tripitaka

Tripitaka

I want to get some statistics on the text of the Tripitaka and probably make it searchable for phrases. Then compare the results to the Bible. Here the short result: The three baskets have 2782 books and 5273 chapters that could be printed on 7013 pages. The Bible has 66 books with 1189 chapters that in the kjv could be printed on 1062 pages. The Tripitaka is therefore roughly 6.6x as large.

The Pali version by the The Vipassana Research Institute (VRI)

The structure of the Tripitaka is more diverse and not as uniform as in the bible. A parsing run over the 7288 json files from the Pali edition resulted in the following statistics:

• 2,782 books - 42x
• 5,273 chapters - 4.4x
• 99,567 verses - 3.2x
• 481,994 sentences - 13.8x kjv
• 3,007,818 words - 3.8x kjv
• 22,439,824 characters or letters - 6.9x kjv
• 7,013 pages if printed 80x50 per page (Consolas 11pt on A4 with 17/19mm border - 31.4 MByte as text file, 6.6x kjv)

In detail for the three Baskets this results in :

• Vinaya Piṭaka has 412 books with 450,529 words on 1039 pages, 4.7 MByte textfile
• Sutta Piṭaka has 2289 books with 1,692,792 words on 3872 pages, 17.2 MByte textfile
• Abhidhamma Piṭaka has 81 books with 864,497 words on 2102 pages, 9.5 MByte textfile

	books	chapters	verses	sentences	words	characters	pages	size
Vinaya Piṭaka	412	8	4,259	73,833	450,529	3,363,421	1,039	4.7 MByte
Abhidhamma Piṭaka	81	1021	42,558	118,211	864,497	6,884,073	2,102	9.5 MByte
Sutta Pitaka	2289	4244	52,750	289,950	1,692,792	12,192,330	3,872	17.2 MByte
sum	2782	5273	99,567	481,994	3,007,818	22,439,824	7,013	31.4 MByte

Combined thats 31.4 MByte and roughly 7x larger than the KJV project, for comparison below. This version is stored in 7288 json files in 192 folders and has 22 million characters counted. More details further down below. Another size comparison source: The Vipassana Research Institute (VRI) in India states that the Tripitaka makes up 24 million characters. My count is 22 million charagers, for the KJV it was 3.2 million. So the order of magnitude seems correct.

For comparison the Bible in the King James version

• 66 books (5.2 MByte in 66 JSON files, from Arul John)
• 1,189 chapters
• 31,102 verses
• 35,049 sentences
• 790,573 words
• 3,223,201 characters
• 1062 pages if printed 80x50 per page (Consolas 11pt on A4 with 17/19mm border - 4.3 MByte as text file)

And a little private remark: I always wanted to be able to say that I read the entire bible. How long would that take? Some 92 hours on average reading speed in English. By 2020 I only had the audio files for 827 of the 1189 chapters (60 hours). In 2023 I had all files ready, and started listening on June 6th and was finished 143 days later on October 6th, 2023. Now let’s follow up with German and Vietnamese.

More details on further subpages:

• Bible
• Tripitaka

Tripitaka size in tablets at the Kuthodaw Pagoda

The above graph was created based on the used tablets used for the baskets in the largest book of the world with 729 tablets in Mandalay. It assumes that the content of each of the tablets is roughly the same.

• Vinaya Piṭaka 111 tablets
• Sutta Pitaka - 410 tablets (for DN, MN, SN (65), AN(78), KN(169))
• Abhidhamma Piṭaka - 208 tablets

A python script run will hopefully give some further insight into the size of the Tipitaka similar to the KJV above from 2024/05/01.

More details on the three baskets of the Tipitaka:

Vinaya Piṭaka (Basket of Discipline)

• Suttavibhaṅga: Pāṭimokkha and commentary
  • Mahāvibhaṅga: 227 rules for fully ordained monks (bhikkhus)
  • Bhikkhunīvibhaṅga: 311 (348 Dharmaguptaka, 364 Mulasarvastivada) rules for nuns (bhikkhuṇīs)
• Khandhaka 22 chapters on various topics
• Parivāra 19 chapters with analyses of rules from various points of view

Sutta Pitaka - 5 Nikāyas - 34 + 152/222 + 2854/7762 + 169/186 + (15/18 books) suttras

