Pali Canon for Claude

Examples

Things you can ask once Pali Canon is installed, and what happens behind the scenes. The wording is only a suggestion: ask in your own words. Install guides for every app are on the install page.

Every citation on this page is checked by an automated test, so it resolves to a real text in the bundled canon.

Read a text

Ask What the assistant does
“Read me MN 10 in Pāli with a translation, and cite the PTS page.” resolve_reference, then get_text with translation: "default". You get the Pāli with VRI paragraph numbers and PTS page breaks, and Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu’s English with its licence.
“Show me Dhp 183 and the verses around it.” get_text on the verse. The English link belongs to the whole chapter, and the tool says so.
“Read Ud 1.10 with the variant readings.” get_text with includeVariants: true: the readings of other editions that VRI records in its notes.
“Which editions read differently in MN 10?” get_text with variants: "structured": each note split into readings with the editions (Sinhala, Thai, PTS…) that carry them, plus a legend of the sigla.
“Show me MN 10 in Sinhala script.” get_text with script: "sinhala": the Pāli transliterated from the VRI edition. Citations and English stay in Roman. Thai, Myanmar, Devanagari, Khmer, Lao and Lanna work the same way.

Find a text from a citation, a page or a link

Ask What the assistant does
“What is on page S v 420 of the PTS edition?” resolve_reference finds the text that begins on that page, SN 56.11. If other texts also fall on that page, it lists them too.
“Which sutta is M i 55?” The same lookup for the Majjhima Nikāya: MN 10.
“What is on Thai MN 1.103?” resolve_reference reads Thai, Myanmar and VRI edition pages too: also MN 10.
“Open https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN10.html in Pāli.” resolve_reference accepts translation links and finds the Pāli text they translate.
“Is Sn 1.8 the same as SN 1.8?” No. Sn 1.8 is the Sutta Nipāta, SN 1.8 the Saṃyutta Nikāya. See the citation guide.

Compare translations

Ask What the assistant does
“Compare the English translations of AN 3.65.” compare_translations puts the available translations side by side with the Pāli opening, and reports that some translators number this text AN 3.66.
“Compare translations of MN 10.” Up to four translations side by side, each with its translator and licence. If one you asked for is missing, the tool says so and lists what exists.

Search the texts

Ask What the assistant does
“Where does anicca appear in the Saṃyutta?” search_texts with collection: "sn", then get_text on the passages before quoting them.
“Find the phrase "evaṃ me sutaṃ" in the Dīgha Nikāya.” search_texts with a quoted phrase. Diacritics are optional: evam me sutam works too.
“Is ‘holding on to anger is like drinking poison’ in the Pāli Canon?” search_texts on the key Pāli and English words. The assistant reports what the texts do and do not contain, and does not invent a source.

Words and sources

Ask What the assistant does
“What does dukkha mean grammatically?” lookup_pali returns the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary entry. A dictionary gloss is reference material, not scripture.
“Find Access to Insight study guides on mindfulness.” search_access_to_insight searches its subject and sutta indexes.
“Which sources and licences does this use?” list_sources.

Study commands

The three study skills work in Claude Code (/pali-canon:study), Codex ($study) and Gemini CLI (/study):

study MN 10
compare AN 3.65
pali-word anicca in SN 22.59

Good habits for the assistant