Buddhist texts can be categorized in a number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized into canonical, commentarial and pseudo-canonical. A rather more definite division is that between Buddhavacana

Buddhavacana

Buddhavacana, from Pali and Sanskrit, means "the Word of the Buddha." It refers to the works accepted within a tradition as being the teachings of the Buddha...

 (the Word of the Buddha) and other texts.
According to Donald Lopez, criteria for determining what should be considered buddhavacana was developed at an early stage, and that the early formulations do not suggest that the Dharma is limited to what was spoken by the historical Buddha.