Dīgha Nikāya (“Collection of Long Discourses”) - 34 suttras

• Silakkhandha-vagga — The Division Concerning Morality (suttas 1-13)
• Maha-vagga — The Great Division (suttas 14-23)
• Patika-vagga — The Patika Division (suttas 24-34)

Majjhima Nikāya (“Collection of Middle-length Discourses”) - 152 or 222 suttras

• 222 sūtras (Sarvāstivāda school)
• 152 suttas in the Pāli Majjhima Nikāya, the version I analyzed

Saṃyutta Nikāya (“Connected Discourses” or “Kindred Sayings”) - 2854 to 7762 suttras

• Burmese edition: 2854 suttras
• Pali Text Society edition: 2889 suttras
• Bhikkhu Bodhi in his translation: 2904
• Rupert Gethin: 6696 suttras
• Sinhalese edition: 7656 suttras
• Bodhi commentaries: 7762 suttras
• The suttas/sūtras are grouped into five vargas/vaggas, or sections. Each varga/vagga is further divided into samyuttas/saṃyuktas, or chapters:
  • Sagatha-vagga (SN1-11)
  • Nidana-vagga (SN12-21)
  • Khandha-vagga (SN22-34)
  • Salayatana-vagga (SN35-44)
  • Maha-vagga
    • SN 45 the Noble Eightfold Path
    • SN 46 the Seven Factors of Enlightenment
    • SN 47 the Four Establishment of Mindfulness
    • SN 48 the Faculties
    • SN 49 the Four Right Striving
    • SN 50 the Five Powers
    • SN 51-55
    • SN 56 the Truths

Aṅguttara Nikāya (aṅguttaranikāya; lit. ’Increased-by-One Collection’, also translated “Gradual Collection” or “Numerical Discourses”) - 11 nipatos, 186 or 169 or thousands os suttras

• Ekakanipāto (The Book of Ones) 20 suttras?
• Dukanipāto (The Book of Twos) 19
• Tikanipāto (The Book of Threes) 18
• Catukkanipāto (The Book of Fours) 28
• Pañcakanipāto (The Book of Fives) 29
• Chakkanipāto (The Book of Sixes) 13
• Sattakanipāto (The Book of Sevens) 11
• Aṭṭhakanipāto (The Book of Eights) 11
• Navakanipāto (The Book of Nines) 10
• Dasakanipāto (The Book of Tens) 23
• Ekādasako nipāto (The Book of Elevens) 4

Khuddaka Nikāya (lit. ’Minor Collection’) - 15 to 18 books

• Khuddakapatha (Pali for “short passages”) - 9 discourses
• Dhammapada - 423 verses in 26 chapters, most widely read
• Udana - 8 chapters, 80 utterances
• Itivuttaka - 112 short teachings
• Sutta Nipata - 5 sections, 70 suttas
  • Uraga Vagga (“The Chapter on the Serpent”) - 12 suttas
  • Cūla Vagga (“The Minor Chapter”) - 14 suttas
  • Mahā Vagga (“The Great Chapter”) - 12 suttas
  • Atthaka Vagga “The Chapter of Octads” - 16 suttas
  • Parayana Vagga (“The Chapter on the Way Beyond”) - 16 suttas
• Vimanavatthu - 83 short stories
• Petavatthu - 51 verses, hungry ghost realm?
• Theragatha (Verses of the Elder Monks) - 264 poems, 21 chapters, 1279 verses (claim: 1360)
• Therigatha (Verses of the Elder Nuns) - 73 poems, 16 chapters, 494 verses
• Jataka - 550 fables that should teach virtues, but taken literal
• Niddesa - two commentaries by Sariputta: Maha Niddesa on the Atthaka Vagga, Cula Niddesa on the Parayana Vagga and Khaggavisana Sutta
• Patisambhidamagga - 30 chapters, the first is about knowledge
• Apadana - 589-603 poems
• Buddhavamsa (also known as the Chronicle of Buddhas) - 29 chapters - 24/28 Buddhas that preceded Gautama several billion years ago, some while riding on an elephant, being 26 meters large and having a stupa 307 km high (Anomadassi) and living 100,000 years (Tissa) and having 6.8 million disciples (Vipassī)
• Cariyapitaka - 35 stories, spanning 356 to 371 verses
• Nettipakarana or Netti (included in Burmese and Sinhalese editions, but not in Thai edition) - 2 divisions, 3 subsections, with 16 hāras, 5 naya and 18 mūlapadas, repeated in second subsection, expanded in third
• Petakopadesa (included in Burmese and Sinhalese editions, but not in Thai edition) - 8 sections
• Milindapañha (lit. ’Questions of Milinda’, included in Burmese edition, but not in Sinhalese and Thai editions) - 2 volumes?

