Agama

In Buddhism, an āgama (Sanskrit and Pali for "sacred work" or "scripture") is a collection of Early Buddhist scriptures, of which there are four, which together comprise the Sutra Pitika of the Sanskritic early schools. The various schools had different recensions of each agama, and the four agamas parallel the first four collections (nikāyas) of the Sutta Piṭaka of the Theravadin school's Pali Canon. Āgamas of various schools, primarily the Sarvāstivāda, are preserved in their entirety in Chinese translation, although portions survive in Sanskrit and in Tibetan translation.