eventually included Chinese translations of texts from
the tripitakasof different Indian schools and of huge
quantities of the Mahayana sutras and Buddhist tantras
produced in India from approximately the first cen-
tury C.E. onward, as well as commentaries and trea-
tises, texts written in China, biographies of monks and
nuns, lexicographical works, and even the catalogues
of Buddhist scriptures themselves. The sheer number
and diversity of texts made the use of the tripartite
structure of the tripitakaunfeasible. What is more, the
Chinese retained different translations of the same text,
often produced many centuries apart, affording mod-
ern scholars an excellent view of how texts and trans-
lation techniques developed over time.
Thus the Chinese Buddhist canon, which became
the standard in Korea and Japan as well, is vast. It has
appeared in numerous editions, many of them made
with imperial patronage, although the one most often
consulted by scholars today is the Taisho shinshu
daizokyo (New Edition of the Buddhist Canon Made
during the TaishoReign), published in Japan from 1924
to 1934 in one hundred volumes, each of which runs
to about a thousand pages (eighty-five volumes of texts
containing 2,920 works, twelve volumes of iconogra-
phy, and three of catalogues). Yet, immense as it is, the
Taishois not the only edition; many others have sur-
vived as well, and thus “the Chinese Buddhist canon”
is itself an abstraction of many highly variable collec-
tions. This proliferation of editions was in part due to
state involvement, as each successive set of rulers
sought to legitimate themselves politically as patrons
of religion, or aspired for reasons of piety to the merit
that the propagation of the buddhadharmagenerates.
These ideological considerations were instrumental
in stimulating the invention and spread of PRINTING
TECHNOLOGIESin East Asia, long before they were
known in the West. Thus the world’s oldest printed
works are Buddhist texts, and from the tenth century
onward the earlier manuscript copies of the Chinese
Buddhist canon were replaced by printed editions, first
using carved wooden blocks, then movable metal type.
The production of these editions required resources
that in those days only states could muster, although
in recent times wealthy religious and commercial or-
ganizations have also become involved.
The same is true of Tibet, where in the fourteenth
century the efforts of cataloguers trying to make sense
of the sheer diversity of Buddhist texts combined with
the interests of political authorities, intent on their own
kind of order, to produce the first of many editions of
the Tibetan canon, the Old Snar thang. Unlike the Chi-
nese, the Tibetans were generally disinclined to pre-
serve multiple translations of the same text, but their
canon (upon which the Mongolian canon is also
based) is equally vast. It has two major divisions, the
Bka’ ’gyur(the Word Translated; i.e., buddhavacana)
and the Bstan ’gyur(the Teachings Translated; i.e.,
commentaries and other treatises). The Bka’ ’gyurin-
cludes the three subdivisions of vinaya (that of the
Mulasarvastivada school), sutra (predominantly Ma-
hayana sutras, in their various categories), and TANTRA
(also arranged in various classes). The Bstan ’gyuralso
reflects these categories. The arrangement of all these
texts differs according to edition, and sometimes one
edition carries works not found in another.
As is the case with the Chinese canon, the Tibetan
translations preserve much that is lost in Sanskrit.
Some of the most prestigious editions (Peking, Sde dge,
Snar thang, etc.) have been mass-produced woodblock
prints; others have been manuscript productions, writ-
ten by hand on expensive papers with ink made of pre-
cious metals and enclosed between ornate covers
studded with jewels. The resources expended on this
activity have been enormous, and the results are ob-
jects of great beauty. For Tibetans, as for other Bud-
dhists, the sanctity of the canon derives from the
sanctity of the liberating truth it contains and of the
person who uttered it, and therefore the scriptures too
are the focus of worship and veneration. They are not
like any other books, but embody a special power, and
must therefore be treated with reverence and respect,
in a way similar, but not identical, to the way in which
Jews approach the Torah, Christians the Bible, and
Muslims the Qur’an.
Canon and canonicity are therefore never the same
from one religion to the next, even if common themes
can be found. Furthermore, the Buddhist canon turns
out to be a large family of collections of texts in dif-
ferent languages and from different places, all sharing
descent from a common set of forebears—the diver-
gent oral reports of what the Buddha had taught, which
were circulating among his disciples at his death some
time in the fifth century B.C.E. Not unitary in content
or linguistic expression even at the beginning, it is
unimaginably diverse in both respects two and a half
millennia later, as it continues to grow with editions
and translations into English and other modern lan-
guages. At the same time, the Buddhist canon is uni-
fied by a common concern with setting out the path
to salvation. Just as the waters of the ocean, however
vast, have the same taste of salt at any point, so too allCANON