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Book · ◇ Light

Pāli Canon

coreattestedwritten c. 1st century BCEBuddhism

Earliest complete Buddhist scriptural collection.

Influence92

Antiquity80

Wisdom83

Mystery84

✦Signature powerThe WordIts verses bind, guide, and outlive the hands that wrote them.

Relics & objects

Sacred and cursed things that belong to the world of Pāli Canon.

Read the story

Illustrated chapters where Pāli Canon appears. Start reading in a click.

Illustrated storyThe Night Under the TreeA prince is walled inside a paradise so he will never learn that beings grow old, sicken and die, and learns it in four chariot rides. He walks out at midnight, starves himself to the edge of death, accepts a bowl of milk-rice, and sits down under a fig tree with a vow not to rise. What comes for him in the dark is Mara, with an army, three daughters, and one devastating question, and what answers is the earth itself.Begin reading →