The Buddhist Tripitaka

Integrated into are the Jatakas or picture story, a visual interpretation of Buddha's life. The Jatakas stories are a important part in the visual arts of the particular country.

Pali scriptures of Theravada version

are probably the oldest and most known versions. Aside of the texts Jatakas illustrate the legendary stories of adventures Gautama has experienced in his 550 incarnations before he became the Buddha. He was the king of the monkeys, the parrots, the elephant, the king of Benares and Kalinga and adviser to other kings, hermits, monks, Brahmins etc. Each of its incarnations in his previous life has a special dedicated Jataka.

The very first texts were formed at group councils of the Sangha (monastic orders). A senior monk asked a series of questions to assembled monks, sometimes numbering thousands. They replied by reciting the appropriate portion of the canon. The Buddha's teachings were preserved in this way for about 400 years, until monks wrote them down in Pali. In the Mahayana a different version was developed. A main scripture, the Lotus Sutra, uses the term Tripitaka to refer to the literature of the early schools. On the other hand, the term had tended to become synonymous with Buddhist scriptures, and thus continued to be used for Chinese, Tibetan, Thai and Myanmar or Burmese collections.

The Chinese form, "Sanzang" was sometimes used as an honorary title for a Buddhist monk who has mastered all canons, in particular in the case of the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang, whose pilgrimage to India to study and bring Buddhist scriptures back to China was portrayed in the novel Journey to the West as "Tang Sanzang".

Here is a picture of the scriptures from a old monastery at Bagan, Burma. In the monasteries are still many old scriptures stored. If you want to have a look you need to go with a experienced tour guide because otherwise they wont let you in.

Because of the popularity of the story, the term in "Sanzang" is often erroneously understood as a name of the monk Xuanzang. One such screen version of this is the popular 1979 Monkey TV series.

The Tripitaka War

In 1056 A.D., in Myanmar, the Monk Shin Arahan came from Thaton to Bagan. The dedicated monk met a dynamic King Anawrahta and they started to make  historic changes at the capital of that time.

Anawrahta became a pure Theravada believer with great dedication. First of all he abolished the Ari sect. To foster the new idea, he needed scriptures. King Manuha of Thaton in southern Myanmar had them but bluntly refused to share them with Anawrahta. In 1057 A.D. Anawrahta made war on Thaton (1057 A.D.), destroyed the Mon dynasty and thirty one elephant loads of scriptures were carried to Bagan.

Manuha and his family were taken prisoners and about 30.000 Mon crafts men, artistes and skilled workers were also taken with. Out of this historic event the country emerged as a leading Buddhist country. With all his people together glorious Bagan was built. During Anawrahta reign and after, people became so well-versed in the texts that, it is said, even village girls could discuss metaphysics with the learned monks.

In the years after Anawrahta's death persons among the royal class, King Kyaswa, Princess Thanbyin and others became teacher of the new religion and held regular classes teaching monks the Pali and Sanskrit texts.

This is the Buddhist bible.

Over time a lot of variants of Buddha's teaching has developed.

The main streams are manifested in two religious scriptures, one is the Theravada Buddhism direction and the other is Mahayana Buddhism plus countless sub directions.

Also a lot of different mediums were used for a Tripitaka. Some form of paper, bamboo slab, palm leaf, inscriptions in walls at various Buddhist Temple, but all finally are for the purpose to preserve history and to proliferate Buddhist tradition and teaching.

Probably the largest book ever has been a Tripitaka buildup at the Kuthodaw pagoda in Mandalay Myanmar or Burma.

This Myanmar Tripitaka stone libraries has hundreds of marble slabs with the Buddhist canonical texts of the Tripitaka inscribed. 729 marble slabs with the whole of the Tripitaka (Pali canon) in the Theravada Buddhism version are on display. Each stone table with Buddhist scriptures is housed in a small shrines.

Aside of this religious scripture at the Myanmar Buddhist temple there are the Jakata Stories, in modern words it could be defined as a book full of comics depicting the lifecycles of the Buddha. The Jakata stories are a part of the Tripitaka in visual form and there are many. Alone in the Pahtodawgyi Pagoda  at Amarapura is a set of 550 Jataka plaques carved

in marble.

Buddhist monks are the keeper of the Buddhist scriptures and traditions in various pagodas, temples and Buddhist monasteries.

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