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Updated: June 26, 2025
They are mentioned in the Nikâyas as worthy of all respect but are not prominent in either the earlier or later works, which is only natural, seeing that by their very definition they are self-centred and of little importance for mankind.
Various Mahayanist schools had their own versions of the Vinaya which apparently contain the same rules as the Pali text but also much additional narrative, and Asanga quotes from works corresponding to the Pali Nikâyas, though his doctrine belongs to another age. The Abhidharma section of the Pali Canon seems however to have been peculiar to the Theravâda school.
The contents of it are not quite the same in Ceylon, Burma and Siam, and only a small portion of them has been identified in the Chinese Tripitaka. Nevertheless the word pañcanekâyika, one who knows the five Nikâyas, is found in the inscriptions of Sanchi and five Nikâyas are mentioned in the last books of the Cullavagga. Thus a fifth Nikâya of some kind must have been known fairly early.
It is probable that in practice this belief differed little from the ordinary Brahmanic doctrine of metempsychosis and this may be one reason for the prevalence of the sect. I-Ching, though he does not furnish statistics, gives a clear conspectus of Buddhist sects as they existed in his time. He starts from the ancient eighteen sects but divides them into four groups or Nikayas.
Then follows a similar account of the Sâmaññaphala sutta and we are told that Ânanda was "questioned through the five Nikâyas." That is no doubt an exaggeration as applied to the time immediately after the Buddha's death, but it is evidence that five Nikâyas were in existence when this chapter was written . Lines of growth are clearly discernible in the Vinaya and Sutta Pitakas.
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