The Absence of the Holy Book in Buddhism and the Common Buddhist Text Project

Abstract

Most world-wide religions have their holy books: Judaism – the Torah, Christianity – the Bible, and Islam – the Koran. In Buddhism, on the other hand, there is neither a single nor a collection of such scriptures intended for all its believers. The Pāli Canon is certainly respected by all of them, however it is incomparably more comprehensive than single holy books of other religions and it does not serve as a basis and ultimate exposition for all Buddhist traditions. The article examines the conditions behind such circumstances and introduces the project of the development of a one-volume collection of canonical texts being representative of the main Buddhist traditions. The project was launched in 2009 in Bangkok and should be completed in 2013 with a publication of a pilot version of such a Book. Abstract in Chinese: 大多数世界宗教都有它们的圣书，如犹太教的《妥拉》、基督教的《圣经》、伊斯兰教的《古兰经》。然而，佛教却没有一本或一集为所有信徒使用的经典。巴利文佛经显然被所有的佛教徒所尊重，与其他宗教的单本经典相比，它更为综合，但并不作为所有佛教传统的基础和最终依据。本文将考察这一情形，并介绍当前正进行的编纂一卷能代表所有主流佛教传统的经典文本的“佛教共同经典项目”的进展情况。这个项目是从2009年在曼谷开始的，将于2013年结束，它将出版一本“共同经典”的试验版.