‘Visuddhimagga’ or ‘The Path of Purity’, is among the most important scholarly works of Theravada Buddhism and, indeed, of the whole Buddhist tradition. It contains a survey of the main teachings of the historical Buddha, while also preserving some of the earliest commentaries on the Pali Canon.Written by the scholar monk Buddhaghosa in the 5th century CE, it is divided into three distinct sections, Part 1: Of Virtue, Part 2: Of Concentration, Part 3: Of Understanding. The author’s...

The Theragatha is one of the most striking texts in the Pali Canon. It is a collection of 264 poems or verses - some short, some long - by monks who, traditionally, lived at the time of the Buddha, and which expressed their experience of insight, the culmination of their spiritual path.In fact, it is generally recognised now that this collection was added to over the years, so that some of the verses date from a later time. But this does not diminish this collection, as the verses ...

The Lankavatara Sutra, dating from the early years of the Common Era, sometime before 443, is one of the most important Mahayana Buddhist texts, not least because of its influence on later Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. One of its possible early translators in the 8th century was Gunabhadra who is sometimes regarded as the first father of Zen in China.The Sutra takes the form of a dialogue between the Buddha in his cosmic form (as opposed to the historical figure of the Pal...

The Sura?gama Sutra, one of the most important works of Mahayana Buddhism, dates from some time before the 8th Century when the first Chinese translation was written, probably from an Indian original. It has long been a seminal work for Buddhist practitioners in East and South-East Asia, especially China and Korea. Indeed this “Sutra of the Indestructible”, as it is often translated, is regarded as a staple manual of practice for newly-ordained monks of the Ch’an and Zen schools, giving in...

Twenty-four of the Buddha's most distinguished disciples are brought to life in ten chapters of rich narration. They include monks who were very close to him throughout his life, including Sariputta and Mahamoggallana; his cousin and companion Ananda; his principal women disciples, including the nun Isidasi and his lay disciple, the courtesan Ambapali; and the serial killer Angulimala, whose character was transformed after meeting the Buddha.Drawn from a wide range of authentic Pal...

In this, the final volume in Dharma Audiobooks’ compilation of the Principal Texts of the Khuddaka Nikaya, the major work, and in some ways the most unusual, is Milinda’s Questions. For while the other two, the Buddhava?sa and the Cariyapitaka, may date from the early years of Buddhism, there is no doubt that Milinda’s Questions comes from a later period.Modern scholars place it between 100 BCE and 200 CE – with sections being added as the years passed. And even though only the Bur...

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was one of the most remarkable figures in the 20th century. Born an Untouchable - the lowest element of Indian society deemed to be outside the caste system, and literally 'untouchable' - he rose from abject village poverty to become the architect of the new Constitution of India following its independence from Britain in 1947.A combination of exceptional talent, hard work and determination, vision and luck took him to Harvard and the LSE, and then back to...

Peaks and Lamas is one of the classic early 20th-century accounts of travelling in the Himalayas on the borders of Tibet. It is, in its way, on a par with the more famous Mystery and Imagination in Tibet by Alexandra David-Néel (also available on Dharma Audiobooks).It describes two journeys in the 1930s, one physically active and one more of spiritual investigation. It starts as the title suggests, as a mountaineering adventure, when a group of English climbers set out to climb unc...

The Dhammapada, a collection of 423 verses in 26 chapters, is perhaps the most famous of all Buddhist texts. It presents the Buddha’s teachings in a clear and highly accessible form and has been used for personal instruction and teaching for centuries throughout the Buddhist world. It comes from the Khuddaka Nikaya section of the Pali Canon and is here collected with two other key texts from the same source.The Udana (‘inspired utterance’) contains stories from the Buddha’s life, e...

The Khuddaka Nikaya is different in character from the other four Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka in the Theravada Pali Canon in that rather than being a single work it is, as its customary translation ‘Minor Anthologies’ suggests, a collection of independent works. A true anthology!It contains some of the most important and well-known works in the Pali Canon, including the Dhammapada, the Udana, the Sutta Nipata and the Jataka Tales; and, in some recensions, Milinda’s Questions. There...

This is Volume 2 of Dharma Audiobooks’ ground-breaking overview of Principal Texts of the Khuddaka Nikaya, the fifth section of the Sutta Pitaka in the Theravada Pali Canon. Far less known than the first four (Digha Nikaya, Majjhima Nikaya, Sa?yutta Nikaya, A?guttara Nikaya) perhaps because of its character as an anthology rather than a self-contained work, it nevertheless contains gems which are only too easily overlooked or even underappreciated!As with Volume 1, Volume 2 follows...

These three sutras are the most important texts for the Chan (Chinese) and Zen (Japanese) Buddhist traditions, though they are very different in character and provenance. The Diamond Sutra (Vajracheddika Prajña Paramita Sutra in Sanskrit) has the distinction of being 'the earliest complete survival of a dated (11 May 868) printed book’. It was found in the Dunhuang Caves in China in 1900.The title, Diamond Cutter, outlines its purpose, which is to cut through ignorance to attain to...