Dhp VI
Panditavagga
The Wise
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 76-89
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
76-77
Regard him as one who
points out
treasure,
the wise one who
seeing your faults
rebukes you.
Stay with this sort of sage.
For the one who stays
with a sage of this sort,
things get better,
not worse.
Let him admonish, instruct,
deflect you
away from poor manners.
To the good, he's endearing;
to the bad, he's not.
78
Don't associate with bad friends.
Don't associate with the low.
Associate with admirable friends.
Associate with the best.
79
Drinking the Dhamma,
refreshed by the Dhamma,
one sleeps at ease
with clear awareness & calm.
In the Dhamma revealed
by the noble ones,
the wise person
always delights.
80
Irrigators guide the water.
Fletchers shape the arrow shaft.
Carpenters shape the wood.
The wise control
themselves.
81
As a single slab of rock
won't budge in the wind,
so the wise are not moved
by praise,
by blame.
82
Like a deep lake,
clear, unruffled, & calm:
so the wise become clear,
calm,
on hearing words of the Dhamma.
83
Everywhere, truly,
those of integrity
stand apart.
They, the good,
don't chatter in hopes
of favor or gains.
When touched
now by pleasure,
now pain,
the wise give no sign
of high
or low.
84
One who wouldn't —
not for his own sake
nor that of another —
hanker for
wealth,
a son,
a kingdom,
his own fulfillment,
by unrighteous means:
he is righteous, rich
in virtue,
discernment.
85-89
Few are the people
who reach the Far Shore.
These others
simply scurry along
this shore.
But those who practice Dhamma
in line with the well-taught Dhamma,
will cross over the realm of Death
so hard to transcend.
Forsaking dark practices,
the wise person
should develop the bright,
having gone from home
to no-home
in seclusion, so hard to enjoy.
There he should wish for delight,
discarding sensuality —
he who has nothing.
He should cleanse himself — wise —
of what defiles the mind.
Whose minds are well-developed
in the factors of self-awakening,
who delight in non-clinging,
relinquishing grasping —
resplendent,
their effluents ended:
they, in the world,
are Unbound.
Showing posts with label Dhammapada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dhammapada. Show all posts
Monday, April 25, 2011
Khuddaka Nikaya - Dhammapada - Balavagga
Dhp V
Balavagga
Fools
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 60-75
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
60
Long for the wakeful is the night.
Long for the weary, a league.
For fools
unaware of True Dhamma,
samsara
is long.
61
If, in your course, you don't meet
your equal, your better,
then continue your course,
firmly,
alone.
There's no fellowship with fools.
62
'I have sons, I have wealth' —
the fool torments himself.
When even he himself
doesn't belong to himself,
how then sons?
How wealth?
63
A fool with a sense of his foolishness
is — at least to that extent — wise.
But a fool who thinks himself wise
really deserves to be called
a fool.
64-65
Even if for a lifetime
the fool stays with the wise,
he knows nothing of the Dhamma —
as the ladle,
the taste of the soup.
Even if for a moment,
the perceptive person stays with the wise,
he immediately knows the Dhamma —
as the tongue,
the taste of the soup.
66
Fools, their wisdom weak,
are their own enemies
as they go through life,
doing evil
that bears
bitter fruit.
67-68
It's not good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you regret,
whose result you reap crying,
your face in tears.
It's good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you don't regret,
whose result you reap gratified,
happy at heart.
69
As long as evil has yet to ripen,
the fool mistakes it for honey.
But when that evil ripens,
the fool falls into
pain.
70
Month after month
the fool might eat
only a tip-of-grass measure of food,
but he wouldn't be worth
one sixteenth
of those who've fathomed
the Dhamma.
71
An evil deed, when done,
doesn't — like ready milk —
come out right away.
It follows the fool,
smoldering
like a fire
hidden in ashes.
72-74
Only for his ruin
does renown come to the fool.
It ravages his bright fortune
& rips his head apart.
He would want unwarranted status,
preeminence among monks,
authority among monasteries,
homage from lay families.
'Let householders & those gone forth
both think that this
was done by me alone.
May I alone determine
what's a duty, what's not':
the resolve of a fool
as they grow —
his desire & pride.
75
The path to material gain
goes one way,
the way to Unbinding,
another.
Realizing this, the monk,
a disciple to the Awakened One,
should not relish offerings,
should cultivate seclusion
instead.
Balavagga
Fools
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 60-75
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
60
Long for the wakeful is the night.
Long for the weary, a league.
For fools
unaware of True Dhamma,
samsara
is long.
61
If, in your course, you don't meet
your equal, your better,
then continue your course,
firmly,
alone.
There's no fellowship with fools.
62
'I have sons, I have wealth' —
the fool torments himself.
When even he himself
doesn't belong to himself,
how then sons?
How wealth?
63
A fool with a sense of his foolishness
is — at least to that extent — wise.
But a fool who thinks himself wise
really deserves to be called
a fool.
64-65
Even if for a lifetime
the fool stays with the wise,
he knows nothing of the Dhamma —
as the ladle,
the taste of the soup.
Even if for a moment,
the perceptive person stays with the wise,
he immediately knows the Dhamma —
as the tongue,
the taste of the soup.
66
Fools, their wisdom weak,
are their own enemies
as they go through life,
doing evil
that bears
bitter fruit.
67-68
It's not good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you regret,
whose result you reap crying,
your face in tears.
It's good,
the doing of the deed
that, once it's done,
you don't regret,
whose result you reap gratified,
happy at heart.
69
As long as evil has yet to ripen,
the fool mistakes it for honey.
But when that evil ripens,
the fool falls into
pain.
70
Month after month
the fool might eat
only a tip-of-grass measure of food,
but he wouldn't be worth
one sixteenth
of those who've fathomed
the Dhamma.
71
An evil deed, when done,
doesn't — like ready milk —
come out right away.
It follows the fool,
smoldering
like a fire
hidden in ashes.
72-74
Only for his ruin
does renown come to the fool.
It ravages his bright fortune
& rips his head apart.
He would want unwarranted status,
preeminence among monks,
authority among monasteries,
homage from lay families.
'Let householders & those gone forth
both think that this
was done by me alone.
May I alone determine
what's a duty, what's not':
the resolve of a fool
as they grow —
his desire & pride.
75
The path to material gain
goes one way,
the way to Unbinding,
another.
Realizing this, the monk,
a disciple to the Awakened One,
should not relish offerings,
should cultivate seclusion
instead.
Khuddaka Nikaya - Dhammapada - Pupphavagga
Dhp IV
Pupphavagga
Blossoms
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 44-59
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
44-45
Who will penetrate this earth
& this realm of death
with all its gods?
Who will ferret out
the well-taught Dhamma-saying,
as the skillful flower-arranger
the flower?
The learner-on-the-path
will penetrate this earth
& this realm of death
with all its gods.
The learner-on-the-path
will ferret out
the well-taught Dhamma-saying,
as the skillful flower-arranger
the flower.
46
Knowing this body
is like foam,
realizing its nature
— a mirage —
cutting out
the blossoms of Mara,
you go where the King of Death
can't see.
47-48
The man immersed in
gathering blossoms,
his heart distracted:
death sweeps him away —
as a great flood,
a village asleep.
The man immersed in
gathering blossoms,
his heart distracted,
insatiable in sensual pleasures:
the End-Maker holds him
under his sway.
49
As a bee — without harming
the blossom,
its color,
its fragrance —
takes its nectar & flies away:
so should the sage
go through a village.
50
Focus,
not on the rudenesses of others,
not on what they've done
or left undone,
but on what you
have & haven't done
yourself.
51-52
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
but scentless:
a well-spoken word
is fruitless
when not carried out.
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
& full of scent:
a well-spoken word
is fruitful
when well carried out.
53
Just as from a heap of flowers
many garland strands can be made,
even so
one born & mortal
should do
— with what's born & is mortal —
many a skillful thing.
54-56
No flower's scent
goes against the wind —
not sandalwood,
jasmine,
tagara.
But the scent of the good
does go against the wind.
The person of integrity
wafts a scent
in every direction.
Sandalwood, tagara,
lotus, & jasmine:
Among these scents,
the scent of virtue
is unsurpassed.
Next to nothing, this fragrance
— sandalwood, tagara —
while the scent of the virtuous
wafts to the gods,
supreme.
57
Those consummate in virtue,
dwelling in heedfulness,
released through right knowing:
Mara can't follow their tracks.
58-59
As in a pile of rubbish
cast by the side of a highway
a lotus might grow
clean-smelling
pleasing the heart,
so in the midst of the rubbish-like,
people run-of-the-mill & blind,
there dazzles with discernment
the disciple of the Rightly
Self-Awakened One.
Pupphavagga
Blossoms
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 44-59
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
44-45
Who will penetrate this earth
& this realm of death
with all its gods?
Who will ferret out
the well-taught Dhamma-saying,
as the skillful flower-arranger
the flower?
The learner-on-the-path
will penetrate this earth
& this realm of death
with all its gods.
The learner-on-the-path
will ferret out
the well-taught Dhamma-saying,
as the skillful flower-arranger
the flower.
46
Knowing this body
is like foam,
realizing its nature
— a mirage —
cutting out
the blossoms of Mara,
you go where the King of Death
can't see.
47-48
The man immersed in
gathering blossoms,
his heart distracted:
death sweeps him away —
as a great flood,
a village asleep.
