The Long Discourses of the Buddha (Dīgha Nikāya)

The first collection of the Sutta Piṭaka in the Pali Canon of Theravāda Buddhism, gathering thirty-four of the longest discourses traditionally attributed to the Buddha and his disciples. They were transmitted orally for centuries and written down in Sri Lanka around the first century BCE. The collection falls into three divisions. It opens with the Brahmajāla Sutta, which classifies sixty-two speculative views about the self and the world, and the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, in which King Ajātasattu asks about the fruits of the ascetic life and reports the views of six rival teachers. Other discourses discuss the self and the cessation of perception, dependent origination in the Mahānidāna Sutta, and the Buddha's last months and death in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. The Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta sets out the foundations of mindfulness, the Aggañña Sutta gives a satirical account of the origin of the world and of social classes, and the Sigālovāda Sutta offers ethics for lay householders.

It contains several of the most important early Buddhist texts, from critiques of rival philosophies to the account of the Buddha's death, and shows early Buddhist thought in vivid narrative form.