Abhidhamma Piṭaka (Basket of Higher Doctrine) - 7 books

• Dhammasaṅgaṇī (-saṅgaṇi or -saṅgaṇī)
• Vibhaṅga (vibhaṅga)
• Dhātukathā (dhātukathā)
• Puggalapaññatti (-paññatti)
• Kathāvatthu (kathā-)
• Yamaka
• Paṭṭhāna (paṭṭhāna) - 24 types of conditional relations (the Buddhist belief that causality — not a Creator deity — is the basis of existence) on some 1000 pages

Size of the 3 baskets and their main 16 Collections

I use the Pali text to estimate the pages needed to print the complete text 80x50 characters per page (Consolas 11pt on A4 with 17/19mm border) on 7009 pages, in detail:

Basket	Vinaya Piṭaka	Sutta Pitaka - 5 Nikāyas	Abhidhamma Piṭaka
Content	(Basket of Discipline)	(Basket of Discourse)	(Basket of Higher Doctrine)
Pages	1031	3872	2106
Including	bu, bi, kd, pvr	dn, mn, sn, an, kn	ds, vb, dt, pp, lv, ya, patthana

code	name	pages	content
bu	Bhikkhupātimokkha	309	227 rules for monks (bhikkhus) in the Pāṭimokkha, Suttavibhaṅga (“rule analysis”)
bi	Bhikkhunīpātimokkha	108	311 rules for nuns (bhikkhuṇīs)
kd	Khandhaka	452	22 chapters on various topics
pvr	Parivāra	162	19 chapters with analyses of rules from various points of view
ds	Dhammasaṅgaṇī	124	lit. ’Collection of Dhammas’
vb	Vibhaṅga	200	18 chapters: aggregate, sense bases, elements, truth, faculties, dependent origination and more
dt	Dhātukathā	40	“Discourse on Elements” in the form of questions and answers, grouped into 14 chapters
pp	Puggalapaññatti	35	Classifications of persons, which are arranged numerically, from 1-fold to 10-fold.
kv	Kathāvatthu	188	“Points of Controversy”, documents over 200 points of contention.
ya	Yamaka	446	यमक; Pali for “pairs”, text on applied logic and analysis
patthana	Paṭṭhāna	1073	24 types of conditional relations, causality is the basis for existence
dn	Dīgha Nikāya	312	“Collection of Long Discourses” - 34 suttras
mn	Majjhima Nikāya	573	“Collection of Middle-length Discourses” - 152 or 222 suttras
sn	Saṃyutta Nikāya	620	“Connected Discourses” or “Kindred Sayings” - 2854 to 7762 suttras
an	Aṅguttara Nikāya	709	lit. ‘Increased-by-One Collection’, also translated “Gradual Collection” or “Numerical Discourses”
kn	Khuddaka Nikāya	1658	lit. ‘Minor Collection’ - 15 to 18 books, incl. Dhammapada and Buddhavamsa (also known as the Chronicle of Buddhas)
sum	number of pages:	7009	with text 80x50 characters per A4 page (Consolas 11pt, 17/19mm border)

More details in comparison

King-James-Bible

Since I have the complete bible in well organized and structured 66 JSON files available it was a question of a few hours to get some statistics out of it. Let’s start with a visualization of the size of the 66 books - some smaller ones are not labeled:

We can now break down each book into the number of chapteres, verses, sentences, words, characters and pages needed in a print:

book	chapters	verses	sentences	words	letters	pages
Genesis	50	1,533	1,716	38,290	151,857	50
Exodus	40	1,213	1,288	32,695	131,775	43
Leviticus	27	859	872	24,546	98,922	33
Numbers	36	1,288	1,349	32,928	137,901	45
Deuteronomy	34	959	999	28,387	114,018	37
Joshua	24	658	699	18,862	78,372	26
Judges	21	618	753	18,985	76,851	25
Ruth	4	85	114	2,577	10,000	4
1 Samuel	31	810	1,065	25,066	100,211	33
2 Samuel	24	695	915	20,620	82,497	27
1 Kings	22	816	951	24,538	98,713	32
2 Kings	25	719	943	23,538	93,631	31
1 Chronicles	29	942	1,054	20,383	86,625	29
2 Chronicles	36	822	934	26,093	109,303	35
Ezra	10	280	294	7,445	31,705	11
Nehemiah	13	406	466	10,489	44,705	14
Esther	10	167	205	5,645	23,748	8
Job	42	1,070	1,230	18,149	73,266	24
Psalms	150	2,461	2,664	42,727	173,959	58
Proverbs	31	915	946	15,046	62,676	21
Ecclesiastes	12	222	242	5,588	21,972	7
Song of Solomon	8	117	134	2,666	10,548	4
Isaiah	66	1,292	1,474	37,086	150,992	50
Jeremiah	52	1,364	1,564	42,720	174,386	57
Lamentations	5	154	166	3,421	14,173	4
Ezekiel	48	1,273	1,364	39,423	160,049	53
Daniel	12	357	384	11,605	48,438	16
Hosea	14	197	215	5,178	21,122	7
Joel	3	73	78	2,035	8,359	2
Amos	9	146	173	4,220	16,989	6
Obadiah	1	21	25	674	2,823	1
Jonah	4	48	62	1,321	5,087	1
Micah	7	105	124	3,155	12,719	5
Nahum	3	47	56	1,286	5,423	1
Habakkuk	3	56	71	1,484	6,217	2
Zephaniah	3	53	55	1,620	6,643	3
Haggai	2	38	46	1,130	4,400	1
Zechariah	14	211	239	6,445	25,549	8
Malachi	4	55	87	1,782	7,125	3
Matthew	28	1,071	1,221	23,717	96,656	32
Mark	16	678	777	15,192	61,338	20
Luke	24	1,151	1,310	25,999	104,336	35
John	21	879	1,034	19,146	75,533	25
Acts	28	1,007	1,099	24,277	101,726	33
Romans	16	433	536	9,454	39,320	13
1 Corinthians	16	437	528	9,474	37,943	13
2 Corinthians	13	257	287	6,089	24,982	8
Galatians	6	149	162	3,092	12,652	4
Ephesians	6	155	158	3,030	12,832	5
Philippians	4	104	111	2,185	9,031	3
Colossians	4	95	100	1,983	8,422	2
1 Thessalonians	5	89	92	1,837	7,543	3
2 Thessalonians	3	47	49	1,024	4,277	1
1 Timothy	6	113	119	2,251	10,068	3
2 Timothy	4	83	89	1,667	7,246	3
Titus	3	46	52	898	4,067	1
Philemon	1	25	26	430	1,817	1
Hebrews	13	303	319	6,915	29,336	9
James	5	108	134	2,307	9,433	3
1 Peter	5	105	116	2,478	10,589	4
2 Peter	3	61	66	1,557	6,940	2
1 John	5	105	126	2,519	9,848	3
2 John	1	13	17	298	1,204	1
3 John	1	14	18	294	1,250	0
Jude	1	25	27	609	2,812	1
Revelation	22	404	460	12,003	48,251	16
sum	1,189	31,102	35,049	790,573	3,223,201	1061

Pali edition of the Tripitaka

We can now break down each basket into the number of chapteres, verses, sentences, words, characters and pages needed in a print:

	json	folders	books	chapters	verses	sentences	words	characters	pages	html fix	size
Vinaya Piṭaka	422	18	412	8	4,259	73,833	450,529	3,363,421	1,039	0	4.7 MByte
Abhidhamma Piṭaka	1102	64	81	1021	42,558	118,211	864,497	6,884,073	2,102	1816	9.5 MByte
Sutta Pitaka	5749	110	2289	4244	52,750	289,950	1,692,792	12,192,330	3,872	331	17.2 MByte
sum	7273	192	2782	5273	99,567	481,994	3,007,818	22,439,824	7,013	2147	31.4 MByte

I had to remove thousands of <b> and </b> tags in the json files.