The man immersed in
gathering blossoms,
his heart distracted,
insatiable in sensual pleasures:
the End-Maker holds him
under his sway.
49
As a bee — without harming
the blossom,
its color,
its fragrance —
takes its nectar & flies away:
so should the sage
go through a village.
50
Focus,
not on the rudenesses of others,
not on what they've done
or left undone,
but on what you
have & haven't done
yourself.
51-52
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
but scentless:
a well-spoken word
is fruitless
when not carried out.
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
& full of scent:
a well-spoken word
is fruitful
when well carried out.
53
Just as from a heap of flowers
many garland strands can be made,
even so
one born & mortal
should do
— with what's born & is mortal —
many a skillful thing.
54-56
No flower's scent
goes against the wind —
not sandalwood,
jasmine,
tagara.
But the scent of the good
does go against the wind.
The person of integrity
wafts a scent
in every direction.
Sandalwood, tagara,
lotus, & jasmine:
Among these scents,
the scent of virtue
is unsurpassed.
Next to nothing, this fragrance
— sandalwood, tagara —
while the scent of the virtuous
wafts to the gods,
supreme.
57
Those consummate in virtue,
dwelling in heedfulness,
released through right knowing:
Mara can't follow their tracks.
58-59
As in a pile of rubbish
cast by the side of a highway
a lotus might grow
clean-smelling
pleasing the heart,
so in the midst of the rubbish-like,
people run-of-the-mill & blind,
there dazzles with discernment
the disciple of the Rightly
Self-Awakened One.
Khuddaka Nikaya - Dhammapada - Cittavagga
Dhp III
Cittavagga
The Mind
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 33-43
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
Other formats:
33-37
Quivering, wavering,
hard to guard,
to hold in check:
the mind.
The sage makes it straight —
like a fletcher,
the shaft of an arrow.
Like a fish
pulled from its home in the water
& thrown on land:
this mind flips & flaps about
to escape Mara's sway.
Hard to hold down,
nimble,
alighting wherever it likes:
the mind.
Its taming is good.
The mind well-tamed
brings ease.
So hard to see,
so very, very subtle,
alighting wherever it likes:
the mind.
The wise should guard it.
The mind protected
brings ease.
Wandering far,
going alone,
bodiless,
lying in a cave:
the mind.
Those who restrain it:
from Mara's bonds
they'll be freed.
38
For a person of unsteady mind,
not knowing true Dhamma,
serenity
set adrift:
discernment doesn't grow full.
39
For a person of unsoddened mind,
unassaulted
awareness,
abandoning merit & evil,
wakeful,
there is no danger
no fear.
40
Knowing this body
is like a clay jar,
securing this mind
like a fort,
attack Mara
with the spear of discernment,
then guard what's won
without settling there,
without laying claim.
41
All too soon, this body
will lie on the ground
cast off,
bereft of consciousness,
like a useless scrap
of wood.
42-43
Whatever an enemy might do
to an enemy,
or a foe to a foe,
the ill-directed mind
can do to you
even worse.
Whatever a mother, father
or other kinsman
might do for you,
the well-directed mind
can do for you
even better.
Cittavagga
The Mind
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 33-43
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
Other formats:
33-37
Quivering, wavering,
hard to guard,
to hold in check:
the mind.
The sage makes it straight —
like a fletcher,
the shaft of an arrow.
Like a fish
pulled from its home in the water
& thrown on land:
this mind flips & flaps about
to escape Mara's sway.
Hard to hold down,
nimble,
alighting wherever it likes:
the mind.
Its taming is good.
The mind well-tamed
brings ease.
So hard to see,
so very, very subtle,
alighting wherever it likes:
the mind.
The wise should guard it.
The mind protected
brings ease.
Wandering far,
going alone,
bodiless,
lying in a cave:
the mind.
Those who restrain it:
from Mara's bonds
they'll be freed.
38
For a person of unsteady mind,
not knowing true Dhamma,
serenity
set adrift:
discernment doesn't grow full.
39
For a person of unsoddened mind,
unassaulted
awareness,
abandoning merit & evil,
wakeful,
there is no danger
no fear.
40
Knowing this body
is like a clay jar,
securing this mind
like a fort,
attack Mara
with the spear of discernment,
then guard what's won
without settling there,
without laying claim.
41
All too soon, this body
will lie on the ground
cast off,
bereft of consciousness,
like a useless scrap
of wood.
42-43
Whatever an enemy might do
to an enemy,
or a foe to a foe,
the ill-directed mind
can do to you
even worse.
Whatever a mother, father
or other kinsman
might do for you,
the well-directed mind
can do for you
even better.
Khuddaka Nikaya - Dhammapada - Appamadavagga
Dhp II
Appamadavagga
Heedfulness
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 21-32
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
Other formats:
21-24
Heedfulness: the path to the Deathless.
Heedlessness: the path to death.
The heedful do not die.
The heedless are as if
already dead.
Knowing this as a true distinction,
those wise in heedfulness
rejoice in heedfulness,
enjoying the range of the noble ones.
The enlightened, constantly
absorbed in jhana,
persevering,
firm in their effort:
they touch Unbinding,
the unexcelled rest
from the yoke.
Those with initiative,
mindful,
clean in action,
acting with due consideration,
heedful, restrained,
living the Dhamma:
their glory
grows.
25
Through initiative, heedfulness,
restraint, & self-control,
the wise would make
an island
no flood
can submerge.
26
They're addicted to heedlessness
— dullards, fools —
while one who is wise
cherishes heedfulness
as his highest wealth.
27
Don't give way to heedlessness
or to intimacy
with sensual delight —
for a heedful person,
absorbed in jhana,
attains an abundance of ease.
28
When the wise person drives out
heedlessness
with heedfulness,
having climbed the high tower
of discernment,
sorrow-free,
he observes the sorrowing crowd —
as the enlightened man,
having scaled
a summit,
the fools on the ground below.
29
Heedful among the heedless,
wakeful among those asleep,
just as a fast horse advances,
leaving the weak behind:
so the wise.
30
Through heedfulness, Indra won
to lordship over the gods.
Heedfulness is praised,
heedlessness censured —
always.
31-32
The monk delighting in heedfulness,
seeing danger in heedlessness,
advances like a fire,
burning fetters
great & small.
The monk delighting in heedfulness,
seeing danger in heedlessness
— incapable of falling back —
stands right on the verge
of Unbinding.
Appamadavagga
Heedfulness
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 21-32
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
Other formats:
21-24
Heedfulness: the path to the Deathless.
Heedlessness: the path to death.
The heedful do not die.
The heedless are as if
already dead.
Knowing this as a true distinction,
those wise in heedfulness
rejoice in heedfulness,
enjoying the range of the noble ones.
The enlightened, constantly
absorbed in jhana,
persevering,
firm in their effort:
they touch Unbinding,
the unexcelled rest
from the yoke.
Those with initiative,
mindful,
clean in action,
acting with due consideration,
heedful, restrained,
living the Dhamma:
their glory
grows.
25
Through initiative, heedfulness,
restraint, & self-control,
the wise would make
an island
no flood
can submerge.
26
They're addicted to heedlessness
— dullards, fools —
while one who is wise
cherishes heedfulness
as his highest wealth.
27
Don't give way to heedlessness
or to intimacy
with sensual delight —
for a heedful person,
absorbed in jhana,
attains an abundance of ease.
28
When the wise person drives out
heedlessness
with heedfulness,
having climbed the high tower
of discernment,
sorrow-free,
he observes the sorrowing crowd —
as the enlightened man,
having scaled
a summit,
the fools on the ground below.
29
Heedful among the heedless,
wakeful among those asleep,
just as a fast horse advances,
leaving the weak behind:
so the wise.
30
Through heedfulness, Indra won
to lordship over the gods.
Heedfulness is praised,
heedlessness censured —
always.
31-32
The monk delighting in heedfulness,
seeing danger in heedlessness,
advances like a fire,
burning fetters
great & small.
The monk delighting in heedfulness,
seeing danger in heedlessness
— incapable of falling back —
stands right on the verge
of Unbinding.
Khuddaka Nikaya - Dhammapada - Yamakavagga
Dhp I
Yamakavagga
Pairs
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 1-20
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
Other formats:
1-2
All phenomena are preceded by the mind,
ruled by the mind,
made of the mind.
If you speak or act
with a corrupted mind,
then suffering follows you —
as the wheel of the cart,
follows the track of the ox
that pulls it.
All phenomena are preceded by the mind,
ruled by the mind,
made of the mind.
If you speak or act
with a calm, bright mind,
then happiness follows you,
like a shadow
that never leaves you.
3-6
'He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me'
— for those who brood on this,
hostility isn't stilled.
'He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me' —
for those who don't brood on this,
hostility is stilled.
Hostilities aren't stilled
through hostility,
regardless.
Hostilities are stilled
through non-hostility:
this, an unending truth.
Unlike those who don't realize
that we're here on the verge
of perishing,
those who do:
their quarrels are stilled.
7-8
One who stays focused on the beautiful,
is unrestrained with the senses,
knowing no moderation in food,
apathetic, unenergetic:
Mara overcomes him
as the wind, a weak tree.
One who stays focused on the foul,
is restrained with regard to the senses,
knowing moderation in food,
full of conviction & energy:
Mara does not overcome him
as the wind, a mountain of rock.
