truth’: the name of one of the three collections which com-
prise the sacred books of the Buddhists; (for the two others
see sūtrapiṭaka and vinayapiṭaka); the instructions contained
in it were addressed by the Buddha to the Devas and
Brahmas of the celestial worlds (while those in the Sūtra-
piṭaka were addressed to the laity and those in the Vinayap.
to the priests); its redaction however is not ascribed to
Sākya Muni, but to his principal disciple Kāśyapa, the
chief of the first Buddhistic synod. It contains seven sections,
the text with 96, 250 stanzas, the commentaries with 30,000,
consisting, therefore, in the whole of 126,250 stanzas; its
best representative is the work called Prajnāpāramitā;
(comp. Spence Hardy's East. Mon. p. 170 with the quot.
given there, and those s. v. abhidharma). E. abhidharma and piṭaka.