Tripitaka MCP Server

An MCP Server for searching and citing content from the Pāli Tipiṭaka. Gives AI agents (such as Claude or Cursor) the ability to look up suttas, quote the teachings, and compare translations across languages.

🙏 This project is offered as Dhamma Dāna — 100% free, non-commercial only. License details: LICENSE (code) + NOTICE.md (data)

✨ Features

• 📚 Full Tipiṭaka coverage at parity with SuttaCentral — all three baskets indexed (~444K segments): Sutta (Pāli + Sujato English), Vinaya (Pāli + Brahmali English), and Abhidhamma (Pāli only — no English in upstream bilara-data for any Abhidhamma book). Live counts via list_structure.
• ⚖️ Hybrid Search — highest precision by combining keyword and semantic search through Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF). Ready to use.
• 🔍 Keyword Search — trigram fuzzy matching with cross-language alignment.
• 🧠 Semantic Search — meaning-based search via vector similarity (pgvector).
• 📖 Translation Comparison — view and compare renderings across editions, aligned at the segment level.
• 📚 Dictionary Bridge — built-in dictionary of 20,000+ entries (P. A. Payutto, PTS, DPPN).
• 📖 Get Sutta & Reference — fetch sutta content by ID (e.g. mn1, pli-tv-bu-vb-pj1, patthana1.1) and generate properly formatted academic citations.
• 🔬 Pāli word analyzer — strip inflectional suffixes to find the root form when dictionary lookup misses (bhikkhūnaṁ → bhikkhu).
• 🔗 Cross-reference URLs in every response — a clickable deep link to the project's own bilingual reader (Pāli + English, with a segment anchor that highlights the cited verse). The reader renders SuttaCentral's bilara-data verbatim, so it is the authoritative text; AI clients surface this link so users verify the source in one click.
• 📡 Dual transport — both legacy SSE (/sse) and canonical Streamable HTTP (/mcp, MCP spec 2025-03-26).
• 📦 MCP Resources — tripitaka://structure, tripitaka://sutta/{id}, tripitaka://word/{w} for clients that pin context as resources.
• 📄 Curated reference pages at /topics/* — six markdown pages covering canon structure, getting-started + tool selection, places (Mahājanapada + holy sites + cosmology), 10 foundational themes with locus classicus, ~30 major figures, and a phase-based timeline of the Buddha's 45-year mission. Sutta IDs verified against live data; AI clients can fetch a page in one shot instead of running 30+ tool calls.
• 🤖 Claude skill — skills/tipitaka-research.md ships a ready-to-install workflow file that activates a multi-step research pattern (clarify → verify coverage → search → drill in → cite) on Claude Desktop / Claude Code.
• 📮 Postman Ready — ships with a Postman collection for testing the API.

🏗️ Tech Stack

🚀 Quick Start

🌐 No setup — connect to the public Dhamma Dāna server

The maintainers run a free public instance at tripitaka-mcp.com.

Connect Claude Desktop in three steps (no install, no Docker, no GPU — you just need Node.js):

1. Find your absolute npx path. Claude Desktop doesn't read your shell profile, so a bare npx won't resolve. Open a terminal:

which npx
# example: /Users/you/.nvm/versions/node/v22.14.0/bin/npx

2. Open claude_desktop_config.json (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\ on Windows) and add the entry below — substitute YOUR_NPX_PATH with the output from step 1, and YOUR_NODE_BIN_DIR with that path's parent directory:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tripitaka": {
      "command": "YOUR_NPX_PATH",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.tripitaka-mcp.com/mcp"],
      "env": { "PATH": "YOUR_NODE_BIN_DIR:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" }
    }
  }
}

3. Quit Claude Desktop completely (⌘Q on macOS, tray → Quit on Windows) and reopen. The 🔌 indicator in the bottom-left should show tripitaka with 12 tools available.

First connection takes 5–10 seconds while npx downloads mcp-remote on demand — give Claude Desktop a moment after restart before assuming it failed.

Once connected, try asking Claude things like:

• "What does the Buddha teach about mindfulness of breathing? Quote the relevant passages from MN 118."
• "Show me the full text of the Karaṇīyamettasutta in Pāli and English."
• "What does the Pāli word sati mean according to the Payutto dictionary?"
• "Find suttas where the Buddha discusses anger."

Claude will pick the right tool, fetch the canonical Pāli, and surface a clickable link to the project's bilingual reader for verification.

The hosted server is rate-limited (10 req/10s + 60 req/min per IP) and offered for personal study, research, and dhamma practice — see NOTICE.md before redistributing or using commercially.

