The Buddhist scriptures extant in the Chinese language are known collectively as San Tsang[708] or the three store-houses, that is to say, Tripitaka.  Though this usage is justified by both eastern and European practice, it is not altogether happy, for the Chinese thesaurus is not analogous to the Pali Canon or to any collection of sacred literature known in India, being in spite of its name arranged in four, not in three, divisions.  It is a great Corpus Scriptorum Sanctorum, embracing all ages and schools, wherein translations of the most diverse Indian works are supplemented by original compositions in Chinese.  Imagine a library comprising Latin translations of the Old and New Testaments with copious additions from the Talmud and Apocryphal literature; the writings of the Fathers, decrees of Councils and Popes, together with the opera omnia of the principal schoolmen and the early protestant reformers and you will have some idea of this theological miscellany which has no claim to be called a canon, except that all the works included have at some time or other received a certain literary or doctrinal hall-mark.

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The collection is described in the catalogue compiled by Bunyiu Nanjio.[709] It enumerates 1662 works which are classified in four great divisions, (a) Sutra, (b) Vinaya, (c) Abhidharma, (d) Miscellaneous.  The first three divisions contain translations only; the fourth original Chinese works as well.

The first division called Ching or Sutras amounts to nearly two-thirds of the whole, for it comprises no less than 1081 works and is subdivided as follows:  (a) Mahayana Sutras, 541, (b) Hinayana Sutras, 240, (c) Mahayana and Hinayana Sutras, 300 in number, admitted into the canon under the Sung and Yuan dynasties, A.D. 960-1368.  Thus whereas the first two subdivisions differ in doctrine, the third is a supplement containing later translations of both schools.  The second subdivision, or Hinayana Sutras, which is less numerous and complicated than that containing the Mahayana Sutras, shows clearly the character of the whole collection.  It is divided into two classes of which the first is called A-han, that is, Agama.[710] This comprises translations of four works analogous to the Pali Nikayas, though not identical with the texts which we possess, and also numerous alternative translations of detached sutras.  All four were translated about the beginning of the fifth century whereas the translations of detached sutras are for the most part earlier.  This class also contains the celebrated Sutra of Forty-two Sections, and works like the Jataka-nidana.  The second class is styled Sutras of one translation.[711] The title is not used rigorously, but the works bearing it are relatively obscure and it is not always clear to what Sanskrit texts they correspond.  It will be seen from the above that the Chinese Tripitaka is a literary and bibliographical collection rather than an ecclesiastical canon.  It does not provide an authorized version for the edification of the faithful, but it presents for the use of the learned all translations of Indian works belonging to a particular class which possess a certain age and authority.