Pali Literature

Of all the collections of Buddhist writings, the first and best-known is the Pali Canon, where Pali is a dead language related to Sanskrit and perhaps similar to the language the Buddha spoke. The Pali Canon is composed of three separate collections called baskets. One is the basket of discipline (vinaya) which includes the rules for monks and nuns. Another is the basket of writings (sutta), a massive literature of discourses of the Buddha and his immediate disciples. This basket is the major source of essential Buddhism. And third is the basket of further teaching (abhidhamma), which will be discussed later. The Pali Canon is slowly being translated into English, at first primarily by the Pali Text Society.
In addition to the Pali Canon is the extremely influential Vissuddhimagga ("The Path of Purification"), compiled by Buddhaghosa (1975) in the fifth century CE (cf. also Flickstein, 2001, for a practice-oriented introduction). Buddhaghosa was first a Brahmin yogi (Brahmanism being the precursor to Hinduism) and then became a Buddhist monk. The Vissuddhimagga is a large encyclopedia of the yogic practices and conceptualizations of the time, Brahmin and/or Buddhist.
Theravada Buddhism, as found in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, is the branch of Buddhism closest to the teachings and practices of the time of the Buddha. The Vissuddhimagga and the Pali Canon are the basic and most influential resources for Theravadins and this paper.