on content and its realization than they do on form
and obedience to it. Truth (dharma) emerges as the
primary value, ever the same whether buddhas arise to
preach it or not, independent of particular formula-
tions by particular people, so that eventually the state-
ment “All that the Buddha has said is well said” is
turned around: Whatever is well said (i.e., true) is the
word of the Buddha. Canonicity is therefore defined
in functional terms: If a teaching is meaningful, if it is
in line with the dharma, and if it tends to eliminate the
defilements and lead to liberation, then any product of
inspiration (pratibhana) may be accepted as the word
of the Buddha. Under such conditions, innovations in-
evitably crept in, some of them rejected as not being
the true word of the Buddha, but some of them find-
ing acceptance, especially if they accorded in spirit with
existing belief. It was in this way that the Mahayana
sutras eventually came to be accepted by some Bud-
dhists as buddhavacana,as did the Buddhist tantras af-
ter them. Thus Buddhism functioned from early on
with what is almost a contradiction in terms, an “open
canon,” in which commonly accepted principles of
authenticity take the place of a rigidly defined and
bounded set of texts in a given linguistic form. The lat-
ter would have been well-nigh impossible in any case
because Buddhism functioned in a situation of regional
and linguistic diversity, with Buddhists living in au-
tonomous self-governing communities.
Form, content, and transmission
Agreement in such circumstances was by consensus,
despite occasional attempts by kings and emperors to
enforce orthodoxy. Several so-called councils (samglti,
group recitations) are supposed to have been held as
the fledgling san ̇gha tried to maintain unity on what
was to be accepted as the true word of the Buddha or
the correct interpretation of the rules of discipline. The
first council at Rajagrha took place after the death of
the Buddha. At this council, the disciple ANANDAre-
cited the sutras (discourses delivered by the Buddha,
or others accorded equivalent authority), and UPALI
recited the vinaya (rules of discipline for renunciants).
The community accepted their recounting of these two
bodies of texts, with only some monks dissenting.
Yet even this account of a san ̇gha relatively united
as to what the Buddha had taught may oversimplify his-
tory. Later councils (at Vais ́al, Pataliputra, etc.) were
occasions for more serious disagreements, which led to
the formation of the different nikayasby sects or schools
each recognizing the validity of its own ordination lin-
eage only. In India it appears that each nikayacame to
transmit its own set of sacred texts, initially dividing
them into sutra and vinaya. In some schools, the sutra
and vinaya were supplemented from about the second
century B.C.E. onwards by the abhidharma,an even
more variable set of texts (seven for the Sarvastivadins,
a different seven for the Theravadins, and so on), which
systematized the teachings in terms of the particular
categories they fell under. Some schools rejected this
third category, but for most the notion of the canon as
consisting of the three baskets (tripitaka) of sutra,
vinaya, and abhidharmabecame standard. The tripitaka
of one school, as far as scholars know, was never the
same as that of the next, although the loss of the liter-
ature of most schools makes it difficult to be certain
about the extent of difference. Nevertheless, there are
certain commonalities. For example, the sutra-pitakas
were divided into sections (nikayas, agamas) according
to such criteria as length, subject, or numerical cate-
gory (there was also a miscellaneous category, for texts
that did not fit any of these). The vinayas were divided
into rules for men and rules for women, these being or-
dered according to the seriousness of the offense, with
other sections devoted to particular aspects of com-
munity life (ordination, official acts, property, etc.).
The resulting collections of texts, which are referred to
as canons,were therefore quite varied, extensive, and
structurally complex.
One of the primary functions of the Buddhist order
was to preserve and transmit all this literature, at first
orally, then in writing, from generation to generation,
even though Buddhists have always had a keen sense
of the fragility of this enterprise. They believe that this
effort is bound to fail in the end, due to human weak-
ness, so that the work of a buddha will need to be done
over and over again. Different groups of renunciants
took responsibility for the transmission of different
sections of their school’s canon, committing them to
memory, although occasionally people with prodi-
gious mental powers mastered the whole canon. One
consequence of this “division of labor” is that the same
text can occur in two or more different places in a given
canon. Oral transmission also led to extreme redun-
dancy and repetition, the same formulas and blocks of
text recurring in many different contexts.
From about the first century B.C.E. onward the texts
began to be committed to writing, on palm leaf, birch
bark, and other materials. This was only partially suc-
cessful in preserving the texts for posterity, and most
have been lost. The only canon to survive in its en-CANON