9-10
He who, depraved,
devoid
of truthfulness
& self-control,
puts on the ochre robe,
doesn't deserve the ochre robe.
But he who is free
of depravity
endowed
with truthfulness
& self-control,
well-established
in the precepts,
truly deserves the ochre robe.
11-12
Those who regard
non-essence as essence
and see essence as non-,
don't get to the essence,
ranging about in wrong resolves.
But those who know
essence as essence,
and non-essence as non-,
get to the essence,
ranging about in right resolves.
13-14
As rain seeps into
an ill-thatched hut,
so passion,
the undeveloped mind.
As rain doesn't seep into
a well-thatched hut,
so passion does not,
the well-developed mind.
15-18
Here he grieves
he grieves hereafter.
In both worlds
the wrong-doer grieves.
He grieves, he's afflicted,
seeing the corruption
of his deeds.
Here he rejoices
he rejoices hereafter.
In both worlds
the merit-maker rejoices.
He rejoices, is jubilant,
seeing the purity
of his deeds.
Here he's tormented
he's tormented hereafter.
In both worlds
the wrong-doer's tormented.
He's tormented at the thought,
'I've done wrong.'
Having gone to a bad destination,
he's tormented
all the more.
Here he delights
he delights hereafter.
In both worlds
the merit-maker delights.
He delights at the thought,
'I've made merit.'
Having gone to a good destination,
he delights
all the more.
19-20
If he recites many teachings, but
— heedless man —
doesn't do what they say,
like a cowherd counting the cattle of
others,
he has no share in the contemplative life.
If he recites next to nothing
but follows the Dhamma
in line with the Dhamma;
abandoning passion,
aversion, delusion;
alert,
his mind well-released,
not clinging
either here or hereafter:
he has his share in the contemplative life.
Yamakavagga
Pairs
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
PTS: Dhp 1-20
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
Other formats:
1-2
All phenomena are preceded by the mind,
ruled by the mind,
made of the mind.
If you speak or act
with a corrupted mind,
then suffering follows you —
as the wheel of the cart,
follows the track of the ox
that pulls it.
All phenomena are preceded by the mind,
ruled by the mind,
made of the mind.
If you speak or act
with a calm, bright mind,
then happiness follows you,
like a shadow
that never leaves you.
3-6
'He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me'
— for those who brood on this,
hostility isn't stilled.
'He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me' —
for those who don't brood on this,
hostility is stilled.
Hostilities aren't stilled
through hostility,
regardless.
Hostilities are stilled
through non-hostility:
this, an unending truth.
Unlike those who don't realize
that we're here on the verge
of perishing,
those who do:
their quarrels are stilled.
7-8
One who stays focused on the beautiful,
is unrestrained with the senses,
knowing no moderation in food,
apathetic, unenergetic:
Mara overcomes him
as the wind, a weak tree.
One who stays focused on the foul,
is restrained with regard to the senses,
knowing moderation in food,
full of conviction & energy:
Mara does not overcome him
as the wind, a mountain of rock.
9-10
He who, depraved,
devoid
of truthfulness
& self-control,
puts on the ochre robe,
doesn't deserve the ochre robe.
But he who is free
of depravity
endowed
with truthfulness
& self-control,
well-established
in the precepts,
truly deserves the ochre robe.
11-12
Those who regard
non-essence as essence
and see essence as non-,
don't get to the essence,
ranging about in wrong resolves.
But those who know
essence as essence,
and non-essence as non-,
get to the essence,
ranging about in right resolves.
13-14
As rain seeps into
an ill-thatched hut,
so passion,
the undeveloped mind.
As rain doesn't seep into
a well-thatched hut,
so passion does not,
the well-developed mind.
15-18
Here he grieves
he grieves hereafter.
In both worlds
the wrong-doer grieves.
He grieves, he's afflicted,
seeing the corruption
of his deeds.
Here he rejoices
he rejoices hereafter.
In both worlds
the merit-maker rejoices.
He rejoices, is jubilant,
seeing the purity
of his deeds.
Here he's tormented
he's tormented hereafter.
In both worlds
the wrong-doer's tormented.
He's tormented at the thought,
'I've done wrong.'
Having gone to a bad destination,
he's tormented
all the more.
Here he delights
he delights hereafter.
In both worlds
the merit-maker delights.
He delights at the thought,
'I've made merit.'
Having gone to a good destination,
he delights
all the more.
19-20
If he recites many teachings, but
— heedless man —
doesn't do what they say,
like a cowherd counting the cattle of
others,
he has no share in the contemplative life.
If he recites next to nothing
but follows the Dhamma
in line with the Dhamma;
abandoning passion,
aversion, delusion;
alert,
his mind well-released,
not clinging
either here or hereafter:
he has his share in the contemplative life.
Khuddaka Nikaya - Dhammapada
Khuddaka Nikaya - Dhammapada
The Dhammapada
A Translation
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
A printed copy of this book is available upon request from Dhamma Dana
Publications.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
The translation:
I. Pairs (vv. 1-20)
II. Heedfulness (21-32)
III. The Mind (33-43)
IV. Blossoms (44-59)
V. Fools (60-75)
VI. The Wise (76-89)
VII. Arahants (90-99)
VIII. Thousands (100-115)
IX. Evil (116-128)
X. The Rod (129-145)
XI. Aging (146-156)
XII. Self (157-166)
XIII. Worlds (167-178)
XIV. Awakened (179-196)
XV. Happy (197-208)
XVI. Dear Ones (209-220)
XVII. Anger (221-234)
XVIII. Impurities (235-255)
XIX. The Judge (256-272)
XX. The Path (273-289)
XXI. Miscellany (290-305)
XXII. Hell (306-319)
XXIII. Elephants (320-333)
XXIV. Craving (334-359)
XXV. Monks (360-382)
XXVI. Brahmans (383-423)
Historical Notes
End Notes
Glossary
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Preface
Another translation of the Dhammapada.
Many other English translations are already available — the fingers of at least
five people would be needed to count them — so I suppose that a new translation
has to be justified, to prove that it's not "just" another one. In doing so,
though, I'd rather not criticize the efforts of earlier translators, for I owe
them a great debt. Instead, I'll ask you to read the Introduction and Historical
Notes, to gain an idea of what is distinctive about the approach I have taken,
and the translation itself, which I hope will stand on its own merits. The
original impulse for making the translation came from my conviction that the
text deserved to be offered freely as a gift of Dhamma. As I knew of no existing
translations available as gifts, I made my own.
The explanatory material is designed to meet with the needs of two sorts of
readers: those who want to read the text as a text, in the context of the
religious history of Buddhism — viewed from the outside — and those who want to
read the text as a guide to the personal conduct of their lives. Although there
is no clear line dividing these groups, the Introduction is aimed more at the
second group, and the Historical Notes more at the first. The End Notes and
Glossary contain material that should be of interest to both. Verses marked with
an asterisk in the translation are discussed in the End Notes. Pali terms — as
well as English terms used in a special sense, such as effluent, enlightened
one, fabrication, stress, and Unbinding — when they appear in more than one
verse, are explained in the Glossary.
In addition to the previous translators and editors from whose work I have
borrowed, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jeanne Larsen for her help in
honing down the language of the translation. Also, John Bullitt, Charles
Hallisey, Karen King, Andrew Olendzki, Ruth Stiles, Clark Strand, Paula Trahan,
and Jane Yudelman offered many helpful comments that improved the quality of the
book as a whole. Any mistakes that remain, of course, are my own responsibility.
— Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Metta Forest Monastery
Valley Center, CA 92082-1409
December, 1997
Introduction
The Dhammapada, an anthology of verses attributed to the Buddha, has long been
recognized as one of the masterpieces of early Buddhist literature. Only more
recently have scholars realized that it is also one of the early masterpieces in
the Indian tradition of kavya, or belles lettres.
This translation of the Dhammapada is an attempt to render the verses into
English in a way that does justice to both of the traditions to which the text
belongs. Although it is tempting to view these traditions as distinct, dealing
with form (kavya) and content (Buddhism), the ideals of kavya aimed at combining
form and content into a seamless whole. At the same time, the early Buddhists
adopted and adapted the conventions of kavya in a way that skillfully dovetailed
with their views of how teaching and listening played a role in their path of
practice. My hope is that the translation presented here will convey the same
seamlessness and skill.
As an example of kavya, the Dhammapada has a fairly complete body of ethical and
aesthetic theory behind it, for the purpose of kavya was to instruct in the
highest ends of life while simultaneously giving delight. The ethical teaching
of the Dhammapada is expressed in the first pair of verses: the mind, through
its actions (kamma), is the chief architect of one's happiness and suffering
both in this life and beyond. The first three chapters elaborate on this point,
to show that there are two major ways of relating to this fact: as a wise
person, who is heedful enough to make the necessary effort to train his/her own
mind to be a skillful architect; and as a fool, who is heedless and sees no
reason to train the mind.
The work as a whole elaborates on this distinction, showing in more detail both
the path of the wise person and that of the fool, together with the rewards of
the former and the dangers of the latter: the path of the wise person can lead
not only to happiness within the cycle of death and rebirth, but also to total
escape into the Deathless, beyond the cycle entirely; the path of the fool leads
not only to suffering now and in the future, but also to further entrapment
within the cycle. The purpose of the Dhammapada is to make the wise path
attractive to the reader so that he/she will follow it — for the dilemma posited
by the first pair of verses is not one in the imaginary world of fiction; it is
the dilemma in which the reader is already placed by the fact of being born.
