The canon is often known by the name of Tripitaka[602] or Three Baskets.
When an excavation was made in ancient India it was the custom to pass
up the earth in baskets along a line of workmen[603] and the
metaphorical use of the word seems to be taken from this practice and to
signify transmission by tradition.

The three Pitakas are known as Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma. Vinaya
means discipline and the works included in this division treat chiefly
of the rules to be observed by the members of the Sangha. The basis of
these rules is the Patimokkha, the ancient confessional formula
enumerating the offences which a monk can commit. It was read
periodically to a congregation of the order and those guilty of any sin
had to confess it. The text of the Patimokkha is in the Vinaya combined
with a very ancient commentary called the Sutta-vibhanga. The Vinaya
also contains two treatises known collectively as the Khandakas but more
frequently cited by their separate names as Mahavagga and Cullavagga.
The first deals with such topics as the rules for admission to the
order, and observance of fast days, and in treating of each rule it
describes the occasion on which the Buddha made it and to some extent
follows the order of chronology. For some parts of the master's life it
is almost a biography. The Cullavagga is similar in construction but
less connected in style[604]. The Vinaya contains several important and
curious narratives and is a mine of information about the social
conditions of ancient India, but much of it has the same literary value
as the book of Leviticus. Of greater general interest is the Sutta
Pitaka, in which the sermons and discourses of the Buddha are collected.
Sutta is equivalent to the Sanskrit word Sutra, literally a thread,
which signifies among the Brahmans a brief rule or aphorism but in Pali
a relatively short poem or narrative dealing with a single object. This
Sutta Pitaka is divided into five collections called Nikayas. The first
four are mainly in prose and contain discourses attributed to Gotama or
his disciples. The fifth is mostly in verse and more miscellaneous.

The four collections of discourses bear the names of Digha, Majjhima,
Samyutta and Anguttara. The first, meaning long, consists of thirty-four
narratives. They are not all sermons and are of varying character,
antiquity and interest, the reason why they are grouped together being
simply their length[605]. In some of them we may fancy