Chinese Buddhist canon

The Chinese Buddhist canon refers to a specific collection of Chinese language Buddhist literature that is deemed canonical in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese Buddhism. The traditional term for the canon is "Great Storage of Scriptures" (). The Chinese Buddhist canon includes Āgama, Vinaya and Abhidharma texts from Early Buddhist schools, as well as the Mahāyāna sūtras and scriptures from Esoteric Buddhism. The Taishō Daizōkyō is the standard modern edition as systematized by Japanese scholars, published in Japan from 1924 to 1929. The Taisho has fifty-five volumes and 2,184 texts, in the following categories: Āgamas (equivalent to the Pali Nikāyas) and the Jātakas (219 texts in four vols.). Mahāyāna Sūtras, grouped into the following sections: Prajñaparamita, Lotus Sūtra, the Avatamsaka, the Ratnakūta, the Mahāparinirvāna, the Mahā-sannipāta and general ‘Sūtras’ (mostly Mahāyāna) (627 texts in thirteen vols.). Buddhist Tantras (572 texts in four vols.). Vinayas and some texts outlining Bodhisattvas ethics (eighty-six texts in three vols.). Commentaries on the Āgamas and Mahāyāna Sūtras (thirty-one texts in three vols.). Abhidharma texts (twenty-eight texts in four vols.). Mādhyamika, Yogācāra and other Śāstras (‘Treatises’ (129 texts in three vols.). Chinese commentaries (twelve vols.). Chinese sectarian writings (five vols.). Histories and biographies (95 texts in four vols.). Encyclopaedias, dictionaries, non-Buddhist works (Hindu, Manichaean, and Nestorian Christian), and catalogues of various Chinese Canons (sixty-four texts in three vols.). A supplement to the Taishō Daizōkyō was published in 1934. It contains forty-five volumes with 736 other texts, including Japanese texts, texts recently found at Dunhuang, apocryphal texts composed in China, iconographies and bibliographies. There are many versions of the canon in East Asia in different places and time. An early version is the Fangshan Stone Sutras (房山石經) from the 7th century.