To make the wise path attractive, the techniques of poetry are used to give
"savor" (rasa) to the message. Ancient Indian aesthetic treatises devoted a
great deal of discussion to the notion of savor and how it could be conveyed.
The basic theory was this: Artistic composition expressed states of emotion or
states of mind called "bhava." The standard list of basic emotions included love
(delight), humor, grief, anger, energy, fear, disgust, and astonishment. The
reader or listener exposed to these presentations of emotion did not participate
in them directly; rather, he/she savored them as an aesthetic experience at one
remove from the emotion. Thus, the savor of grief is not grief, but compassion.
The savor of energy is not energy itself, but admiration for heroism. The savor
of love is not love but an experience of sensitivity. The savor of astonishment
is a sense of the marvelous. The proof of the indirectness of the aesthetic
experience was that some of the basic emotions were decidedly unpleasant, while
the savor of the emotion was to be enjoyed.
Although a work of art might depict many emotions, and thus — like a good meal —
offer many savors for the reader/listener to taste, one savor was supposed to
dominate. Writers made a common practice of announcing the savor they were
trying to produce, usually stating in passing that their particular savor was
the highest of all. The Dhammapada [354] states explicitly that the savor of
Dhamma is the highest savor, which indicates that that is the basic savor of the
work. Classic aesthetic theory lists the savor of Dhamma, or justice, as one of
the three basic varieties of the heroic savor (the other two deal with
generosity and war): thus we would expect the majority of the verses to depict
energy, and in fact they do, with their exhortations to action, strong verbs,
repeated imperatives, and frequent use of the imagery from battles, races, and
conquests.
Dhamma, in the Buddhist sense, implies more than the "justice" of Dhamma in
aesthetic theory. However, the long section of the Dhammapada devoted to "The
Judge" — beginning with a definition of a good judge, and continuing with
examples of good judgment — shows that the Buddhist concept of Dhamma has room
for the aesthetic meaning of the term as well. Classic theory also holds that
the heroic savor should, especially at the end of a piece, shade into the
marvelous. This, in fact, is what happens periodically throughout the
Dhammapada, and especially at the end, where the verses express astonishment at
the amazing and paradoxical qualities of a person who has followed the path of
heedfulness to its end, becoming "pathless" [92-93; 179-180] — totally
indescribable, transcending conflicts and dualities of every sort. Thus the
predominant emotions that the verses express in Pali — and should also express
in translation — are energy and astonishment, so as to produce qualities of the
heroic and marvelous for the reader to savor. This savor is then what inspires
the reader to follow the path of wisdom, with the result that he/she will reach
a direct experience of the true happiness, transcending all dualities, found at
the end of the path.
Classic aesthetic theory lists a variety of rhetorical features that can produce
savor. Examples from these lists that can be found in the Dhammapada include:
accumulation (padoccaya) [137-140], admonitions (upadista) [47-48, 246-248, et.
al.], ambiguity (aksarasamghata) [97, 294-295], benedictions (asis) [337],
distinctions (visesana) [19-20, 21-22, 318-319], encouragement (protsahana) [35,
43, 46, et. al.], etymology (nirukta) [388], examples (drstanta) [30],
explanations of cause and effect (hetu) [1-2], illustrations (udaharana) [344],
implications (arthapatti) [341], rhetorical questions (prccha) [44, 62, 143, et.
al.], praise (gunakirtana) [54-56, 58-59, 92-93, et. al.], prohibitions
(pratisedha) [121-122, 271-272, 371, et. al.], and ornamentation (bhusana)
[passim].
Of these, ornamentation is the most complex, including four figures of speech
and ten "qualities." The figures of speech are simile [passim], extended
metaphor [398], rhyme (including alliteration and assonance), and "lamps"
[passim]. This last figure is a peculiarity of Pali — a heavily inflected
language — that allows, say, one adjective to modify two different nouns, or one
verb to function in two separate sentences. (The name of the figure derives from
the idea that the two nouns radiate from the one adjective, or the two sentences
from the one verb.) In English, the closest we have to this is parallelism
combined with ellipsis. An example from the translation is in verse 7 —
Mara overcomes him
as the wind, a weak tree
— where "overcomes" functions as the verb in both clauses, even though it is
elided from the second. This is how I have rendered lamps in most of the verses,
although in two cases [174, 206] I found it more effective to repeat the
lamp-word.
The ten "qualities" are more general attributes of sound, syntax, and sense,
including such attributes as charm, clarity, delicacy, evenness, exaltation,
sweetness, and strength. The ancient texts are not especially clear on what some
of these terms mean in practice. Even where they are clear, the terms deal in
aspects of Pali/Sanskrit syntax not always applicable to English. What is
important, though, is that some qualities are seen as more suited to a
particular savor than others: strength and exaltation, for example, best convey
a taste of the heroic and marvelous. Of these characteristics, strength (ojas)
is the easiest to quantify, for it is marked by long compounded words. In the
Dhammapada, approximately one tenth of the verses contain compounds that are as
long as a whole line of verse, and one verse [39] has three of its four lines
made up of such compounds. By the standards of later Sanskrit verse, this is
rather mild, but when compared with verses in the rest of the Pali canon and
other early masterpieces of kavya, the Dhammapada is quite strong.
The text also explicitly adds to the theory of characteristics in saying that
"sweetness" is not just an attribute of words, but of the person speaking [363].
If the person is a true example of the virtue espoused, his/her words are sweet.
This point could be generalized to cover many of the other qualities as well.
Another point from classic aesthetic theory that may be relevant to the
Dhammapada is the principle of how a literary work is given unity. Although the
text does not provide a step-by-step sequential portrait of the path of wisdom,
as a lyric anthology it is much more unified than most Indian examples of that
genre. The classic theory of dramatic plot construction may be playing an
indirect role here. On the one hand, a plot must exhibit unity by presenting a
conflict or dilemma, and depicting the attainment of a goal through overcoming
that conflict. This is precisely what unifies the Dhammapada: it begins with the
duality between heedless and heedful ways of living, and ends with the final
attainment of total mastery. On the other hand, the plot must not show smooth,
systematic progress; otherwise the work would turn into a treatise. There must
be reversals and diversions to maintain interest. This principle is at work in
the fairly unsystematic ordering of the Dhammapada's middle sections. Verses
dealing with the beginning stages of the path are mixed together with those
dealing with later stages and even stages beyond the completion of the path.
One more point is that the ideal plot should be constructed with a sub-plot in
which a secondary character gains his/her goal, and in so doing helps the main
character attain his or hers. In addition to the aesthetic pleasure offered by
the sub-plot, the ethical lesson is one of human cooperation: people attain
their goals by working together. In the Dhammapada, the same dynamic is at work.
The main "plot" is that of the person who masters the principle of kamma to the
point of total release from kamma and the round of rebirth; the "sub-plot"
depicts the person who masters the principle of kamma to the point of gaining a
good rebirth on the human or heavenly planes. The second person gains his/her
goal, in part, by being generous and respectful to the first person [106-109,
177], thus enabling the first person to practice to the point of total mastery.
In return, the first person gives counsel to the second person on how to pursue
his/her goal [76-77, 363]. In this way the Dhammapada depicts the play of life
in a way that offers two potentially heroic roles for the reader to choose from,
and delineates those roles in such a way that all people can choose to be
heroic, working together for the attainment of their own true well being.
Perhaps the best way to summarize the confluence of Buddhist and kavya
traditions in the Dhammapada is in light of a teaching from another early
Buddhist text, the Samyutta Nikaya (LV.5), on the factors needed to attain one's
first taste of the goal of the Buddhist path. Those factors are four:
associating with people of integrity, listening to their teachings, using
appropriate attention to inquire into the way those teachings apply to one's
life, and practicing in line with the teachings in a way that does them justice.
Early Buddhists used the traditions of kavya — concerning savor, rhetoric,
structure, and figures of speech — primarily in connection with the second of
these factors, in order to make the teachings appealing to the listener.
However, the question of savor is related to the other three factors as well.
The words of a teaching must be spoken by a person of integrity who embodies
their message in his/her actions if their savor is to be sweet [158, 363]. The
listener must reflect on them appropriately and then put them into practice if
they are to have more than a passing, superficial taste. Thus both the speaker
and listener must act in line with the words of a teaching if it is to bear
fruit. This point is reflected in a pair of verses from the Dhammapada itself
[51-52]:
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
but scentless:
a well-spoken word
is fruitless
when not carried out.
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
& full of scent:
a well-spoken word
is fruitful
when well carried out.
Appropriate reflection, the first step a listener should follow in carrying out
the well-spoken word, means contemplating one's own life to see the dangers of
following the path of foolishness and the need to follow the path of wisdom. The
Buddhist tradition recognizes two emotions as playing a role in this reflection.
The first is samvega, a strong sense of dismay that comes with realizing the
futility and meaningless of life as it is normally lived, together with a
feeling of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. The
second emotion is pasada, the clarity and serenity that come when one recognizes
a teaching that presents the truth of the dilemma of existence and at the same
time points the way out. One function of the verses in the Dhammapada is to
provide this sense of clarity, which is why verse 82 states that the wise grow
serene on hearing the Dhamma, and 102 states that the most worthwhile verse is
the meaningful one that, on hearing, brings peace.
