User:Dorje108/Quick guide to the Pali Canon

Thanks to Larry Rosenfield for providing this info.

Text collections

The Sutta Piṭaka is broken up into five nikāyas:

the Dīgha Nikāya, the collection of long (Pāḷi: dīgha) discourses
the Majjhima Nikāya, the collection of middle-length (majjhima) discourses
the Samyutta Nikāya, the collection of thematically linked (samyutta) discourses
the Anguttara Nikāya, the "gradual collection" (discourses grouped by content enumerations)
the Khuddaka Nikāya, the "minor collection"

DN

References that begin "DN" refer to the "Digha Nikaya" (often translated as, "Long Discourses" in English). This collection contains 34 discourses.

The notation "DN 33" denotes the 33rd discourse (sutta) of this collection. (The parenthesized notation, "D iii.215," is specific to the Pali Text Society's (PTS) redaction of the Digha Nikaya -- here meaning the Digha Nikaya's ["D"] third ["iii"] volume's page 215 -- a notation that is often referenced in other volumes, such as the Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project's [SLTP] redaction of the Pali Canon and in Wisdom Publication's English translations of the Pali Canon [e.g., as translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi, etc].) (As an aside, I believe most Western Buddhist scholars would assess that DN 33 and DN 34 are "late" additions to the Pali Canon, perhaps early attempts at collating material from earlier suttas ... though providing appropriate sources for this claim here is way beyond this thread ... ;-) )

MN

"MN" refers to the Pali Canon's "Majjhima Nikaya" ("Middle-length Discourses"),

Iti

The "Itivuttaka" (Iti.) is a small collection in the Pali Canon's "Khuddaka Nikaya " (KN).

Best on-line translations

In general, the best on-line, free English translations for the Pali Canon (as recommended by Larry Rosenfeld) can be found at John Bullitt's amazing site, "Access to Insight" (ATI). So, for instance, of the above footnote's referenced discourses, the following ATI translations can be found:

MN 9: Sammaditthi Sutta: trans., Nanamoli & Bodhi at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.009.ntbb.html;
trans., Thanissaro at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.009.than.html
Iti. 50: Group of Threes: trans., Thanissaro at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/iti/iti.3.050-099.than.html

Unfortunately, I don't know of any on-line English translations of DN 33 and 34. The best source I know of for such is Maurice Walshe's Wisdom Pub hard-copy translation. (PTS fans would likely point to the T.W. Rhys Davids and C.A.F. Rhys Davids trans. :-) )