The Theragatha often translated as Verses of the Elder Monks (Pāli: thera elder (masculine) + gatha verse), is a Buddhist scripture, a collection of short poems supposedly recited by early members of the Buddhist sangha

Sangha

Sangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose...

. In the Pali Canon

Pāli Canon

The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...

, the Theragatha is classified as part of the Khuddaka Nikaya

Khuddaka Nikaya

The Khuddaka Nikaya is the last of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism...

, the collection of short books in the Sutta Pitaka

Sutta Pitaka

The Sutta Pitaka is the second of the three divisions of the Tipitaka or Pali Canon, the Pali collection of Buddhist writings, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism...

. Many of the verses of the Theragatha concern the attempts of monks to overcome the temptations of Mara

Mara (demon)

In Buddhism, Māra is the demon that tempted Gautama Buddha by trying to seduce him with the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara's daughters. In Buddhist cosmology, Mara personifies unwholesome impulses, unskillfulness, the "death" of the spiritual life...

. It consists of 264 poems, organized into 21 chapters. Notable texts from the Theragatha include the eighth poem of chapter sixteen, consisting of verses recited by the reformed killer Angulimala

Angulimala

Daku Angulimala is an important early figure in Buddhism, particularly within the Theravada suttas...

, and the third poem of chapter seventeen, in which the Buddha's cousin and retainer Ananda

Ananda

Ānanda was one of the principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...

 mourns the passing of his master. The natural companion to the Theragatha is the Therigatha

Therigatha

The Therigatha, often translated as Verses of the Elder Nuns , is a Buddhist scripture, a collection of short poems supposedly recited by early members of the Buddhist sangha in India around 600 BC...

, the Verses of the Elder Nuns.

Translations

• Psalms of the Brethren, tr C. A. F. Rhys Davids, 1913; reprinted in Psalms of the Early Buddhists, Pali Text Society
  Pali Text Society
  The Pali Text Society was founded in 1881 by T.W. Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pali texts".Pali is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism is preserved...
  
  http://www.palitext.com, Bristol
• Elders' Verses, volume I, tr K. R. Norman
  K. R. Norman
  Kenneth Roy Norman is a leading scholar of Middle Indo-Aryan or Prakrit, particularly of Pali. He saw military service in India and Malaya and studied classics at Cambridge University, and spent most of his career teaching Prakrit at Cambridge University.He was a visiting professor at SOAS and...
  
  , 1969, Pali Text Society, Bristol; the PTS's preferred translation; also available in paperback as Poems of Early Buddhist Monks, without the translator's notes

External links

• The Theragatha (Access to Insight
  Access to Insight
  Access to Insight is a popular Theravada Buddhist website providing access to a huge collection of translated texts from the Tipitaka, as well as contemporary materials published by the Buddhist Publication Society and many teachers from the Thai Forest Tradition.Access to Insight began in 1993 as...
  
  )