However, the process does not stop with these preliminary feelings of peace and
serenity. The listener must carry through with the path of practice that the
verses recommend. Although much of the impetus for doing so comes from the
emotions of samvega and pasada sparked by the content of the verses, the heroic
and marvelous savor of the verses plays a role as well, by inspiring the
listener to rouse within him or herself the energy and strength that the path
will require. When the path is brought to fruition, it brings the peace and
delight of the Deathless [373-374]. This is where the process initiated by
hearing or reading the Dhamma bears its deepest savor, surpassing all others. It
is the highest sense in which the meaningful verses of the Dhammapada bring
peace.
In preparing the following translation, I have kept the above points in mind,
motivated both by a firm belief in the truth of the message of the Dhammapada,
and by a desire to present it in a compelling way that will induce the reader to
put it into practice. Although trying to stay as close as possible to the
literal meaning of the text, I've also tried to convey its savor. I'm operating
on the classic assumption that, although there may be a tension between giving
instruction (being scrupulously accurate) and giving delight (providing an
enjoyable taste of the mental states that the words depict), the best
translation is one that plays with that tension without submitting totally to
one side at the expense of the other. To convey the savor of the work, I have
aimed at a spare style flexible enough to express not only its dominant emotions
— energy and astonishment — but also its transient emotions, such as humor,
delight, and fear. Although the original verses conform to metrical rules, the
translations are in free verse. This is the form that requires the fewest
deviations from literal accuracy and allows for a terse directness that conforms
with the heroic savor of the original. The freedom I have used in placing words
on the page also allows many of the poetic effects of Pali syntax — especially
the parallelism and ellipsis of the "lamps" — to shine through.
I have been relatively consistent in choosing English equivalents for Pali
terms, especially where the terms have a technical meaning. Total consistency,
although it may be a logical goal, is by no means a rational one, especially in
translating poetry. Anyone who is truly bilingual will appreciate this point.
Words in the original were chosen for their sound and connotations, as well as
their literal sense, so the same principles — within reasonable limits — have
been used in the translation. Deviations from the original syntax are rare, and
have been limited primarily to six sorts. The first four are for the sake of
immediacy: occasional use of the American "you" for "one"; occasional use of
imperatives ("Do this!") for optatives ("One should do this"); substituting
active for passive voice; and replacing "one who does this" with "he does this"
in many of the verses defining the true brahman in Chapter 26. The remaining two
deviations are: making minor adjustments in sentence structure to keep a word at
the beginning or end of a verse when this position seems important (e.g., 158,
384); and changing the number from singular ("the wise person") to plural ("the
wise") when talking about personality types, both to streamline the language and
to lighten the gender bias of the original Pali. (As most of the verses were
originally addressed to monks, I have found it impossible to eliminate the
gender bias entirely, and so apologize for whatever bias remains.) In verses
where I sense that a particular Pali word or phrase is meant to carry multiple
meanings, I have explicitly given all of those meanings in the English, even
where this has meant a considerable expansion of the verse. (Many of these
verses are discussed in the notes.) Otherwise, I have tried to make the
translation as transparent as possible, in order to allow the light and energy
of the original to pass through with minimal distortion.
The Dhammapada has for centuries been used as an introduction to the Buddhist
mindset. However, the text is by no means elementary, either in terms of content
or style. Many of the verses presuppose at least a passing knowledge of Buddhist
doctrine; others employ multiple levels of meaning and wordplay typical of
polished kavya. For this reason, I have added notes to the translation to help
draw out some of the implications of verses that might not be obvious to people
who are new to either of the two traditions that the text represents.
I hope that whatever delight you gain from this translation will inspire you to
put the Buddha's words into practice, so that you will someday taste the savor,
not just of the words, but of the Deathless to which they point.
Historical Notes
There are many versions of the Dhammapada now extant: several recensions of the
Pali Dhammapada from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand; two
incomplete manuscripts of a Gandhari Dharmapada found in central Asia; and a
manuscript of a Buddhist Hybrid-Sanskrit Dharmapada found in a library in Tibet,
called the Patna Dharmapada because photographs of this manuscript are now kept
in Patna, India. There is also a Chinese translation of the Dharmapada made in
the third century C.E. from a Prakrit original, now no longer extant, similar to
— but not identical with — the Pali Dhammapada. Parts of a Dharmapada text are
included in the Mahavastu, a text belonging to the Lokottaravadin Mahasanghika
school. In addition, there are Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese versions of a text
called the Udanavarga, which is known in at least four recensions, all of them
containing many verses in common with the Dhammapada/Dharmapada (Dhp) texts. To
further complicate matters, there are Jain anthologies that contain verses
clearly related to some of those found in these Buddhist anthologies as well.
Despite the many similarities among these texts, they contain enough
discrepancies to have fueled a small scholarly industry. The different
recensions of the Pali Dhp contain so many variant readings that there isn't yet
— even after more than a century of Western scholarship on the topic — a single
edition covering them all. The discrepancies among the Pali and non-Pali
versions are even greater. They arrange verses in different orders, each
contains verses not found in the others, and among the verses in different
versions that are related, the similarity in terms of imagery or message is
sometimes fairly tenuous.
Fortunately for anyone looking to the Dhp for spiritual guidance, the
differences among the various recensions — though many in number — range in
importance from fairly minor to minor in the extreme. Allowing for a few obvious
scribal errors, none of them fall outside the pale of what has long been
accepted as standard early Buddhist doctrine as derived from the Pali
discourses. For example, does the milk in verse 71 come out, or does it curdle?
Is the bond in verse 346 subtle, slack, or elastic? Is the brahman in verse 393
happy, or is he pure? For all practical purposes, these questions hardly matter.
They become important only when one is forced to take sides in choosing which
version to translate, and even then the nature of the choice is like that of a
conductor deciding which of the many versions of a Handel oratorio to perform.
Unfortunately for the translator, though, the scholarly discussions that have
grown around these issues have tended to blow them all out of proportion, to the
point where they call into question the authenticity of the Dhp as a whole.
Because the scholars who have devoted themselves to this topic have come up with
such contradictory advice for the potential translator — including the
suggestion that it's a waste of time to translate some of the verses at all — we
need to sort through the discussions to see what, if any, reliable guidance they
give.
Those who have worked on the issues raised by the variant versions of Dhp have,
by and large, directed the discussion to figuring out which version is the
oldest and most authentic, and which versions are later and more corrupt.
Lacking any outside landmarks against which the versions can be sighted,
scholars have attempted to reconstruct what must have been the earliest version
by triangulating among the texts themselves. This textual trigonometry tends to
rely on assumptions from among the following three types:
1) Assumptions concerning what is inherently an earlier or later form of a
verse. These assumptions are the least reliable of the three, for they involve
no truly objective criteria. If, for instance, two versions of a verse differ in
that one is more internally consistent than the other, the consistent version
will seem more genuine to one scholar, whereas another scholar will attribute
the consistency to later efforts to "clean up" the verse. Similarly, if one
version contains a rendition of a verse different from all other renditions of
the same verse, one scholar will see that as a sign of deviance; another, as a
sign of the authenticity that may have predated a later standardization among
the texts. Thus the conclusions drawn by different scholars based on these
assumptions tell us more about the scholars' presuppositions than they do about
the texts themselves.
2) Assumptions concerning the meter of the verses in question. One of the great
advances in recent Pali scholarship has been the rediscovery of the metrical
rules underlying early Pali poetry. As the Buddha himself is quoted as saying,
"Meter is the structural framework of verses." (S.I.60) Knowledge of metrical
rules thus helps the editor or translator spot which readings of a verse deviate
from the structure of a standard meter, and which ones follow it. Theoretically,
the obvious choice would be to adopt the latter and reject the former. In
practice, however, the issue is not so clear-cut. Early Pali poetry dates from a
time of great metrical experimentation, and so there is always the possibility
that a particular poem was composed in an experimental meter that never achieved
widespread recognition. There is also the possibility that — as the poetry was
spontaneous and oral — a fair amount of metrical license was allowed. This means
that the more "correct" forms of a verse may have been the products of a later
attempt to fit the poetry into standard molds. Thus the conclusions based on the
assumption of standard meters are not as totally reliable as they might seem.
3) Assumptions concerning the language in which the original Dhp was first
composed. These assumptions require an extensive knowledge of Middle Indic
dialects. A scholar will assume a particular dialect to have been the original
language of the text, and will further make assumptions about the types of
translation mistakes that might have been common when translating from that
dialect into the languages of the texts we now have. The textual trigonometry
based on these assumptions often involves such complicated methods of sighting
and computation that it can produce an "original" version of the text that is
just that: very original, coinciding with none of the versions extant. In other
words, where the current variants of a verse might be a, b, and c, the added
assumption about the Dhp's original language and the ineptitude of ancient
translators and copyists leads to the conclusion that the verse must have been
d. However, for all the impressive erudition that this method involves, not even
the most learned scholar can offer any proof as to what the Dhp's original
language was. In fact, as we will consider below, it is possible that the Buddha
— assuming that he was the author of the verses — composed poetry in more than
one language, and more than one version of a particular verse. So, as with the
first set of assumptions, the methods of triangulation based on an assumed
original language of the Dhp tell us more about the individual scholar's
position than they do about the position of the text.
