Sutta Pitaka

The second is the Sutta Pitaka or collection of teachings.

The Khuddaka-Nikâya seems to have been wanting in the Pitaka of the Sarvâstivâdins or whatever sect supplied the originals from which the Chinese Canon was translated, for this Canon classes the Dhammapada as a miscellaneous work outside the Sutta Pitaka.

But the Sutta Pitaka is an attempt to delineate a personality as well as to record a doctrine.

The point of view of the Abhidhamma is certainly later than that of the Sutta Pitaka and in some ways marks an advance, for instead of professing to report the discourses of Gotama it takes the various topics on which he touched, especially psychological ethics, and treats them in a connected and systematic manner.

Still, though the essence of the doctrine may be detachable from miracles and even be scientific, one cannot read very far in the Vinaya or the Sutta Pitaka without coming upon unearthly beings or supernatural occurrences.