Question: What is the content of that called the Tripiṭaka Teaching?

Answer: This refers to the three stores [of the Buddha’s teachings]: first, the collection of the Sutras; second, the collection of the Vinaya; and third, the collection of the Abhidharma.

Q: Are these terms, “Sutra” and so forth, Sanskrit, or are they Chinese?

A: They are Sanskrit.

Q: What are they in Chinese?

A: Sutra is sometimes translated and sometimes not. When it is translated, various people translate it in different ways. However, many use the translation “Dharma source.” Vinaya is translated as “extinction.” Abhidharma is translated as “incomparable Dharma.”

Q: For what reason are the translations “Dharma source” and so forth used?

A: [A Sutra is] called a “Dharma source” because it is a source of verbal teachings concerning the world-transcending good Dharma. [In the Vinaya] the Buddha expounds on the intentional and spontaneous precepts and how to extinguish evil physical and verbal activity. Therefore it is translated as “extinction.” [In the Abhidharma] the meaning of the Dharma is analyzed by the Noble One’s wisdom, which is incomparable in this world. Therefore it is translated as “incomparable Dharma.”

Q: Which Sutras and treatises are the “Dharma source” [in the Tripiṭaka Teaching] ?

A: Here the fourfold Agama is the Dharma source, the Vinaya of eighty recitations is the text for extinction [of passionate attachments], and the Abhidharma treatises are the “incomparable Dharma.”