Twelve branches of the excellent teaching
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Twelve branches of the excellent teaching (Tib. གསུང་རབ་ཡན་ལག་བཅུ་གཉིས་, Wyl. gsung rab yan lag bcu gnyis) —
- sutras (Skt. sūtra, Tib. མདོའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. mdo'i sde)
- poetic summaries (Skt. geya, Tib. དབྱངས་ཀྱིས་བསྙད་པའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. dbyangs kyis bsnyad pa sde)
- prophecies (Skt. vyākaraṇa, Tib. ལུང་བསྟན་པའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. lung bstan pa'i sde)
- discourses in verse (Skt. gāthā, Tib. ཚིགས་སུ་བཅད་པའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. tshigs su bcad pa'i sde)
- intentional statements (Skt. udāna, Tib. ཆེད་དུ་བརྗོད་པའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. ched du brjod pa'i sde)
- contextual accounts (Skt. nidāna, Tib. གླེང་གཞིའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. gleng gzhi'i sde)
- testimonies of realization (Skt. avadāna, Tib. རྟོགས་པ་བརྗོད་པའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. rtogs pa brjod pa'i sde)
- historical explanations (Skt. itivṛttaka, Tib. དེ་ལྟ་བུ་བྱུང་བའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. de lta bu byung ba'i sde)
- accounts of former lives (Skt. jātaka, Tib. སྐྱེས་པའི་རབས་ཀྱི་སྡེ་, Wyl. skyes pa'i rabs kyi sde)
- detailed explanations (Skt. vaipulya, Tib. ཤིན་ཏུ་རྒྱས་པའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. shin tu rgyas pa)
- wondrous discourses (Skt. abidhutadharma, Tib. རྨད་དུ་བྱུང་བའི་ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྡེ་, Wyl. rmad du byung ba'i chos kyi sde)
- definitive explanations (Skt. upadeśa, Tib. གཏན་ལ་ཕབ་པའི་སྡེ་, Wyl. gtan la phab pa'i sde)
These are said to be the twelve text categories within the Tripitaka, and include all the teachings of the Buddha.