrī ( Pāli: mettā ) meaning " loving-kindness ", which is in turn derived from the noun mitra ( Pāli: mitta ) in the sense of " friend ".

Contemporary instruction for the cultivation of loving-kindness – such as is found in the works of Sharon Salzberg, the Triratna Buddhist Community's Kamalashila, and Matthieu Ricard – is often based in part on a method found in Buddhaghosa's 5th c. CE Pāli exegetical text, the Path to Purification ( Pali: Visuddhimagga ), Chapter IX.

In over a dozen discourses, the following description ( in English and Pāli ) is provided for radiating loving-kindness in six directions:

According to the Pāli commentaries, the Buddha originally gave this instruction ( of loving-kindness meditation ) to monks who were being harassed by the tree spirits of a forest in which the monks were trying to meditate.

Below is a listing of the fourteen commentaries traditionally ascribed to Buddhaghosa ( Pāli: atthakatha ) on the Pāli Tipitaka:

Most young men traditionally ordain for the term of a single rainy season ( known in Pāli as vassa, and in Thai as phansa ).

The actual process of change from one life to the next is called punarbhava ( Sanskrit ) or punabbhava ( Pāli ), literally " becoming again ", or more briefly bhava, " becoming ", and some English-speaking Buddhists prefer the term " rebirth " or " re-becoming " to render this term as they take " reincarnation " to imply a fixed entity that is reborn .< ref >" Reincarnation in Buddhism: What the Buddha Didn't Teach " By Barbara O ' Brien, About. com < sup > Popular Jain cosmology and Buddhist cosmology as well as a number of schools of Hinduism posit rebirth in many worlds and in varied forms.

Śīla ( Sanskrit ) or sīla ( Pāli ) in Buddhism is one of three sections of the Noble Eightfold Path, and is a code of conduct that embraces a commitment to harmony and self-restraint with the principle motivation being non-violence, or freedom from causing harm.

A gandharva ( Sanskrit ) or gandhabba ( Pāli ) is one of the lowest-ranking devas in Buddhist cosmology.

Vipassanā is commonly used as one of two poles for the categorization of types of Buddhist practice, the other being samatha ( Pāli ; Sanskrit: śamatha ).

The Dhammapada ( Pāli ; Dhamapada ; Dharmapada ) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures.

A Pratyekabuddha ( Sanskrit: प ् रत ् य े क ब ु द ् ध ) or Paccekabuddha ( Pāli: पच ् च े कब ु द ् ध ), literally " a lone buddha ", " a buddha on their own " or " a private buddha ", is one of three types of enlightened beings according to some schools of Buddhism.

Impermanence ( Pāli: अन ि च ् च ा anicca ; Sanskrit: अन ि त ् य anitya ; Tibetan: མ ི་​ ར ྟ ག ་​ པ ་ mi rtag pa ; Chinese: 無常 wúcháng ; Japanese: 無常 mujō ; Korean: 무상 musang ; Thai: อน ิ จจ ั ง anitchang, from Pali " aniccaŋ ") is one of the essential doctrines or three marks of existence in Buddhism.

There is no word corresponding exactly to the English terms " rebirth ", " metempsychosis ", " transmigration " or " reincarnation " in the traditional Buddhist languages of Pāli and Sanskrit: the entire process of change from one life to the next is called punarbhava ( Sanskrit ) or punabbhava ( Pāli ), literally " becoming again ", or more briefly bhava, " becoming ", while the state one is born into, the individual process of being born or coming into the world in any way, is referred to simply as " birth " ( jāti ).

In Theravāda Buddhism, karuā is one of the four " divine abodes " ( brahmavihāra ), along with loving kindness ( Pāli: mettā ), sympathetic joy ( mudita ) and equanimity ( upekkha ).

The nāgas are the servants of ( Pāli: Virūpakkha ), one of the Four Heavenly Kings who guards the western direction.

According to Keown, " there is considerable disparity between the Pāli and the versions, with more than two-thirds of the sūtras found in one but not the other compilation, which suggests that much of this portion of the Sūtra Piṭaka was not formed until a fairly late date.

According to Keown, " there is considerable disparity between the Pāli and the Sarvāstivādin versions, with more than two-thirds of the sūtras found in one but not the other compilation, which suggests that much of this portion of the Sūtra Piṭaka was not formed until a fairly late date.

The most archaic of the Middle Indo-Aryan languages are the inscriptional Aśokan Prakrit on the one hand and Pāli and Ardhamāgadhī on the other, both literary languages.

Śāriputra () or Sāriputta ( Pāli ) was one of two chief male disciples of the Buddha along with Maudgalyayana ( Pali: Moggallāna ), counterparts to the nuns Khema and Uppalavanna, named the two chief female disciples.

In one somewhat comical scene involving the two friends, a mischievous yakṣha ( Pāli: yakkha ) decides that it will attempt to irritate Śāriputra by striking him on the head.