Exalted Utterances - Udāna (KN 3)

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Introduction to the Udāna
The first book in Pāḷi that I read from cover to cover without the aid
of a translation was the Udāna. It struck me then, and still strikes me
now, as being the ideal book to introduce students to a study of the
language of the texts. There are a number of reasons for this. The first
is that the Udāna is made up of related prose and verse sections, which
exposes the student to the different ways in which the language is
written.
Then the prose sections are for the most part short and story-like, and
therefore provide an underlying context which helps with the
comprehension of the language. The stories are mainly quite
straightforward, and give a contextual basis for understanding the
udānas, which are generally more difficult in form and syntax.
Some of the most memorable stories in the Canon have found there
way into this collection, which seems to have an overall structural
plan, in that it begins with events that happened just after the
Sambodhi (also recorded in the Mahāvagga of the Vinaya); and the
last chapter includes many events from the last days of the Buddha as
recorded in the Mahāparinibbānasutta (Dīghanikāya 16). Note that the
Udāna ends, not with the Buddha's parinibbāna, following which no
udāna was spoken, of course; but with the parinibbāna of one of the
Buddha's leading disciples Ven. Dabba Mallaputta.