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 Pali Canon, as it has come down
to us, is divided into three Pitakas or 'baskets', viz. Vinaya-Pitaka
Sutta-Pitaka and Abhidhamma-Pitaka. 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. Whle the Uraga, Maha, Cula and
Atthaka Vaggas consist each of a collectioin of independent and unconnected
poems (sometimes interspersed with prose) called Suttas, the Parayana aims
at a dramatic synthesis. Its prologue and epilogue serve as a setting to
the sixteen Questions which elicit Gotama's gradual exposition of the
saving 'Way Across'.
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