The three Pitakas are known as Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma.  Vinaya means discipline and the works included in this division treat chiefly of the rules to be observed by the members of the Sangha.  The basis of these rules is the Patimokkha, the ancient confessional formula enumerating the offences which a monk can commit.  It was read periodically to a congregation of the order and those guilty of any sin had to confess it.  The text of the Patimokkha is in the Vinaya combined with a very ancient commentary called the Sutta-vibhanga.  The Vinaya also contains two treatises known collectively as the Khandakas but more frequently cited by their separate names as Mahavagga and Cullavagga.  The first deals with such topics as the rules for admission to the order, and observance of fast days, and in treating of each rule it describes the occasion on which the Buddha made it and to some extent follows the order of chronology.  For some parts of the master’s life it is almost a biography.  The Cullavagga is similar in construction but less connected in style[604].  The Vinaya contains several important and curious narratives and is a mine of information about the social conditions of ancient India, but much of it has the same literary value as the book of Leviticus.  Of greater general interest is the Sutta Pitaka, in which the sermons and discourses of the Buddha are collected.  Sutta is equivalent to the Sanskrit word Sutra, literally a thread, which signifies among the Brahmans a brief rule or aphorism but in Pali a relatively short poem or narrative dealing with a single object.  This Sutta Pitaka is divided into five collections called Nikayas.  The first four are mainly in prose and contain discourses attributed to Gotama or his disciples.  The fifth is mostly in verse and more miscellaneous.

The four collections of discourses bear the names of Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta and Anguttara.  The first, meaning long, consists of thirty-four narratives.  They are not all sermons and are of varying character, antiquity and interest, the reason why they are grouped together being simply their length[605].  In some of them we may fancy that we catch an echo of Gotama’s own words, but in others the legendary character is very marked.  Thus the Mahasamaya and Atanatiya suttas are epitomes of popular mythology tacked on to the history of the Buddha.  But for all that they are interesting and ancient.

Many of the suttas, especially the first thirteen, are rearrangements of old materials put together by a considerable literary artist who lived many generations after the Buddha.  The account of the Buddha’s last days is an example of such a compilation which attains the proportions of a Gospel and shows some dramatic power though it is marred by the juxtaposition of passages composed in very different styles.