Buddhavacana, from Pali means "the Word of the Buddha". It refers to the original sayings of the Buddha but is sometimes used to simply refer to any sacred writing of the various Buddhist traditions. All traditions recognize as Buddhavacana texts that make no claim to being the actual words of the Buddha, such as the Theragatha and Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra.
In Theravada Buddhism, the standard collection of Buddhavacana is the Pali Canon. The oral tradition of the Theravadin recension of Buddhist texts dates back to the time of the Buddha and was arranged in its current form 80 BC. In Tibetan Buddhism it is the Kangyur. East Asian Buddhism has the Korean Tripitaka[1] and the Taishō Canon 大正大藏經 in Japan.[2] These canons always combined Buddhavacana with other literature in their standard collected editions. However, their general view of what is and is not Buddhavacana is broadly similar to that of Tibetan Buddhism.
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