Description

The book 'Buddha's Teachings' contains a metrical English rendering of an important Buddhist work in Pali named 'Sutta Nipata' with the original text in Romanized version on the opposite page. The Sutta Nipata, translated here, contains an ancient, probably the most ancient, part of the Sutta-Pitaka. It belongs to that portion of the Sutta-Pitaka which is named Khuddaka Nikaya or 'Collection of Short Treatises' as distinct from the four long Nikayas called Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta and Anguttara. Of the five Vaggas (or 'books') of the present Sutta-Nipata the fifth stands out from its fellows by reason of its purposeful unity. While the Uraga, Maha, Cula and Attaka Vaggas consist each of a collection of independent and unconnected poems called Suttas, the Parayana aims at a dramatic synthesis.