684 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



however (at pages 680, 682), that Vin. is by all odds the best designa- 

 tion for Vinaya ; and (at p. 682) that each one of the first four Nikayas 

 demands one comprehensive designation, and that the texts of the fifth 

 Nikaya stubbornly resist any such treatment. Taken by and large, 

 the first four Nikayas are surely the longest and most important texts 

 of the second and third Pitakas. Convenience and economy therefore 

 dictate for the first four Nikayas the briefest possible designations, 

 that is, uniliterals ; and (by extraordinarily good luck) the names of 

 these four begin each, not only with a different letter, but also with an 

 Oriental character for the transliteration of which only one Roman 

 letter is needed and not a digraph. We shall surely make no mistake 

 in settling upon D., M., S., and A. as designations for the Dlgha-nikaya, 

 Majjhima-nikaya, Sarjyutta-nikaya, and Anguttara-nikaya respectively. 

 So far, so good. 



Biliterals for the Khuddaka-nikaya. — Coming now to the Khud- 

 daka, the case is not so simple. The general title of the Nikaya cannot 

 possibly be abbreviated by a single Roman letter, since it begins with 

 kh. And even if it could, each of the 15 titles of the constituent texts 

 demands (as we saw at p. 683) an independent abbreviation. More- 

 over, of those titles not less than four begin with a sound requiring a 

 digraph (kh, dh, th) for its transliteration. It is evident that for the 

 books of this Nikaya naught less than a biliteral will suffice. But 

 (once more) this necessity is a very lucky one as fitting admirably into 

 a scheme which modulates smoothly from uniliterals up (or down) to 

 quadriliterals. 



Triliterals for Vinaya and Abhidhamma. — For Vinaya texts we have 

 already (p. 680) settled on Vin. Next, the seven texts of the Abhi- 

 dhamma-pitaka. The titles of two begin with Dh, while Vibhanga, like 

 Vimana-vatthu, begins with Vi. It is obviously impossible to give to 

 all seven a distinctive designation of less than three letters without 

 abandoning the whole system. 



Excursus : Sequence of the Pitaka-texts. — The sequence in which 

 the Pitakas are usually named is Vinaya, Sutta, Abhidhamma. Thor- 

 oughly cogent reasons, however, compel us to put the Sutta-pitaka, 

 with its uniliteral and biliteral designations, at the beginning of our 

 scheme. After it comes naturally the Vinaya, with its triliteral desig- 

 nation ; and along after the Vinaya comes the Abhidhamma, also with 

 its triliteral designations. But this order (Sutta, Vinaya, Abhi- 

 dhamma) is one which we may well regard as according with that of the 

 historical development of the several parts of the canon. For there can 

 be little question that the Sutta-pitaka 27 represents in general the 



27 



Cp. Neumann, Majjhima, 1, pp. x.-xi. 