💻 Run it fully offline (pipx — local SQLite, no server)

Prefer to keep everything on your own machine — no network calls to the hosted server? Install the local edition. It ships the whole Pāli canon as a single SQLite file (~120 MB) and runs as a local stdio MCP server.

pipx install tripitaka-mcp     # needs Python 3.10+
tripitaka-mcp init             # one-time: downloads the SQLite database
tripitaka-mcp serve            # runs the MCP server over stdio

If the install fails like this:

Because the current Python version (3.9.6) does not satisfy Python>=3.10

pipx is using a different interpreter than you think. It builds its own isolated environment on purpose and ignores whatever venv you have active — so an old system Python gets picked even when the shell you typed in has 3.12. Tell it which to use:

pipx install --python python3.12 tripitaka-mcp

(Any 3.10 or newer works; pipx environment shows what it defaults to.)

Then point Claude Desktop / Cursor at the local command — no npx, no mcp-remote, no internet:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tripitaka": {
      "command": "tripitaka-mcp",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

(If tripitaka-mcp isn't on the client's PATH, use the absolute path from which tripitaka-mcp.)

Need a URL instead of stdio? Some tools — scripts, notebooks, anything that wants to share one server across several clients — want an HTTP endpoint rather than a subprocess:

tripitaka-mcp serve --http                 # http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp
tripitaka-mcp serve --http --port 9000     # or MCP_HOST / MCP_PORT

It binds 127.0.0.1 unless you say otherwise; the canon is read-only, but nothing here asks who is calling, so think before binding a public interface.

Hosted vs local — what's different

Both serve the same ~444K-segment canon. The differences:

search_semantic / search_hybrid and the trigram keyword index need PostgreSQL + pgvector + a ~1 GB embedding model — too heavy for a lightweight local install, so they stay hosted-only. In local mode those two tools aren't registered at all: a connected client sees only the 9 available tools, so it never tries to call a tool that can't work.

Because the local server is a standard stdio MCP server, it also enables a fully offline AI stack — pair it with a local model (e.g. Ollama) and any MCP-capable chat UI, and nothing leaves your machine.

🏎️ Fastest local path — use the installer (recommended for non-developers)

git clone https://github.com/dhamma-seeker/tripitaka-mcp.git
cd tripitaka-mcp
./scripts/install.sh

The installer downloads a prepared database dump from Hugging Face — dhamma-seeker/tripitaka-mcp-dump and restores it automatically — cutting setup time from 2–4 hours (loading data + generating embeddings) down to ~5 minutes. (If a local dump file already exists, the local copy is used instead.)

The installer will:

1. Verify that docker, compose, openssl, and curl are installed
2. Generate .env with random passwords (for both the admin and the readonly user)
3. Download the dump from Hugging Face (if not already local)
4. Start the DB and restore the dump
5. Set up the readonly role and runtime timeouts
6. Print a ready-to-paste Claude Desktop config

Options:

./scripts/install.sh --dump PATH          # use an existing dump file
./scripts/install.sh --dump-url URL       # override the dump source
./scripts/install.sh --no-dump            # skip restore (load data yourself later)

🔧 Manual setup (for developers)

1. Clone & Setup

git clone https://github.com/dhamma-seeker/tripitaka-mcp.git
cd tripitaka-mcp
cp .env.example .env
# Set POSTGRES_PASSWORD in .env to a random password

2. Start Database

docker compose up db -d

3. Install Dependencies

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Initialize Database & Load Data

# 1. Seed metadata (pitaka, nikāya)
python scripts/seed_metadata.py

# 2. Download & load Sutta Piṭaka data from SuttaCentral
python scripts/data_loader.py

# 3. Load Thai CC0 translations (Dhīranando & Jayasāro)
python scripts/load_thai_cc0.py

# 4. Load dictionaries (DPD, PTS, DPPN, and the Payutto dictionary)
python scripts/load_dictionary.py

# 5. Generate embeddings for semantic / hybrid search
python scripts/generate_embeddings.py

5. Run MCP Server

python main.py

🧪 Testing with Postman

The project supports Postman testing in SSE mode:

1. Run the server with: MCP_TRANSPORT=sse python main.py
2. Import postman_collection.json into Postman
3. Invoke the tools directly

🚢 Production Deployment

To deploy to production without re-loading the data and re-running the embedding model, restoring from a database dump is the recommended path.

docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d --build

The production stack runs 3 services:

• db — PostgreSQL + pgvector (internal only, no exposed port)
• mcp-server — FastMCP (runs as a readonly user, read-only FS, cap_drop: ALL)
• caddy — reverse proxy + Let's Encrypt + rate limit (10 req/10s and 60 req/1 min per IP)

For an extra hardening layer, front Caddy with Cloudflare (DNS proxy + rate-limit rules + DDoS protection on the free tier).

👉 Full details: DEPLOYMENT.md

🔧 Connecting to Claude Desktop

The repo ships claude_desktop_config.example.json with three ready-to-use entries — copy whichever fits your setup into claude_desktop_config.json (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ on macOS, %APPDATA%\Claude\ on Windows), then edit the absolute paths:

The remote entries route through mcp-remote — Claude Desktop ↔ npx bridge ↔ remote MCP. The example file has annotated comments explaining each field; remove the _comment keys before saving.

Heads-up for nvm users: command and env.PATH need absolute node paths — Claude Desktop doesn't read your shell profile. Find the right paths with which npx / which python while your normal shell is active.