Thus, although the scholarship devoted to the different recensions of the Dhp
has provided a useful service in unearthing so many variant readings of the
text, none of the assumptions used in trying sort through those readings for
"the original" Dhp have led to any definite conclusions. Their positive success
has been limited mainly to offering food for academic speculation and educated
guesses. On the negative side, though, they have succeeded in accomplishing
something totally useless: a wholesale sense of distrust for the early Buddhist
texts, and the poetic texts in particular. If the texts contain so many varying
reports, the feeling goes, and if their translators and transmitters were so
incompetent, how can any of them be trusted? This distrust comes from accepting,
unconsciously, the assumptions concerning authorship and authenticity within
which our modern, predominately literate culture operates: that only one version
of a verse could have been composed by its original author, and that all other
versions must be later corruptions. In terms of the Dhp, this comes down to
assuming that there was only one original version of the text, and that it was
composed in a single language.
However, these assumptions are totally inappropriate for analyzing the oral
culture in which the Buddha taught and in which the verses of the Dhp were first
anthologized. If we look carefully at the nature of that culture — and in
particular at clear statements from the early Buddhist texts concerning the
events and principles that shaped those texts — we will see that it is perfectly
natural that there should be a variety of reports about the Buddha's teachings,
all of which might be essentially correct. In terms of the Dhp, we can view the
multiple versions of the text as a sign, not of faulty transmission, but of an
allegiance to their oral origins.
Oral prose and poetry are very different from their written counterparts. This
fact is obvious even in our own culture. However, we have to make an active
effort of the imagination to comprehend the expectations placed on oral
transmission between speakers and listeners in a culture where there is no
written word to fall back on. In such a setting, the verbal heritage is
maintained totally through repetition and memorization. A speaker with something
new to say has to repeat it often to different audiences — who, if they feel
inspired by the message, are expected to memorize at least its essential parts.
Because communication is face-to-face, a speaker is particularly prized for an
ability to tailor his/her message to the moment of communication, in terms of
the audience's background from the past, its state of mind at present, and its
hoped-for benefits in the future.
This puts a double imperative on both the speaker and the listener. The speaker
must choose his/her words with an eye both to how they will affect the audience
in the present and to how they will be memorized for future reference. The
listener must be attentive, both to appreciate the immediate impact of the words
and to memorize them for future use. Although originality in teaching is
appreciated, it is only one of a constellation of virtues expected of a teacher.
Other expected virtues include a knowledge of common culture and an ability to
play with that knowledge for the desired effect in terms of immediate impact or
memorability. The Pali Dhp (verse 45) itself makes this point in comparing the
act of teaching, not to creating something totally new out of nothing, but to
selecting among available flowers to create a pleasing arrangement just right
for the occasion.
Of course, there are situations in an oral culture where either immediate impact
or memorability is emphasized at the expense of the other. In a classroom,
listening for impact is sacrificed to the needs of listening for memorization,
whereas in a theater, the emphasis is reversed. All indications show, however,
that the Buddha as a teacher was especially alive to both aspects of oral
communication, and that he trained his listeners to be alive to both as well. On
the one hand, the repetitious style of many of his recorded teachings seems to
have been aimed at making them easy to memorize; also, at the end of many of his
discourses, he would summarize the main points of the discussion in an
easy-to-memorize verse. On the other hand, there are many reports of instances
in which his listeners gained immediate Awakening while listening to his words.
And, there is a delightful section in one of his discourses (the Samaññaphala
Suttanta, D.2) satirizing the teachers of other religious sects for their
inability to break away from the formulaic mode of their teachings to give a
direct answer to specific questions ("It's as if, when asked about a mango, one
were to answer with a breadfruit," one of the interlocutors comments, "or, when
asked about a breadfruit, to answer with a mango.") The Buddha, in contrast, was
famous for his ability to speak directly to his listeners' needs.
This sensitivity to both present impact and future use is in line with two
well-known Buddhist teachings: first, the basic Buddhist principle of causality,
that an act has repercussions both in the present and on into the future;
second, the Buddha's realization, early on in his teaching career, that some of
his listeners would attain Awakening immediately on hearing his words, whereas
others would be able to awaken only after taking his words, contemplating them,
and putting them into prolonged practice.
A survey of the Buddha's prose discourses recorded in the Pali canon gives an
idea of how the Buddha met the double demands placed on him as a teacher. In
some cases, to respond to a particular situation, he would formulate an entirely
original teaching. In others, he would simply repeat a formulaic answer that he
kept in store for general use: either teachings original with him, or more
traditional teachings — sometime lightly tailored, sometimes not — that fit in
with his message. In still others, he would take formulaic bits and pieces, and
combine them in a new way for the needs at hand. A survey of his poetry reveals
the same range of material: original works; set pieces — original or borrowed,
occasionally altered in line with the occasion; and recyclings of old fragments
in new juxtapositions.
Thus, although the Buddha insisted that all his teachings had the same taste —
that of release — he taught different variations on the theme of that taste to
different people on different occasions, in line with his perception of their
short- and long-term needs. In reciting a verse to a particular audience, he
might change a word, a line, or an image, to fit in with their backgrounds and
individual needs.
Adding to this potential for variety was the fact that the people of northern
India in his time spoke a number of different dialects, each with its own
traditions of poetry and prose. The Pali Cullavagga (V.33.1) records the Buddha
as insisting that his listeners memorize his teachings, not in a standardized
lingua franca, but in their own dialects. There is no way of knowing whether he
himself was multi-lingual enough to teach all of his students in their own
dialects, or expected them to make the translations themselves. Still, it seems
likely that, as a well-educated aristocrat of the time, he would have been
fluent in at least two or three of the most prevalent dialects. Some of the
discourses — such as D. 21 — depict the Buddha as an articulate connoisseur of
poetry and song, so we can expect that he would also have been sensitive to the
special problems involved in the effective translation of poetry — alive, for
instance, to the fact that skilled translation requires more than simply
substituting equivalent words. The Mahavagga (V.13.9) reports that the Buddha
listened, with appreciation, as a monk from the southern country of Avanti
recited some of his teachings — apparently in the Avanti dialect — in his
presence. Although scholars have often raised questions about which language the
Buddha spoke, it might be more appropriate to remain open to the possibility
that he spoke — and could compose poetry in — several. This possibility makes
the question of "the" original language or "the" original text of the Dhp
somewhat irrelevant.
The texts suggest that even during the Buddha's lifetime his students made
efforts to collect and memorize a standardized body of his teachings under a
rubric of nine categories: dialogues, narratives of mixed prose and verse,
explanations, verses, spontaneous exclamations, quotations, birth stories,
amazing events, question and answer sessions. However, the act of collecting and
memorizing was pursued by only a sub-group among his monks, while other monks,
nuns, and lay people doubtlessly had their own individual memorized stores of
teachings they had heard directly from the Buddha or indirectly through the
reports of their friends and acquaintances.
The Buddha had the foresight to ensure that this less standardized fund of
memories not be discounted by later generations; at the same time, he
established norms so that mistaken reports, deviating from the principles of his
teachings, would not be allowed to creep into the accepted body of doctrine. To
discourage fabricated reports of his words, he warned that anyone who put words
in his mouth was slandering him (AN 2.23). This, however, could in no way
prevent mistaken reports based on honest misunderstandings. So, shortly before
his death, he summarized the basic principles of his teachings: the 37 Wings to
Awakening (bodhi-pakkhiya dhamma — see note to verse 301) in the general
framework of the development of virtue, concentration, and discernment, leading
to release. Then he announced the general norms by which reports of his
teachings were to be judged. The Maha-parinibbana Suttanta (D.16) quotes him as
saying:
"There is the case where a monk says this: 'In the Blessed One's presence have I
heard this, in the Blessed One's presence have I received this... In the
presence of a community with well-known leading elders... In a monastery with
many learned elders who know the tradition... In the presence of a single elder
who knows the tradition have I heard this, in his presence have I received this:
This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher's instruction.' His
statement is neither to be approved nor scorned. Without approval or scorn, take
careful note of his words and make them stand against the discourses and tally
them against the Vinaya. If, on making them stand against the discourses and
tallying them against the Vinaya, you find that they don't stand with the
discourses or tally with the Vinaya, you may conclude: 'This is not the word of
the Blessed One; this monk has misunderstood it' — and you should reject it. But
if... they stand with the discourses and tally with the Vinaya, you may
conclude: 'This is the word of the Blessed One; this monk has understood it
rightly.'"
Thus, a report of the Buddha's teachings was to be judged, not on the authority
of the reporter or his sources, but on the principle of consistency: did it fit
in with what was already known of the doctrine? This principle was designed to
ensure that nothing at odds with the original would be accepted into the
standard canon, but it did open the possibility that teachings in line with the
Buddha's, yet not actually spoken by him, might find their way in. The early
redactors of the canon seem to have been alert to this possibility, but not
overly worried by it. As the Buddha himself pointed out many times, he did not
design or create the Dhamma. He simply found it in nature. Anyone who developed
the pitch of mental strengths and abilities needed for Awakening could discover
the same principles as well. Thus the Dhamma was by no means exclusively his.
This attitude was carried over into the passages of the Vinaya that cite four
categories of Dhamma statements: spoken by the Buddha, spoken by his disciples,
spoken by seers (non-Buddhist sages), spoken by heavenly beings. As long as a
statement was in accordance with the basic principles, the question of who first
stated it did not matter. In an oral culture, where a saying might be associated
with a person because he authored it, approved it, repeated it often, or
inspired it by his/her words or actions, the question of authorship was not the
overriding concern it has since become in literate cultures. The recent
discovery of evidence that a number of teachings associated with the Buddha may
have pre- or post-dated his time would not have fazed the early Buddhists at
all, as long as those teachings were in accordance with the original principles.
