(b) Buddhist texts discovered in Central Asia.  Hitherto these have been merely fragments, but the number of manuscripts found and not yet published permits the hope that longer texts may be forthcoming.  Those already made known are partly Mahayanist and partly similar to the Pali Canon though not a literal translation of it.  It is not clear to what extent the Buddhists of Central Asia regarded the Hina and Mahayanist scriptures as separate and distinct.  Probably each school selected for itself a small collection of texts as authoritative[599].

(3) The Chinese Canon.  This is a gigantic collection of Buddhist works made and revised by order of various Emperors.  The imperial imprimatur is the only standard of canonicity.  The contents include translations of works belonging to all schools made from the first to the thirteenth century A.D.  The originals were apparently all in Sanskrit and were probably the texts of which fragments have been found in Central Asia.  This canon also includes some original Chinese works.

(4) There is a somewhat similar collection of translations into Tibetan.  But whereas the Chinese Canon contains translations dated from 67 A.D. onwards, the Tibetan translations were made mainly in the ninth and eleventh centuries and represent the literature esteemed by the mediaeval Buddhism of Bengal.  Part at least of this Tibetan Canon has been translated into Mongol.

Renderings of various books into Uigur, Sogdian, Kuchanese, “Nordarisch” and other languages of Central Asia have been discovered by recent explorers.  It is probable that they are all derived from the Sanskrit Canon and do not represent any independent tradition.  The scriptures used in Japan and Korea are simply special editions of the Chinese Canon, not translations.

In the following pages I propose to consider the Pali Canon, postponing until later an account of the others.  It will be necessary, however, to touch on the relations of Pali and Sanskrit texts.

The scriptures published by the Pali Text Society represent the canon of the ancient sect called Vibhajjavadins and the particular recension of it used at the monastery in Anuradhapura called Mahavihara.  It is therefore not incorrect to apply to this recension such epithets as southern or Sinhalese, provided we remember that in its origin it was neither one nor the other, for the major part of it was certainly composed in India[600].  It was probably introduced into Ceylon in the third century B.C. and it is also accepted in Burma, Siam and Camboja[601].  Thus in a considerable area it is the sole and undisputed version of the scriptures.

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.