Optional: install the research skill

For Claude Desktop / Claude Code users, copying the bundled skill activates the multi-step research workflow automatically:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp skills/tipitaka-research.md ~/.claude/skills/
# Restart Claude Desktop (Cmd+Q then reopen) to pick up the skill

Details in skills/README.md.

📦 MCP Tools (13 total)

⚠️ Note on search_semantic

The vector index is built only on text_pali (SuttaCentral's bilara-data does not yet include Thai translations) using a multilingual MiniLM model that is not specifically trained on Pāli. As a result:

• Pāli / English queries → accurate (good cross-lingual alignment)
• Thai queries → loose matches, not recommended
• For exact keywords like appamāda, search_by_keyword is more precise
• For general-purpose search, search_hybrid (keyword + semantic) tolerates this limitation best

Upgrading to a Pāli-trained embedding model (e.g. bge-m3) plus embedding the Thai edition is on the roadmap.

📁 Project Structure

tripitaka-mcp/
├── main.py                       # Main MCP Server (12 tools + 3 resources)
├── db/
│   ├── connection.py             # Database connection pool
│   └── schema.py                 # Schema (supports translation table)
├── embedding/
│   └── model.py                  # SentenceTransformer wrapper
├── scripts/
│   ├── install.sh                    # One-shot installer (HF dump → DB)
│   ├── deploy.sh                     # Deploy / restart on a VPS
│   ├── backup.sh                     # pg_dump → S3-compatible store
│   ├── dump_and_publish.sh           # Verify embeddings → pg_dump → upload to HuggingFace
│   ├── seed_metadata.py              # Seed pitaka/nikāya metadata
│   ├── data_loader.py                # Load Sutta Piṭaka (Pāli + Sujato English)
│   ├── load_vinaya.py                # Vinaya loader (Vibhaṅga + Pātimokkha + Khandhaka + Parivāra, Brahmali EN)
│   ├── load_abhidhamma.py            # Abhidhamma loader (7 books, Pāli — bilara has no EN)
│   ├── load_thai_cc0.py              # Thai translation loader
│   ├── load_dictionary.py            # Load dictionary data
│   ├── scrape_payutto.py             # Web scraper for the Payutto dictionary
│   ├── generate_embeddings.py        # Generate vector embeddings
│   ├── run_embedding_with_retry.sh   # Resilient wrapper around embedding generation (retries on DB drop)
│   ├── check_embedding_progress.py   # Live progress snapshot (or --watch mode) for the embedding job
│   ├── smoke_test.sh                 # Endpoint smoke test (TLS + /sse + /mcp + /health)
│   └── test_full_sutta.py            # Full-content smoke test (22 size-tiered suttas across all 3 piṭakas)
├── topics/                       # Static markdown pages served at /topics/*
│   ├── README.md                 # Index of available topic pages
│   ├── tipitaka-overview.md      # Canon structure + coverage
│   ├── getting-started.md        # Connection paths, tool selection, prompt patterns
│   ├── places.md                 # Geography of the suttas (Mahājanapada, holy sites, cosmology)
│   ├── themes.md                 # 10 foundational teachings + locus classicus
│   └── people.md                 # ~30 major figures (chief disciples, lay supporters, kings)
├── skills/                       # Portable Claude skills for AI clients
│   ├── README.md                 # How to install
│   └── tipitaka-research.md      # Multi-step research workflow
├── infra/                        # Reverse proxy + deploy config
│   ├── Caddyfile                 # Caddy: TLS, rate limit, /topics, /sse, /mcp
│   ├── Dockerfile.caddy          # Caddy + caddy-ratelimit plugin
│   ├── cloud-init.yml            # VPS bootstrap
│   └── *.tf                      # Terraform (provider-agnostic)
├── docs/
│   └── CAPACITY.md               # Capacity planning per VPS spec
├── claude_desktop_config.example.json
├── docker-compose.yml            # Dev (single mcp-server)
├── docker-compose.prod.yml       # Prod (db + 2 mcp-server + caddy)
├── Dockerfile
└── requirements.txt

📜 Data Sources & License

This project aggregates data from multiple sources under different licenses. Please read NOTICE.md in full before redistributing.

⚠️ If you plan to fork or redistribute

• ✅ Use in free / dhamma-dāna / educational projects — allowed
• ✅ Run on your own machine / personal use — allowed
• ❌ Do not use in any paid product or service (because of the Payutto dictionary)
• ❌ Do not modify the dictionary content

For commercial use: remove the dictionary component, or contact Wat Nyanavesakavan for permission.

🙏 Credits & Attribution

See CREDITS.md for contributor details and NOTICE.md for license terms.

Gratitude to:

• Somdet Phra Buddhaghosacariya (P. A. Payutto) + Wat Nyanavesakavan
• SuttaCentral and the Thai & English translators
• 84000.org

Sādhu 🙏 — May the sharing of this Dhamma bring benefit and happiness to all beings.