Scholars explain duplicate texts through historical layering, different compilation contexts, and the oral tradition's preservation of variant teachings.
The Khuddaka Nikaya (Minor Collection) contains numerous texts that cover similar ground, creating apparent redundancy. For example, the Dhammapada and Udana both preserve ethical teachings and sayings of the Buddha. The Jataka and other narrative collections repeat moral lessons. The Theragatha and Therigatha present nearly identical structural frameworks for different speakers. Rather than viewing these as scribal errors or corruption, modern scholars recognize them as evidence of how early Buddhist literature actually developed.
The most widely accepted explanation centers on the oral transmission period before texts were written down. Different teaching lineages within early Buddhism maintained separate memorization chains of the same material. A single teaching or story might be preserved in multiple versions by different monastic communities, each adapting it slightly for their own pedagogical purposes or regional context. When texts were eventually committed to writing in the early Common Era, these parallel versions were often preserved together rather than consolidated. This reflects the Buddhist principle of maintaining authentic teachings exactly as received, even if that meant preserving variants.
Scholars also point to different organizational principles behind the Khuddaka's diverse texts. The Dhammapada arranges teachings by topic, while the Udana frames the same material within narrative contexts (situating each verse in an account of when the Buddha spoke it). The Sutta Nipata uses different organizational schemes again. These texts were compiled by different reciters or at different times, each choosing which verses mattered most for their community. The duplication reflects authentic pedagogical choices rather than confusion. A monastery might value both the topically organized Dhammapada and the narrative-contextualized Udana because they served different purposes in training.
The Khuddaka Nikaya itself was not always a unified collection. Scholars including Richard Gombrich and others have shown that it represents a later assemblage of texts that circulated separately for centuries. Some texts like the Jataka or Dhammapada achieved early canonical status independently. Others entered the collection later. The Pali Canon as a whole shows signs of incremental growth rather than planned composition. This explains why overlap exists: the texts were never meant to form a seamless, non-redundant whole. They were gathered together retrospectively, and no one attempted to remove duplicative material because doing so would have required deciding which version was superior—a decision Buddhist communities were reluctant to make.
Modern critical scholarship also acknowledges that different manuscript traditions preserved texts with variations. Thai, Burmese, and Sri Lankan Pali manuscripts sometimes present the same text with divergent readings. Scholars working on the Pali Text Society editions have had to account for these variants. Some apparent duplication may reflect scribal practices or losses in transmission where a single original text became garbled into what looks like two separate texts, or vice versa. However, in most cases of clear topical overlap in the Khuddaka, the texts are substantially different in structure and presentation, suggesting intentional preservation of distinct versions.
There is no single answer that applies uniformly to all overlapping texts in the Khuddaka Nikaya. Instead, scholars work case-by-case, examining each instance of duplication. The consensus view treats such overlap as historically meaningful rather than as a problem needing correction. It reflects the early Buddhist community's commitment to preserving multiple authoritative versions of important teachings. Modern editors and translators note these overlaps and sometimes cross-reference them, helping readers understand the texts as a living tradition that valued redundancy, repetition, and multiple perspectives on foundational material.