Cariyāpiṭaka

The Cariyapitaka (cariyāpiṭaka; where cariya is Pali for "conduct" or "proper conduct"[1] and pitaka is usually translated as "basket";[2] abbrev. Cp[3]) is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. It is included there in the Sutta Pitaka's Khuddaka Nikaya, usually as the last of fifteen books.[4] It is a short verse work that includes thirty-five accounts of the Buddha's former lives (similar to Jataka tales) when he as a bodhisattva exhibited behaviors known as "perfections," prerequisites to buddhahood. This canonical text, along with the Apadana and Buddhavamsa, is believed to be a late addition to the Pali Canon[5] and has been described as "hagiographical."[6]

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Overview

In the first story (Cp. I), the Buddha says he will illustrate his practice of the perfections (Pali, pāramitā or pārami) by stories of his past lives in this current age.[7] The text contains 35 such stories, spanning 356[8] to 371 verses.[9]

The body of the Cariyapitaka is broken into three divisions (vagga), with titles correlated to the first three of the ten Theravada pāramitā:

  • Division I (dāna pāramitā):[10] 10 stories for the perfection of offering (dāna)
  • Division II (sīla pāramitā):[11] 10 stories for the perfection of conduct (sīla)
  • Division III (nekkhamma pāramitā):[12] 15 stories distributed among five other perfections, as follows:

The three remaining Theravada perfections — wisdom (paññā), energy (viriya), patience (khanti) — are mentioned in a closing stanza[18] but no related Cariyapitaka stories have come down to us.[19] Horner suggests that these latter three perfections are "implicit in the collection," referenced in both story titles and contexts.[20]

Translations
  • "The collection of the ways of conduct", in Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, volume III, 1st edition, tr B. C. Law, 1938
  • "Basket of conduct", in Minor Anthologies III (along with "Chronicle of Buddhas (Buddhavamsa)"), 2nd edition, tr I. B. Horner, 1975, Pali Text Society, Bristol
  • Tr Bhikkhu Mahinda (Anagarika Mahendra), Cariyāpiṭaka: Book of Basket of Conduct, Bilingual Pali-English First Edition 2022, Dhamma Publishers, Roslindale MA; ISBN 9780999078198 .

See also

Notes
  1. Rhys Davids & Stede (1921-25), p. 263, entry for "Cariya" (retrieved 2008-08-19 from "U. Chicago" at ), provides the following translation: "conduct, behaviour, state of, life of.... Very freq. in dhamma[cariya] & brahma[cariya], a good walk of life, proper conduct, chastity...."
  2. Horner (2000), pp. iii-iv.
  3. Horner (2000), p. iii.
  4. See, for instance, Horner (2000), p. iii, in which she writes: "Cp ... is usually regarded as the fifteenth and last book in the Khuddakanikaya. The Digha-bhanakas (reciters) excluded it, however, from the Sutta-pitaka though conceding that the Majjhima-bhanakas accepted it together with Bv and Ap...." Horner's sources for this are the Digha Nikaya's (DN) and Vinaya's commentaries and DN's subcommentary.
  5. Horner (2000), p. vi, for instance, writes that the Cariyapitaka is "[c]onsidered to be post-Asokan...."
  6. Hinüber (2000), p. 43. See also, Horner (2000), p. iii, where Barua (1945), p. 72, is cited as referring to the Apadana, Buddhavamsa and Cariyapitaka as "the three legendary chronicles."
  7. Cp I.1.2. The current age is known as Bhadda-eon (see Horner, 2000, Cp, p. 50 n. 7).
  8. 356 verses are enumerated in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana (CSCD) edition of the Pali Canon. See, e.g., retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Vipassana Research Institute" at http://www.tipitaka.org/romn/cscd/s0512m.mul2.xml (where vagga I has 143 verses, vagga II has 91, and vagga III has 122), and from "Dhamma Society" at . Note that the CS edition does not include in this verse count the 10 envoi verses (labeled "Tassuddānaṃ") at the collection's end.
  9. 371 verses are enumerated in the Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project (SLTP) edition of the Pali Canon. See, e.g., retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=sutta%20pitaka&action=next&record=10662 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine, and from "MettaNet" at http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/5Khuddaka-Nikaya/15Cariyapitaka/7-upekkhaparamita-p.html. Note that the SLTP edition does include in this verse count the 10 envoi verses (labeled "Uddāna gāthā") at the collection's end
  10. Parenthetical Pali vagga title based on the SLTP edition of the Pali Canon, retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=10624 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  11. Parenthetical Pali title based on SLTP text, retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=10638 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  12. Nekkhamma pāramitā is the title for the third division's (vagga) first set of stories and is thus used as the basis for the entire division itself although the division includes stories illustrative of multiple paramitas. See, e.g., the SLTP text, retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=10648 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  13. The translation of adhiṭṭhāna as "resolute determination" is based on Horner (2000), passim.
  14. Parenthetical Pali title based on SLTP text, retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=10653 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  15. Parenthetical Pali title based on SLTP text, retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=10655 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  16. Parenthetical Pali title based on SLTP text, retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=10660 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. Parenthetical Pali title based on SLTP text, retrieved 08-19-2008 from "Bodhgaya News" at http://www.bodhgayanews.net/tipitaka.php?title=&record=10661 Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.
  18. Cp III.15.9: "Having inquired of the learned [paññā]. having engaged in supreme energy [viriya], having gone to the perfection of patience [khanti], I attained supreme Self-Awakening." (Horner, 2000, p. 49.)
  19. See Horner (2000), p. 49 n. 5.
  20. Horner (2000), p. vi: "Indeed they [wisdom, energy and patience] are implicit in the collection: Wisdom, as implied by the term pandita, in the titles of Cp.I.10, III.5.6, 8; Energy in II.2.3, II.10.2 when the Bodhisatta resolutely determined on the four factors of energy, that great instrument for Awakening, since without it nothing can be achieved; and Patience is recognizable in the story of Wise Temiya, III.6, and in others." Regarding the "four factors of energy," Horner (2000), p. 19 n. 11, identifies them in this canonical passage: "gladly would I be reduced to skin, sinews, bone and let my body's flesh and blood dry up" (A.i.50, S.ii.28, M.i.481, identified as "fourfold energy" in MA.iii.194).

Sources
  • Barua, B.M. (1945). Ceylon Lectures. Calcutta. Cited in Horner (2000), p. iii, n. 5.
  • Hinüber, Oskar von (2000). A Handbook of Pāli Literature. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016738-7.
  • Horner, I.B. (trans.) (1975; reprinted 2000). The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon (Part III): 'Chronicle of Buddhas' (Buddhavamsa) and 'Basket of Conduct' (Cariyapitaka). Oxford: Pali Text Society. ISBN 0-86013-072-X. (All references in this article to "Horner, 2000" use page numbers associated with this volume's Cariyapitaka, not the Buddhavamsa.)
  • Rhys Davids, T.W. & William Stede (eds.) (1921-5). The Pali Text Society’s Pali–English Dictionary. Chipstead: Pali Text Society. A general on-line search engine for the PED is available at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/.
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