The Udāna & The Itivuttaka

Two short classics of the Pali Canon in one volume.

The Udana, or Inspired Utterances of the Buddha, belongs to the Sutta Pi aka of the Pali Canon. It is the third book of the Minor Collection (Khuddaka Nikaya), found between the Dhammapada and the Itivuttaka. The Minor (or Lesser) Collection, although it is actually quite bulky, is given this name because it is an assortment of miscellaneous texts most of which were not included in what are regarded as the four main collections (nikaya).

The Itivuttaka is a collection of 112 short discourses of the Buddha in both prose and verse. The text belongs to the Pali Canon of the Therav da school, being placed between the Ud na and the Sutta Nip ta. It was previously translated by F.L. Woodward and published together with his translation of the Ud na in Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, Vol. II (London, 1935).