The Pali Canon is called the Tipitaka — three baskets: the Vinaya (monastic rules), the Suttas (discourses), and the Abhidhamma (systematic analysis). It was carried orally for roughly four centuries, chanted by specialist reciters and formally recited in council to catch drift, before being written in Sri Lanka around 29 BCE. It is the only complete early canon surviving in an Indian language, which gives it enormous scholarly weight, though Mahayana traditions regard it as the record of one stage rather than the whole teaching.