Itivuttaka

History

According to tradition, the Itivuttaka's verses were recollections from the laywoman Khujjuttarā, a servant of Queen Sāmāvati of Kosambi. Khujjuttarā was often sent by Sāmāvati to purchase eight coins worth of flowers, but would only purchase four coins worth, stealing the rest of the money. After the florist invited Buddha to a meal, Khujjuttarā was invited to participate, attaining the path and fruit of Sotapatti before the discourse had finished. Regretting her dishonesty, she purchased eight coins worth of flowers and confessed to Sāmāvati. Sāmāvati would forgive her, appointing Khujjuttarā as a personal attendant, instructing her to visit the monastery near Kosambi each day and relay the Buddha's sermons to the women of the palace, resulting in Khujjuttarā becoming foremost in learning among laywomen (AN 1.260). On returning from the monastery, the women of the palace were said to place Khujjuttarā on a high seat in order to show respect to the teaching as she repeated one of the Buddha's discourses. Eventually, Ānanda gave discourse to the women of the palace prompting a gift of 500 robes in gratitude for the Buddha's teaching, which was matched by 500 more robes gifted by King Udena. All five-hundred would become Stream Enterers by the time of their deaths as a result of practice according to the sermons shared by Khujjuttarā and Ānanda (Ud 7.10).

During the Buddha's lifetime, there was a text known as the Itivuttaka mentioned as one of the nine aṅgas (categories) of the Buddha's teaching which predate the modern organisation of the Pali Tipitaka, however it is unclear if this corresponds to the collection we now have under this name. At the First Buddhist Council at Rajagaha, Ananda rehearsed these Suttas in their current form. In Mahayana Buddhism, sayings known as "itivṛttaka" became part of the twelve aṅgas. Around the 6th century CE, the commentator Dhammapāla wrote the commentary for the Itivuttaka as part of the Paramatthadīpanī, a series of commentaries.

Due to the short length of the discourses and its encouraging tone, the Itivuttaka is one of the most popular and widely-translated pieces of Theravāda literature. A Latin-script edition of the Itivuttaka edited by Ernst Windisch was first published by the Pali Text Society in 1889. The first English translation was published as Sayings of Buddha by Justin Hartley Moore in 1908. In 1935, the Pali Text Society would publish F. L. Woodward's Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, Part II which would include his translations of both the Udāna and Itivuttaka. In 1991, John D. Ireland's translation of the Itivuttaka was published. In 2000, Peter Masefield would publish a literal translation for the Pali Text Society which would aim at presenting the text as seen through the eyes of fifth-century Theravāda orthodoxy. In 2001, Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu would publish his translation under the title This Was Said by the Buddha. In 2017, Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thera would release a translation as This Was Said By the Buddha from the Sinhala. In 2018, Anagārika Mahendra (later Bhikkhu Mahinda) would publish his translation as Book of This Was Said.

Parallels

While the Pāli edition has been the standard for Western translations, there are existing parallels in other languages. These include:

• "Gāndhārī Itivuttaka" – a reconstructed manuscript of the Itivuttaka written in Gāndhārī and conserved in July 2025, currently part of the Islamabad Museum collection of Gandhāran Buddhist texts.
• "Benshijing" 本事經 (Taishō vol. 17, sūtra 765) – translated by Xuanzang in CE 650, the first two sections are similar to the Pāli, while the third is missing over three fifths. The Chinese parallel has only 65 sūtras compared to the 112 in the Pāli text, however some of these are not present in the Pāli. Watanabe argues that this text is of a later date than the Pāli, and is likely attributed to the Sarvāstivādin school.
• "Khotanese Fragments" (IOL Khot 154/4 with 19/4) – parts of the "Bodhisattva Compendium" correspond to two passages in the Benshijing, with parallels in the Pāli Itivuttaka and Aṅguttara Nikāya.

Organisation

The Itivuttaka is a short book which resembles the Aṅguttara Nikāya in structure, as it is organised according to four unequal sections based on the number of items in each saying. Ernst Windisch gave a numbering system to the Pali text which is still used used by the Pali Text Society to this day (giving all the Suttas a number in sequence) in order to make referencing them easier. Other ways of numbering the Itivuttaka are using the traditional approach of three levels of groups, or by verse and chapter. Another similarity with the Aṅguttara Nikāya is the text having the prose section followed by a verse, which Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu claims is "apparently one of the Buddha's techniques for helping his listeners remember his message". Ṭhānissaro also notes that while the overall text is not as literary as the Dhammapada or Udana, text utilises each Nipāta ending on a strong literary rasa (savor) which portrays something astonishing.

Excerpts

The following English translations are from Bhikkhu Sujato's translation (2020) while using Pali from the World Tripitaka Edition.

Translations

• Sayings of Buddha, tr J. H. Moore, Columbia University Press, 1908
• "As it was said", in Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, volume II, tr F. L. Woodward, 1935, Pali Text Society, Bristol
• Tr John D. Ireland, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, 1991; later reprinted in 1 volume with his translation of the Udāna.
• Tr Peter Masefield, 2000, Pali Text Society, Bristol; the PTS's preferred translation; its declared aim is to translate in accordance with the commentary's interpretation
• Tr Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, 2013, Itivuttaka: This was said by the Buddha
• Tr Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thera, Mahamegha Publishers, Waduwawa, Sri Lanka, 2017 (ISBN 978-955-687-113-5)
• Tr Bhikkhu Mahinda (Anagarika Mahendra), Itivuttaka: Book of This Was Said, Bilingual Pali-English Second Edition 2022, Dhamma Publishers, Roslindale MA; ISBN 9780999078150 Archived 31 July 2022 at the Wayback Machine.
• Tr Bhikkhu Sujato, So It Was Said: A delectable translation of the Itivuttaka, SuttaCentral, 2022 (ISBN 978-1-76132-077-4); a public domain translation.