The word khuddaka means “lesser” or “minor”, and it seems that this category originally served to collect certain short collections, mostly verse, that were not conveniently assigned to one of the main nikāyas. Over time, however, the collection grew, so that the Khuddaka in the Pali canon today is the largest of the nikāyas. It includes some of the most popular texts in Theravāda Buddhism, such as the Dhammapada, the Sutta Nipāta, and the Jātakas. There is no closely parallel collection in the other canons, but many of the early texts have parallels in various places.