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Finally, some schools also compiled a Kṣudrakāgama (Pāli Khuddaka-Nikāya), the ‘smaller’ or ‘inferior’ collection. Clearly this division was adopted as an appropriate place for items that did not fit easily into the other four divisions, and it therefore has something of a miscellaneous character. The Pāli Sutta Piṭaka happens to be one that did contain such a division, which, in this case, is composed of fifteen different texts. They are very diverse in character, some very late, such as the Buddhavamsa and Cariyāpiṭaka, but others are very early and of great interest for giving a glimpse of the early character of the Buddha’s teaching and activity, at a stage before it had become extensively formulated. Among these early texts one can include the famous Dhammapada, the Sutta Nipāta, the Itivuttaka and the Udāna. The Khuddaka-Nikāya also contains the Thera- and Therī-gāthā, ‘Verses of the Elder Monks and Nuns’ – usually spontaneous verse utterances of the disciples of the Buddha. One of the most popular sections of this Āgama is that of the Jātaka, the stories of the previous lives of the Buddha.
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