Shortly after the Buddha's passing away, the Cullavagga (XI) reports, his
disciples met to agree on a standardized canon of his teachings, abandoning the
earlier nine-fold classification and organizing the material into something
approaching the canon we have today. There is clear evidence that some of the
passages in the extant canon do not date to the first convocation, as they
report incidents that took place afterwards. The question naturally arises as to
whether there are any other later additions not so obvious. This question is
particularly relevant with regard to texts like the Dhp, whose organization
differs considerably from redaction to redaction, and leads naturally to the
further question of whether a later addition to the canon can be considered
authentic. The Cullavagga (XI.1.11) recounts an incident that sheds light on
this issue:
Now at that time, Ven. Purana was wandering on a tour of the Southern Hills with
a large community of monks, approximately 500 in all. Then, having stayed as
long as he liked in the Southern Hills while the elder monks were standardizing
the Dhamma and Vinaya, he went to the Bamboo Park, the Squirrels' Sanctuary, in
Rajagaha. On arrival, he went to the elder monks and, after exchanging
pleasantries, sat to one side. As he was sitting there, they said to him,
"Friend Purana, the Dhamma and Vinaya have been standardized by the elders.
Switch over to their standardization." [He replied:] "The Dhamma and Vinaya have
been well-standardized by the elders. Still, I will hold simply to what I have
heard and received in the presence of the Blessed One."
In other words, Ven. Purana maintained — and undoubtedly taught to his followers
— a record of the Buddha's teachings that lay outside the standardized version,
but was nevertheless authentic. As we have already noted, there were monks,
nuns, and lay people like him even while the Buddha was alive, and there were
probably others like him who continued maintaining personal memories of the
Buddha's teachings even after the latter's death. This story shows the official
early Buddhist attitude towards such differing traditions: each accepted the
trustworthiness of the others. As time passed, some of the early communities may
have made an effort to include these "external" records in the standardized
canon, resulting in various collections of prose and verse passages. The range
of these collections would have been determined by the material that was
available in, or could be effectively translated into, each individual dialect.
Their organization would have depended on the taste and skill of the individual
collectors.
Thus, for instance, we find verses in the Pali Dhp that do not exist in other
Dhps, as well as verses in the Patna and Gandhari Dhps that the Pali tradition
assigns to the Jataka or Sutta Nipata. We also find verses in one redaction
composed of lines scattered among several verses in another. In any event, the
fact that a text was a later addition to the standardized canon does not
necessarily mean that it was a later invention. Given the ad hoc way in which
the Buddha sometimes taught, and the scattered nature of the communities who
memorized his teachings, the later additions to the canons may simply represent
earlier traditions that escaped standardization until relatively late.
When Buddhists began committing their canons to writing, approximately at the
beginning of the common era, they brought a great change to the dynamic of how
their traditions were maintained. The advantages of written over oral
transmission are obvious: the texts are saved from the vagaries of human
long-term memory and do not die out if those who have memorized them die before
teaching others to memorize them as well. The disadvantages of written
transmission, however, are less obvious but no less real. Not only is there the
possibility of scribal error, but — because transmission is not face-to-face —
there can also be the suspicion of scribal error. If a reading seems strange to
a student, he has no way of checking with the scribe, perhaps several
generations distant, to see if the reading was indeed a mistake. When confronted
with such problems, he may "correct" the reading to fit in with his ideas of
what must be right, even in cases where the reading was correct, and its
perceived strangeness was simply a result of changes in the spoken dialect or of
his own limited knowledge and imagination. The fact that manuscripts of other
versions of the text were also available for comparison in such instances could
have led scribes to homogenize the texts, removing unusual variants even when
the variants themselves may have gone back to the earliest days of the
tradition.
These considerations of how the Dhp may have been handed down to the present —
and especially the possibility that (1) variant recensions might all be
authentic, and that (2) agreement among the recensions might be the result of
later homogenization — have determined the way in which I have approached this
translation of the Pali Dhp. Unlike some other recent translators, I am treating
the Pali Dhp as a text with its own integrity — just as each of the alternative
traditions has its own integrity — and have not tried to homogenize the various
traditions. Where the different Pali recensions are unanimous in their readings,
even in cases where the reading seems strange (e.g., 71, 209, 259, 346), I have
stuck with the Pali without trying to "rectify" it in light of less unusual
readings given in the other traditions. Only in cases where the different Pali
redactions are at variance with one another, and the variants seem equally
plausible, have I checked the non-Pali texts to see which variant they support.
The translation here is drawn from three editions of the text: the Pali Text
Society (PTS) edition edited by O. von Hinüber and K.R. Norman (1995); the
Oxford edition edited by John Ross Carter and Mahinda Palihawadana, together
with its extensive notes (1987); and the Royal Thai edition of the Pali canon
(1982). The PTS edition gives the most extensive list of variant readings among
the Pali recensions, but even it is not complete. The Royal Thai edition, for
example, contains 49 preferred and 8 variant readings not given in the PTS
version at all. Passages where I have differed from the PTS reading are cited in
the End Notes.
Drawing selectively on various recensions in this way, I cannot guarantee that
the resulting reading of the Dhp corresponds exactly to the Buddha's words, or
to any one text that once existed in ancient India. However, as I mentioned at
the beginning of this note, all the recensions agree in their basic principles,
so the question is immaterial. The true test of the reading — and the resulting
translation — is if the reader feels engaged enough by the verses to put their
principles into practice and finds that they do indeed lead to the release that
the Buddha taught. In the final analysis, nothing else really counts.
Notes
(Numbers refer to verses.)
1-2:
The fact that the word mano is paired here with dhamma would seem to suggest
that it is meant in its role as "intellect," the sense medium that conveys
knowledge of ideas or mental objects (two possible meanings for the word
dhamma). However, the illustrations in the second sentence of each verse show
that it is actually meant in its role as the mental factor responsible for the
quality of one's actions (as in mano-kamma), the factor of will and intention,
shaping not only mental events, but also physical reality (on this point, see
S.XXXV.145). Thus, following a Thai tradition, I have rendered it here as
"heart."
The images in these verses are carefully chosen. The cart, representing
suffering, is a burden on the ox pulling it, and the weight of its wheels
obliterates the ox's track. The shadow, representing happiness, is no weight
on the body at all.
All Pali recensions of this verse give the reading, manomaya = made of the
heart, while all other recensions give the reading manojava = impelled by the
heart.
7-8:
Focused on the foul: A meditative exercise in focusing on the foul aspects of
the body so as to help undercut lust and attachment for the body (see M.119).
A.III.16 gives a standard definition for restraint with the senses: "And how
does a monk guard the doors to his sense faculties? There is the case where a
monk, on seeing a form with the eye, does not grasp at any theme or
particulars by which — if he were to dwell without restraint over the faculty
of the eye — evil, unskillful qualities such as greed or distress might assail
him. He practices with restraint. He guards the faculty of the eye. He
achieves restraint with regard to the faculty of the eye. (Similarly with the
ear, nose, tongue, body & intellect.) This is how a monk guards the doors to
his sense faculties."
11-12:
Wrong resolves = mental resolves for sensuality, ill will, or harmfulness.
Right resolves = mental resolves for freedom from sensuality, for freedom from
ill will, and for harmlessness.
17-18:
"Destination" in these two verses and throughout the text means one's
destination after death.
21:
The Deathless = Unbinding (nibbana/nirvana), which gives release from the
cycle of death and rebirth.
22:
"The range of the noble ones": Any of the four stages of Awakening, as well as
the total Unbinding to which they lead. The four stages are: (1) stream-entry,
at which one abandons the first three mental fetters tying one to the round of
rebirth: self-identity views, uncertainty, and grasping at precepts and
practices; (2) once-returning, at which passion, aversion, and delusion are
further weakened; (3) non-returning, at which sensual passion and resistance
are abandoned; and (4) arahantship, at which the final five fetters are
abandoned: passion for form, passion for formless phenomena, conceit,
restlessness, and ignorance. For other references to the "range of the noble
ones," see 92-93 and 179-180.
23:
AN 4.10 lists four yokes: the yoke of sensuality, the yoke of becoming, the
yoke of views, and the yoke of ignorance. To gain rest from the first three
yokes, one must discern, as it actually is present, the origination, the
passing away, the allure, the drawbacks, and the escape from that yoke. One
will then not be obsessed with passion, delight, attraction, infatuation,
thirst, fever, fascination, craving with regard to that yoke. To gain rest
from the yoke of ignorance, one must discern, as it actually is present, the
origination, the passing away, the allure, the drawbacks, and the escape from
the six sense media. One will then not be obsessed with not-knowing.
37:
"Lying in a cave": According to the Dhp Commentary (hereafter referred to as
DhpA), "cave" here means the physical heart, as well as the four great
properties — earth (solidity), water (liquidity), fire (heat), and wind
(motion) — that make up the body. Sn.IV.2 also compares the body to a cave.
