What does "Nikāya" mean?

Nikāya (Pāli) means "collection" or "group". It is the division unit of the Pāli Sutta Piṭaka: the Theravāda tradition arranges the discourses of the Buddha into five Nikāyas — Dīgha, Majjhima, Saṃyutta, Aṅguttara and Khuddaka.

How do the Nikāyas relate to the Chinese Āgamas?

They are parallel transmissions of the same early corpus. The Nikāyas were transmitted in Pāli by the Theravāda school; the Āgamas are ancient Chinese translations of other schools’ recensions (Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, etc.). Reading them side by side separates the shared core from school-specific variation.

Nikāya guide

Nikāya means “collection”. The Pāli Sutta Piṭaka is arranged into five Nikāyas — the Dīgha, Majjhima, Saṃyutta, Aṅguttara and Khuddaka — which, together with the Chinese Āgamas, preserve the earliest strata of Buddhist texts.

The five Nikāyas

Nikāya	Scope	Chinese parallel	Character
Dīgha Nikāya	34 suttas	Dīrgha Āgama (T1, Dharmaguptaka)	Long discourses, incl. the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta
Majjhima Nikāya	152 suttas	Madhyama Āgama (T26, Sarvāstivāda)	Middle-length discourses; the densest in doctrine and practice
Saṃyutta Nikāya	thousands (counts vary)	Saṃyukta Āgama (T99, Sarvāstivāda)	Short suttas grouped by theme (aggregates, sense bases, dependent origination…)
Aṅguttara Nikāya	thousands (counts vary)	Ekottarika Āgama (T125, school affiliation debated)	Short suttas arranged by numerical sets (ones to elevens)
Khuddaka Nikāya	15 books (more in the Burmese edition)	No collection-level parallel; individual works (e.g. Dhammapada) have Chinese versions	Miscellany incl. Dhammapada, Sutta Nipāta, Jātaka; widely varying age

Reading them online

SuttaCentral — the standard reference for Pāli texts, parallels and translations in many languages.
Chuang Chun-chiang’s workstation (Chinese) — complete modern Chinese translation of the four main Nikāyas with Nikāya–Āgama side-by-side reading.
This site — a study tool rather than another translation: word-by-word Pāli analysis of the Majjhima Nikāya (tap any word for root and morphology), clearly-labelled AI-generated vernacular, and Madhyama Āgama parallels. 39 suttas complete so far — start from Browse or the Āgama parallels overview.

FAQ

What does "Nikāya" mean?: Nikāya (Pāli) means "collection" or "group". It is the division unit of the Pāli Sutta Piṭaka: the Theravāda tradition arranges the discourses of the Buddha into five Nikāyas — Dīgha, Majjhima, Saṃyutta, Aṅguttara and Khuddaka.
How do the Nikāyas relate to the Chinese Āgamas?: They are parallel transmissions of the same early corpus. The Nikāyas were transmitted in Pāli by the Theravāda school; the Āgamas are ancient Chinese translations of other schools’ recensions (Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, etc.). Reading them side by side separates the shared core from school-specific variation.