Walton & Sujato · English Selected edition
- Language
- English
- Contents
- Book names and poem references follow the structural headings in this edition.
- Credits
- SuttaCentral published repository
- Rights
- CC0 · Jessica Walton and Bhikkhu Sujato
Buddhism
Therīgāthā
Seventy-three poems attributed to elder Buddhist nuns. The published English edition credits Jessica Walton and Bhikkhu Sujato.
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Mahāsaṅgīti · Pali Selected edition
- Language
- Pali
- Contents
- Book names and poem references follow the structural headings in this edition.
- Credits
- SuttaCentral published repository
- Rights
- Public domain · Mahāsaṅgīti Tipiṭaka Buddhavasse 2500
Poems attributed to elder nuns
Voices of the elder nuns
The Therīgāthā is a collection of Pali poems attributed to women elders in the Buddhist monastic community. It belongs to the Khuddaka Nikāya of the Theravāda canon. Its companion collection, the Theragāthā, preserves verses attributed to elder monks. The title of each collection identifies a community of speakers. Individual poems have their own forms of address, occasions and images.
The poems
The arrangement proceeds broadly from short poems to longer ones. A single stanza may take the form of an address to oneself. A longer poem can make room for remembered family relationships, dialogue or a sequence of events associated with renunciation. Domestic objects and everyday work figure alongside descriptions of monastic life and release. Later commentaries supply biographical narratives for particular elders. The extent of what is said about a life in a poem can be quite different from the detail available in a commentarial account.
Editions in this library
The edition presented here comprises 73 poems. Jessica Walton and Bhikkhu Sujato are credited for the English translation published by SuttaCentral. The Pali text comes from the Mahāsaṅgīti edition. Poem titles, group numbers and the divisions within an individual poem preserve the publisher’s way of locating each voice in the collection.