Three Pitakas (Skt. tripiṭaka; Tib. སྡེ་སྣོད་གསུམ་, Wyl. sde snod gsum) — the three collections or ‘baskets’ into which the Word of the Buddha is divided. They are the Vinaya, Sutra and Abhidharma. Together these comprise the Dharma of transmission or scripture. They teach the Dharma of realization which is comprised of the three higher trainings.
- The Sutras are discourses recounted together with their particular context, i.e. the location of the teaching, who was present and who asked a question, and so on.
- The Vinaya gives accounts of how certain rules came about by mentioning the particular context and who was involved.
- The Abhidharma takes the various topics covered in the sutras and arranges them according to their classifications and divisions.
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