Note: this proposal is under consideration!
One of the more obscure concerns we have is how to organize the texts, respecting the complex hierarchies of the original texts while also being practical.
Often we find different terms for organizational elements at a similar level; for example, the saṁyutta of the Samyutta Nikaya is comparable to the nipāta of the Anguttara.
So far SuttaCentral has had no way of knowing all the levels that are used or their relations. It occurred to me yesterday that this information could be useful, and not too difficult to create. Here it is! This is the URL-friendly form.
[
[
"pitaka"
],
[
"sutta-group"
],
[
"nikaya", "agama", "bhikkhupatimokkha", "bhikkhunipatimokkha", "kammavaca-head", "book", "other-sutta", "bhikkhuvibhanga", "bhikkhunivibhanga", "khandhaka-head", "pakinnaka-head", "vinayanidana", "abhisamacarika", "vinayasamyutta", "vinayaekottara", "vinayamatika", "other-vinaya"
],
[
"vaggasamyutta"
],
[
"samyutta", "nipata", "vimana", "apattikkhandha", "part"
],
[
"pannasaka", "century"
],
[
"vagga"
],
[
"parami"
],
[
"sutta", "peyyala", "gatha", "apadana", "katha", "bhumi", "niddesa", "panha", "vamsa", "cariya", "puccha", "parivatta", "jataka", "dharani", "vibhanga", "vara", "uddesa", "samanna", "visesa", "sattha", "pannatti", "vatthu", "sikkhapada", "pakinnaka", "nidana", "khandhaka", "kammavaca", "ajjhaya", "gantha", "section"
]
]
Each set of items occurs at the same “level” of the hierarchy. And every item in SC’s texts has been assigned an item.
- Some of the names are invented and will probably change.
- English defines terms not found in the texts themselves.
- Generally I try to use the same names as given in the texts, but sometimes I have assigned types.
- Pali is used by convention.
- Spelling variants are flattened, eg. pannasa = pannasaka.
Make navigation steps fully explicit
One of the major change in the new site is the nav cards, which replace the sidebar. One difference is that each step in navigation now has a URL and a title. However currently these are not always explicit. Using this list could help.
Let’s start by clicking on “Discourses”
The URL is /pitaka/sutta.
Under the new scheme we look at the top level navigation, which is pitaka. Elsewhere (in tipitaka.json) this is defined as the three pitakas, here it is suttapitaka. Thus this step is of “type” pitaka and instance suttapitaka. The URL would be /suttapitaka. And it would have a title “Suttapiṭaka” (with translation).
Okay, so let’s click on the top item which takes us here.
The URL is /pitaka/sutta/long
- In
type-tree.jsonthis step is namedsutta-group. - Thus the type-tree is
pitaka/sutta-group. - in
super-type.json,longis defined as asutta-group. - URL would be
/suttapitaka/long
It’s at the next step that things get more interesting. Click on the card and go here.
- URL =
pitaka/sutta/long/dn - Title = Dighanikaya
- Content = list of vaggas
This does not make it clear what kind of content is being presented. The URL might apply to DN as a text, or a list of suttas or whatever. Similarly the Title does not describe the contents explicitly.
This is a case where the same essential “idea” (the “Digha Nikaya”) has multiple presentations. Go to the simple URL /dn and it gives the full list of sutta cards. But the title is the same, “Digha Nikaya”, and there is nothing in the URL or title to distinguish between the two cases.
In the new approach, under type -tree this would be a nikaya, and the content would be either vaggas or suttas.
The first case would be as follows:
- URL =
/suttapitaka/long/dn-vaggas - title = “Digha Nikaya vaggas”
- Content = list of vaggas
The second case would be as follows:
- URL =
/suttapitaka/long/dn-suttas - title = “Digha Nikaya suttas”
- Content = list of suttas
The URL can be aliassed to /dn for convenience and backwards compatibility, but the content would be the same.
For such cases you have to know which translations are available.)
This should give you the sutta card as the top result.