Sacred Books of the Buddhists - Translated by Various Oriental Scholars #250467

The <i>Vinaya Pitaka</i> is one portion of the <i>Tripitaka</i>, which is a collection of Buddhist scriptures. The <i>Vinaya</i> deals primarily with the rules and regulations that must be followed by Buddhist nuns.<br><br>The Buddha's teachings, as with the teachings of most Indian leaders of the time, would have been almost entirely passed down verbally in Pali, an indigenous Indian language of the time. These teachings would not have been recorded in writing until several generations after the Buddha's death. The book opens with a discussion of the difficulty of translating these works into a European language and the changes that may appear in the text as a result.<br><br>As any scripture can be, the text of <i>The Book of the Discipline</i> is dense. While the author has made an effort to contextualize the words within, this is by no means an easy read. It should be noted that this republication appears to be missing several pages near the beginning, and thus the introduction is incomplete.<br><br>An important work for any Buddhist scholar, <i>The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya-Pitaka) – Volume Two</i> is a worthy edition to the library of those interested in the deep study of religion.