Tripiṭaka in the context of "Tibetan Buddhist canon"

Since the Mahaparinirvana of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, Buddhist monastic communities, the "sangha", have periodically convened for doctrinal and disciplinary reasons and to revise and correct the contents of the Buddhist canons. Referred to as Buddhist "councils" (Pāli and Sanskrit: saṅgīti, literally meaning "reciting together" or "joint rehearsal"), the famous First Buddhist Council is recorded in Buddhist texts as being held one year after the Buddha's passing, when Ananda recited all of the spoken sutras, which were recorded in Rajagriha. The two next major Councils were held more than 100 years later.

The details of the later councils are debated by modern Buddhist studies. Various sources belonging to different Buddhist schools may contain different accounts of these events.

The Mahayana sutras are Buddhist texts that are accepted as canonical and authentic buddhavacana in Mahayana Buddhist sanghas. These include three types of sutras: Those spoken by the Buddha; those spoken through the Buddha's blessings; and those spoken through mandate. They are largely preserved in Sanskrit manuscripts, and in translations such as the Tibetan Buddhist canon, and Chinese Buddhist canon. Several hundred Mahāyāna sutras survive in Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese translations. The Buddhist scholar Asanga classified the Mahāyāna sūtras as part of the Bodhisattva Tripiṭaka, a collection of texts meant for bodhisattvas.

Buddhists consider the most important Mahayana sutras to be the spoken teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. These were quickly recorded one year following his Mahaparinirvana, when the Buddha's main attendant Ananda recited these Sutras in their entirety at the First Buddhist Council, where they were recorded. At that Council, two other attendants recited two other classifications of the Buddha's teachings. Other Mahāyāna sūtras are presented as being taught by masters such as bodhisattvas like Mañjuśrī and Avalokiteśvara. There are various reasons that Indian Mahāyāna Buddhists give to explain why some Sutras appeared at later times. One such reason is that they had been hidden away in the land of the Nāgas (snake deities, dragons) until the proper time for their dissemination arrived. They are also sometimes called Vaipulya ("extensive") sūtras by earlier sources.

The Abhidharma are a collection of Buddhist texts dating from the 3rd century BCE onwards, which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the canonical Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It also refers to the scholastic method itself, as well as the field of knowledge that this method is said to study.

Bhikkhu Bodhi calls it "an abstract and highly technical systemization of the [Buddhist] doctrine," which is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation." According to Peter Harvey, the Abhidharma method seeks "to avoid the inexactitudes of colloquial conventional language, as is sometimes found in the Suttas, and state everything in psycho-philosophically exact language." In this sense, it is an attempt to best express the Buddhist view of "ultimate reality" (paramārtha-satya).

The Tripiṭaka Koreana is a Korean collection of the Tripiṭaka (Buddhist scriptures), carved onto 81,352 wooden printing blocks in the 13th century. They are currently located at the Buddhist temple Haeinsa, in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. It is the oldest intact version of Buddhist canon in Hanja script. It contains 1,496 titles, divided into 6,568 books, spanning 81,258 pages, for a total 52,330,152 Hanja characters. It is often called the Palman Daejanggyeong ("Eighty-thousand Tripitaka") due to the number of the printing plates that comprise it. It is also known as the Goryeo Daejanggyeong (Goryeo dynasty Tripitaka).

Each wood block (page) measures 24 centimetres in height and 70 centimetres (9.4 in × 27.6 in) in length. The thickness of the blocks ranges from 2.6 to 4 centimetres (1.0–1.6 in) and each weighs about three to four kilograms (6.61 - 8.81 lbs). The woodblocks would be almost as tall as Paektu Mountain at 2.74 km (1.70 mi) if stacked and would measure 60 km (37 mi) long if lined up, and weigh 280 tons in total. The woodblocks are in pristine condition without warping or deformation despite being created more than 750 years ago.

The Chinese Buddhist canon refers to a traditional collection of Chinese language Buddhist texts which are the central canonical works of East Asian Buddhism. The traditional term for the canon is Great Storage of Scriptures (traditional Chinese: 大藏經; simplified Chinese: 大藏经; pinyin: Dàzàngjīng; Japanese: 大蔵経; rōmaji: Daizōkyō; Korean: 대장경; romaja: Daejanggyeong; Vietnamese: Đại tạng kinh). The Chinese canon is a major source of scriptural and spiritual authority for East Asian Buddhism (the Buddhism of China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam). It is also an object of worship and devotion for Asian Buddhists and its reproduction is seen as an act of merit making. The canon has also been called by other names like “Internal Classics” (neidian 内典), “Myriad of Scriptures” (zhongjing 眾經), or “All Scriptures” (yiqiejing 一切經).

The development of the Great Storage of Scriptures was influenced by the Indian Buddhist concept of a Tripitaka, literally meaning "three baskets" (of Sutra, Vinaya, and Abhidharma), a term which referred to the scriptural canons of the various Indian Buddhist schools. However, Chinese Buddhists historically did not have access to a single Tripitaka from one school or collection. Instead, the canon grew over centuries as various Indian texts were translated and new texts composed in China. These various works (4,878 individual texts according to the Chinese scholar He Mei) were later collected into a distinct Chinese canon.

The Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese: 大正新脩大藏經; pinyin: Dàzhèng Xīnxīu Dàzàngjīng; Japanese: Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō; lit. "Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka") is a definitive edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon and its Japanese commentaries used by scholars in the 20th century. The name is abbreviated as "大正藏" in Chinese (Dàzhèngzàng) and Japanese (Taishōzō).