Sutra, Sutra

Looking for Stra?

The literary form of the sutra was designed for concision, as the texts were intended to be memorized by students in some of the formal methods of scriptural and scientific study (Sanskrit: ). Since each line is highly condensed, another literary form arose in which commentaries (Sanskrit: ) on the sutras were added, to clarify and explain them. For discussion of the literary form for , their terse nature as a summary of ideas for memorization, and the rise of the commentorial literary form as an adjunct to , see:.

In Chinese, these are known as (pinyin: jng ). These teachings are assembled in part of the Tripitaka which is called Sutra Pitaka . There are also some Buddhist texts, such as the Platform Sutra, that are called sutras despite being attributed to much later authors. Some scholars consider that the Buddhist use of sutra is a mis-Sanskritization of sutta, and that the latter represented Sanskrit skta (well spoken).

Source: Wikipedia > Stra