Now even more details:

Vinaya Piṭaka (Basket of Discipline)

• Suttavibhaṅga (Pali for “rule analysis”) - 347 JSON files, 2.8 MByte
  • Pāṭimokkha 227 rules for monks (bhikkhus) and 311 for nuns (bhikkhuṇīs)
    • Bhikkhupātimokkha bu 225 verses, 754 lines, 75 kByte (total 222 JSON)
      • Mahāvibhaṅga - Adhikaraṇasamatha bu-vb-as 5 verses, 33 lines, 2 kByte
      • 7 subfolder bu-vb ay(2), np(30), pc(92), pd(4), pj(4), sk(75), ss(13) - total 220 JSON files, 2 MByte
    • Bhikkhunīpātimokkhapāḷi bi 333 verses, 947 lines, 100 kByte (total 127 JSON)
      • Bhikkhunivibhaṅga - Adhikaraṇasamatha bi-vb-as 5 verses, 33 lines, 2 kByte
      • 6 Subfolder bi-vb np(12), pc(94), pd(2), pj(5), sk(2), ss(10) - total 125 JSON files, 595 kByte
• Khandhaka kd 22 chapters, 22 JSON files, 2.9 MByte
  • Mahavagga has 10 chapters
  • Cullavagga has 12 chapters
• Parivāra pvr (19 or 21 chapters) - 12784 lines, 2475 verses, 51 JSON files, 1.1 MByte
  • 1.1.0 to 1.1.332 - 2212 lines, 332 verses
  • 1.2.0 to 1.16.4 - 1184 lines, 329 verses
  • 2.1.0 to 2.1.186 - 1401 lines, 186 verses
  • 2.2.0 to 2.16.6 - 923 lines, 224 verses
  • 3.0 to 3.76 - 295 lines, 76 verses
  • 4.0 to 21.87 - 6769 lines, 1328 verses

Vinaya Piṭaka	json	folders	books	chapters	verses	sentences	words	characters	pages	bytes
bu	222	8	228	0	729	22,738	136,465	978,831	309	1,369,715
bi	127	7	141	0	593	8,198	42,881	326,823	108	456,266
kd	22	1	22	0	462	29,866	206,774	1,532,105	452	2,068,895
pvr	51	1	21	30	2,475	13,031	64,409	525,662	162	741,603

Sutra Pitaka - 5 Nikāyas - 34 + 152/222 + 2854/7762 + 169/186 + (15/18 books) suttras

• Dīgha Nikāya (“Collection of Long Discourses”) - 34 suttras
• Majjhima Nikāya (“Collection of Middle-length Discourses”) - 152 or 222 suttras
• Saṃyutta Nikāya (“Connected Discourses” or “Kindred Sayings”) - 2854 to 7762 suttras
• Aṅguttara Nikāya (aṅguttaranikāya; lit. ’Increased-by-One Collection’, also translated “Gradual Collection” or “Numerical Discourses”) - 11 nipatos, 186 or 169 or thousands os suttras
• Khuddaka Nikāya (lit. ’Minor Collection’) - 15 to 18 books

Abhidhamma Piṭaka (Basket of Higher Doctrine) - 7 books

• Dhammasaṅgaṇī (-saṅgaṇi or -saṅgaṇī)
• Vibhaṅga (vibhaṅga)
• Dhātukathā (dhātukathā)
• Puggalapaññatti (-paññatti)
• Kathāvatthu (kathā-)
• Yamaka
• Paṭṭhāna (paṭṭhāna) 24 types of conditional relations (the Buddhist belief that causality — not a Creator deity — is the basis of existence) on some 1400 pages

Abhidhamma Piṭaka	json	folders	books	chapters	verses	sentences	words	characters	pages	html fix	bytes
ds	21	3	2	19	2,158	8,671	53,641	405,137	124	328	578,026
dt	19	3	2	17	643	3,131	17,945	131,336	40	0	177,070
kv	219	24	23	196	2,519	19,640	85,076	616,259	188	0	877,996
patthana	728	25	24	704	20,221	47,896	429,338	3,534,375	1,073	1,488	4,830,994
pp	20	3	2	18	550	1,863	15,120	112,387	35	0	154,532
vb	18	1	18	0	3,258	13,012	84,217	645,914	200	0	912,905
ya	77	11	10	67	13,209	23,998	179,160	1,438,665	446	0	1,951,786

Sources

Similar projects have been done with the bible and having all 1189 chapters in JSON files, like this one from Arul John of the King James version.

Tripitaka sources

• tripitaka.online only in Sinhala
• suttacentral by Bhante Sujato in English, Pali from VRI
• theravada.vn Vietnamese site with 541 English, 2722 Roman and 2034 Vietnamese suttras

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