Keyword search across the Pāli Tipiṭaka (trigram word-similarity).
Searches the configured enabled language(s) on the server. Filterable
by pitaka and translation edition.
💡 **Hints for the AI client:**
The system's canonical reference is Romanised Pāli (from SuttaCentral).
If the user asks in a disabled or unsupported language, translate the
keyword to **Romanised Pāli (preferred) or English** before calling this
tool — e.g. "suffering" → "dukkha", "mindfulness of breathing" →
"ānāpānassati". See the server instructions for the enabled language set.
✅ **Diacritics do not matter.** `anapanassati` and `ānāpānassati` return
the same thing; so do `nibbana` and `nibbāna`. Write the macrons if you
know them, guess without them if you don't — neither costs you results.
⚠️ **A common Pāli noun is a poor query.** `samudda` (sea) matches ~700
segments and the top of that list is mostly section headings, not the
passage that teaches anything. Two things to do instead:
- Search the **rarest distinctive noun** in the passage, not its most
obvious one. For the simile of the blind turtle, `turtle`/`kacchapa`
gets there; `ocean`/`samudda` does not, in either language.
- **Prefer English, or raise the limit.** `turtle` returns SN 56.47 and
SN 56.48 inside the default window; `kacchapa` matches them too but
ranks them past 30, so you need `limit=50` to see them.
- A word inside a **compound** may be out of reach entirely: `samudda`
scores 0.50 against `mahāsamudde` (compounded *and* inflected), under
the 0.6 cutoff, so SN 56.47 is not ranked low — it is excluded. Trying
more spellings will not recover it; search a different word instead.
🔍 **Pick the right search tool for the question shape:**
- **Term lookup (exact word appearances)** — e.g. "occurrences of
`ānāpānassati`": this tool is best (trigram nails the exact word).
- **Concept search ("discourses about X")** — e.g. "discourses about
mindfulness of breathing": **use `search_hybrid` instead.** Canonical
Pāli has two quirks that hurt keyword search for concepts:
• Section headings (`Ānāpānapabba`) often use a different word than
the teaching body, which uses verb forms (`assasati`, `passasati`,
`dīghaṁ`, `rassaṁ`). E.g. DN22's Ānāpānapabba has 16 segments but
the word `ānāpāna` appears in only 2 (header + footer) — the
actual teaching segments won't match.
• Stock phrases (e.g. `So satova assasati, satova passasati`)
recur in 10+ suttas, so a keyword query ranks broadly and won't
pinpoint the canonical reference.
- **General keyword survey** — set `limit≥30` and filter client-side,
or call multiple related forms (root verb + noun + compound).
📊 **Reading the two scores.** `word_similarity` is the primary sort key: it
scores your query against the best-matching span inside the line, 0 to 1,
and a row appears at all only if it clears the 0.6 cutoff. `similarity`
scores it against the **whole line**, so it falls as the line grows longer.
Both measure resemblance of letters — neither measures doctrinal importance.