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‘Visuddhimagga’ or ‘The Path of Purity’, is among the most important scholarly works of Theravada Buddhism and, indeed, of the whole Buddhist tradition. It contains a survey of the main teachings of the historical Buddha, while also preserving some of the earliest commentaries on the Pali Canon.

These three sutras are the most important texts for the Chan (Chinese) and Zen (Japanese) Buddhist traditions, though they are very different in character and provenance. The Diamond Sutra (Vajracheddikā Prajña Pārāmitā Sutra in Sanskrit) has the distinction of being 'the earliest complete survival of a dated (11 May 868) printed book’. It was found in the Dunhuang Caves in China in 1900. The title, Diamond Cutter, outlines its purpose, which is to cut through ignorance to attain to perfect wisdom or ultimate reality.

Twenty-four of the Buddha's most distinguished disciples are brought to life in ten chapters of rich narration. They include monks who were very close to him throughout his life, including Sariputta and Mahamoggallana; his cousin and companion Ananda; his principal women disciples, including the nun Isidasi and his lay disciple, the courtesan Ambapali; and the serial killer Angulimala, whose character was transformed after meeting the Buddha.

The Lankavatara Sutra, dating from the early years of the Common Era, sometime before 443, is one of the most important Mahayana Buddhist texts, not least because of its influence on later Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. One of its possible early translators in the 8th century was Gunabhadra, who is sometimes regarded as the first father of Zen in China. The Sutra takes the form of a dialogue between the Buddha in his cosmic form (as opposed to the historical figure of the Pali Canon) and the Bodhisattva or ‘Great Being', Mahamati.

The Dhammapada, a collection of 423 verses in 26 chapters, is perhaps the most famous of all Buddhist texts. It presents the Buddha’s teachings in a clear and highly accessible form and has been used for personal instruction and teaching for centuries throughout the Buddhist world. It comes from the Khuddaka Nikaya section of the Pali Canon and is here collected with two other key texts from the same source.

The Khuddaka Nikāya is different in character from the other four Nikāyas of the Sutta Pitaka in the Theravada Pāli Canon in that rather than being a single work it is, as its customary translation ‘Minor Anthologies’ suggests, a collection of independent works.

Having realized, as a 16 year old in pre-WWII London, that he was a Buddhist, the early life of Dennis Lingwood and his path to becoming a bhikkhu named Sangharakshita is a most extraordinary personal story. He was serving as a signals officer in India when, at the conclusion of the war, he threw away his official identity cards, took off his uniform, donned yellow robes and set off, barefooted, along the dusty paths of India as a spiritual seeker, begging for his food, as the Buddha did 2,500 years ago.

As with Volume 1, Volume 2 follows the traditional ordering of the individual works in the Khuddaka Nikāya, which makes for a curious, but invigorating collection. The first two texts, Therīgāthā and Theragāthā, present the traditional histories of the bhikkhunīs (nuns) and bhikkhus (monks) of the Buddha’s time. In each case, their biographies (written centuries later by Dharmapāla who had access to sources now lost) lead to verses ascribed to the real individuals on gaining nibbāna. Here are fascinating glimpses of life at the time of the Buddha.

The Surangama Sutra, one of the most important works of Mahayana Buddhism, dates from some time before the 8th Century when the first Chinese translation was written, probably from an Indian original. It has long been a seminal work for Buddhist practitioners in East and South-East Asia, especially China and Korea. Indeed this “Sutra of the Indestructible”, as it is often translated, is regarded as a staple manual of practice for newly-ordained monks of the Ch'an and Zen schools, giving instruction, through the words of the Buddha himself.

Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was one of the most remarkable figures in the 20th century. Born an Untouchable - the lowest element of Indian society deemed to be outside the caste system, and literally 'untouchable' - he rose from abject village poverty to become the architect of the new Constitution of India following its independence from Britain in 1947. A combination of exceptional talent, hard work and determination, vision and luck took him to Harvard and the LSE, and then back to his home country.

In this, the final volume in Dharma Audiobooks’ compilation of the Principal Texts of the Khuddaka Nikāya, the major work, and in some ways the most unusual, is Milinda’s Questions. For while the other two, the Buddhavaṃsa and the Cariyāpitaka, may date from the early years of Buddhism, there is no doubt that Milinda’s Questions comes from a later period.

Peaks and Lamas is one of the classic early 20th-century accounts of travelling in the Himalayas on the borders of Tibet. It describes two journeys in the 1930s, one physically active and one more of spiritual investigation. It starts as the title suggests, as a mountaineering adventure, when a group of English climbers set out to climb unconquered peaks in the Himalayas. The audiobook ends with a warning of the deleterious effect of Western culture on traditional art and values and an idealistic polemic on education.

The Theragatha is one of the most striking texts in the Pali Canon. It is a collection of 264 poems or verses - some short, some long - by monks who, traditionally, lived at the time of the Buddha, and which expressed their experience of insight, the culmination of their spiritual path. In fact, it is generally recognised now that this collection was added to over the years, so that some of the verses date from a later time.