BUDDHIST LITERATURE [PART -2]: UPSC Daily Important Topic | 11 April 2022

∆BUDDHIST LITERATURE [PART -2]

Non-canonical Buddhist literature.

✓ Non-canonical Buddhist literature in Pali includes the Milindapanha which consists of a dialogue on various philosophical issues between king  Milinda— the Indo-Greek Menander and the monk Nagasena.

✓The Nettigandha or Nettipakarana  belongs to the same period and gives a connected account of the teaching of the Buddha.

✓Commentaries on the Tipitaka include a 5th century work by Buddhaghosha.

✓The first connected life story of the Buddha occurs in the Nidanakatha (1st century).

✓The Pali or Sri Lankan chronicles—the Dipavamsa (4th–5th centuries) and the Mahavamsa (5th century)—contain a historical-cum-mythical account of the Buddha’s life, the Buddhist councils, the Maurya emperor Ashoka, the kings of Sri Lanka, and the arrival of Buddhism on that island.