Buddhist poetry

The Dhammapada (; ) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures. The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Khuddaka Nikāya, a division of the Pāli Canon of Theravāda Buddhism.

Mahāvaṃsa () is the meticulously kept historical chronicle of Sri Lanka until the period of Mahasena of Anuradhapura. It was written in the style of an epic poem written in the Pali language. It relates the history of Sri Lanka from its legendary beginnings up to the reign of Mahasena of Anuradhapura covering the period between the arrival of Prince Vijaya from India in 543 BCE to his reign and later updated by different writers. It was first composed by a Buddhist monk named Mahānāma at the Mahavihāraya Temple in Anuradhapura in the 5th or 6th-century.

The is a Japanese poem. Originally the poem was attributed to Kūkai, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, but more modern research has found the date of composition to be later in the Heian period (794–1179). The first record of its existence dates from 1079. It is famous because it is a perfect pangram, containing each character of the Japanese syllabary exactly once. Because of this, it is also used as an ordering for the syllabary, in the same way as the A, B, C, D... sequence of the Latin alphabet.

thumbnail|Buddha's First Sermon', India, 11th century|alt=A sculpture of Buddha sitting Buddhacharita (; ) is an epic poem in the Sanskrit mahakavya style on the life of Gautama Buddha by Aśvaghoṣa of Sāketa (modern Ayodhya), composed in the early second century CE.

a poetic meter, used in legends in Epic Sanscrit or Prakrit, but not used in the Vedas; often found in Jain and Buddhist texts in prakrit

series of short poems and drawings used in the Zen tradition

8th imperial waka anthology commissioned in 1201 by the Retired Emperor Go-Toba and compiled in 1205 by Fujiwara no Yoshitsune

The Charyapada is a collection of mystical poems, songs of realization in the Vajrayāna tradition of Buddhism from the tāntric tradition in Assam, Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.

the third imperial waka anthology of Japan, compiled by Emperor Kazan around 1005, containing 1351 poems in 20 volumes as an expansion of Fujiwara no Kintō’s Shūishō

poem by Kenji Miyazawa

Japan's 21 imperial collections of waka poetry

Maṇimēkalai (, ), also spelled Manimekhalai or Manimekalai, is a Tamil Buddhist epic composed by Kulavāṇikaṉ Seethalai Sataṉar probably somewhere between the 2nd century to the 6th century. It is an "anti-love story", a sequel to the "love story" in the earliest Tamil epic Cilappatikaram, with some characters from it and their next generation. The epic consists of 4,861 lines in akaval meter, arranged in 30 cantos.

seventh imperial waka anthology of Japan, compiled in 1187 by Fujiwara no Shunzei at the behest of the Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa, who ordered it in 1183, containing 1285 poems in 20 volumes

Japanese painting with Buddhist theme

The Bodhi-Vamsa, or Mahabodhivamsa, is a prose poem in elaborate Sanskritized Pali that recounts the story of the Bodhi tree of Bodh Gaya and Anuradhapura. It is attributed to a monk called Upatissa who lived during the reign of Mahinda IV of Sri Lanka, and believed to have been composed in the 10th Century AD. It is written in the kavya style.

Lao epic poem

meter in Sanskrit and Prakrit verses

Kundalakesi ( Kuṇṭalakēci, lit. "woman with curly hair"), also called Kuntalakeciviruttam, is a Tamil Buddhist epic written by Nathakuthanaar, likely sometime in the 10th century. The epic is a story about love, marriage, getting tired with the married partner, murder and then discovering religion.

Chan Buddhist poem attributed to the Third Chinese Chán Patriarch Jianzhi Sengcan

poem by Shitou Xiqian (Sekito Kisen) and a fundamental text of the Sōtō school of Zen