39:
According to DhpA, "unsoddened mind" means one into which the rain of passion
doesn't penetrate (see 13 and 14); "unassaulted awareness" means a mind not
assaulted by anger. "Beyond merit & evil": The arahant is beyond merit and
evil in that he/she has none of the mental defilements — passion, aversion, or
delusion — that would lead to evil actions, and none of the attachments that
would cause his/her actions to bear kammic fruit of any sort, good or bad.
40:
"Without settling there, without laying claim": two meanings of the word
anivesano.
42:
A.VII.60 illustrates this point with seven ways that a person harms
him/herself when angry, bringing on results that an enemy would wish: He/she
becomes ugly, sleeps badly, mistakes profit for loss and loss for profit,
loses wealth, loses his/her reputation, loses friends, and acts in such a way
that — after death — he/she reappears in a bad rebirth.
44-45:
"Dhamma-saying": This is a translation for the term dhammapada. To ferret out
the well-taught Dhamma-saying means to select the appropriate maxim to apply
to a particular situation, in the same way that a flower-arranger chooses the
right flower, from a heap of available flowers (see 53), to fit into a
particular spot in the arrangement. "The learner-on-the-path": A person who
has attained any of the first three of the four stages of Awakening (see note
22).
48:
According to DhpA, the End-maker is death. According to another ancient
commentary, the End-maker is Mara.
53:
The last line of the Pali here can be read in two ways, either "even so, many
a skillful thing should be done by one born & mortal" or "even so, many a
skillful thing should be done with what's born & mortal." The first reading
takes the phrase jatena maccena, born & mortal, as being analogous to the
flower-arranger implicit in the image. The second takes it as analogous to the
heap of flowers explicitly mentioned. In this sense, "what's born & is mortal"
would stand for one's body, wealth, and talents.
54-56:
Tagara = a shrub that, in powdered form, is used as a perfume. A.III.78
explains the how the scent of a virtuous person goes against the wind and
wafts to the devas, by saying that those human and celestial beings who know
of the good character of a virtuous person will broadcast one's good name in
all directions.
57:
"Right knowing": the knowledge of full Awakening.
71:
"Doesn't — like ready milk — come out right away": All Pali recensions of this
verse give the verb muccati — "to come out" or "to be released" — whereas DhpA
agrees with the Sanskrit recensions in reading the verb as if it were
mucchati/murchati, "to curdle." The former reading makes more sense, both in
terms of the image of the poem — which contrasts coming out with staying
hidden — and with the plain fact that fresh milk doesn't curdle right away.
The Chinese translation of Dhp supports this reading, as do two of three
scholarly editions of the Patna Dhp.
79:
"Drinking the Dhamma, refreshed by the Dhamma": two meanings of the word,
dhammapiti. "Clear... calm": two meanings of vipasannena.
83:
"Stand apart": reading cajanti with DhpA and many Asian editions.
86:
The syntax of this verse yields the best sense if we take param as meaning
"across," and not as "the far shore."
89:
Factors of self-awakening = mindfulness, analysis of qualities, persistence,
rapture, serenity, concentration, and equanimity.
92-93:
"Having comprehended food... independent of nutriment": The first question in
the Novice's Questions (Khp 4) is "What is one?" The answer: "All animals
subsist on nutriment." The concept of food and nutriment here refers to the
most basic way of understanding the causal principle that plays such a central
role in the Buddha's teaching. As S.XII.64 points out, "There are these four
nutriments for the establishing of beings who have taken birth or for the
support of those in search of a place to be born. Which four? Physical
nutriment, gross or refined; contact as the second, consciousness the third,
and intellectual intention the fourth." The present verses make the point that
the arahant has so fully understood the process of physical and mental
causality that he/she is totally independent of it, and thus will never take
birth again. Such a person cannot be comprehended by any of the forms of
understanding that operate within the causal realm.
94:
"Such (tadin)": an adjective used to describe one who has attained the goal of
Buddhist practice, indicating that the person's state is indefinable but not
subject to change or influences of any sort. "Right knowing": the knowledge of
full Awakening.
95:
Indra's pillar = a post set up at the gate of a city. According to DhpA, there
was an ancient custom of worshipping this post with flowers and offerings,
although those who wanted to show their disrespect for this custom would
urinate and defecate on the post. In either case, the post did not react.
97:
This verse is a series of puns. The negative meanings of the puns are on the
left side of the slashes; the positive meanings, on the right. The negative
meanings are so extremely negative that they were probably intended to shock
their listeners. One scholar has suggested that the last word — uttamaporiso,
the ultimate person — should also be read as a pun, with the negative meaning,
"the extreme of audacity," but that would weaken the shock value of the verse.
100:
According to DhpA, the word sahassam in this and the following verses means
"by the thousands" rather than "a thousand." The same principle would also
seem to hold for satam — "by the hundreds" rather than "a hundred" — in 102.
108:
"Doesn't come to a fourth": DhpA: The merit produced by all sacrificial
offerings given in the world in the course of a year doesn't equal even one
fourth of the merit made by paying homage once to one who has gone the
straight way to Unbinding.
121-122:
"('It won't come to me')": The Thai edition reads this line as na mattam
agamissati = "[Thinking] it won't amount to much."
126:
Heaven and hell, in the Buddhist view of the cosmos, are not eternal states.
One may be reborn on one of the various levels of heaven or hell as the result
of one's kamma on the human plane, and then leave that level when that
particular store of kamma wears out.
143:
Some translators have proposed that the verb apabodheti, here translated as
"awakens" should be changed to appam bodheti, "to think little of." This,
however, goes against the sense of the verse and of a recurrent image in the
Canon, that the better-bred the horse, the more sensitive it is even to the
idea of the whip, to say nothing of the whip itself. See, for example,
A.IV.113.
The question raised in this verse is answered in SN 1.18:
Those restrained by conscience
are rare —
those who go through life
always mindful.
Having reached the end
of suffering & stress,
they go through what is uneven
evenly;
go through what is out-of-tune
in tune.
152:
Muscles: This is a translation of the Pali mansani, which is usually rendered
in this verse as "flesh." However, as the Pali word is in the plural form,
"muscles" seems more accurate — and to the point.
153-154:
DhpA: These verses were the Buddha's first utterance after his full Awakening.
For some reason, they are not reported in any of the other canonical accounts
of the events following on the Awakening.
DhpA: "House" = selfhood; house-builder = craving. "House" may also refer to
the nine abodes of beings — the seven stations of consciousness and two
spheres (see Khp 4 and D.15).
The word anibbisam in 153 can be read either as the negative gerund of
nibbisati ("earning, gaining a reward") or as the negative gerund of nivisati,
altered to fit the meter, meaning "coming to a rest, settled, situated." Both
readings make sense in the context of the verse, so the word is probably
intended to have a double meaning: without reward, without rest.
157:
"The three watches of the night": this is the literal meaning of the verse,
but DhpA shows that the image of staying up to nurse someone in the night is
meant to stand for being wakeful and attentive throughout the three stages of
life: youth, middle age, and old age. The point here is that it is never too
early or too late to wake up and begin nurturing the good qualities of mind
that will lead to one's true benefit. On this point, see A.III.51 & 52, in
which the Buddha counsels two old brahmans, nearing the end of their life
span, to begin practicing generosity along with restraint in thought, word,
and deed.
162:
DhpA completes the image of the poem by saying that one's vice bring about
one's own downfall, just as a maluva creeper ultimately brings about the
downfall of the tree it overspreads. See note 42.
164:
A bamboo plant bears fruit only once, and then dies soon after.
165:
"No one purifies another. No other purifies one." These are the two meanings
of the one phrase, nañño aññam visodhaye.
166:
A.IV.95 lists four types of people in descending order: those devoted to their
own true welfare as well as that of others, those devoted to their own true
welfare but not that of others, those devoted to the true welfare of others
but not their own, and those devoted neither to their own true welfare nor
that of others. S.XLVII.19 makes the point that if one is truly devoted to
one's own welfare, others automatically benefit, in the same way that an
acrobat maintaining his/her own balance helps his/her partner stay balanced as
well.
170:
The Sutta Nipata (V.15) reports a conversation between the Buddha and the
brahman Mogharaja with a point similar to that of this verse:
Mogharaja:
In what way does one view the world
so as not to be seen
by Death's king?
The Buddha:
View the world, Mogharaja,
as empty —
always mindful
to have removed any view
about self.
This way one is above & beyond death.
This is the way one views the world
so as not to be seen
by Death's king.
176:
This verse is also found at Iti.25, where the context makes clear the meaning
of ekam dhammam, or "this one thing": the principle of truthfulness.
178:
The fruit of stream-entry is the first of the four stages of Awakening (see
note 22). A person who has attained stream-entry — entry into the stream that
flows inevitably to Unbinding — is destined to attain full Awakening within at
most seven lifetimes, never falling below the human state in the interim.
183-185:
These verses are a summary of a talk called the Ovada Patimokkha, which the
Buddha is said to have delivered to an assembly of 1,250 arahants in the first
year after his Awakening. Verse 183 is traditionally viewed as expressing the
heart of the Buddha's teachings.
191:
The noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right
action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right
concentration.
195-196:
Complications = papañca. Alternative translations of this term would be
proliferation, elaboration, exaggeration. The term is used both in
philosophical contexts — in connection with troubles and disputes — and in
artistic contexts, in connection with excessive detail and elaboration. M.18
states: "Dependent on eye & forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of
the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition, there is feeling.
What one feels, one apperceives (labels in the mind). What one apperceives,
one thinks about. What one thinks about, one complicates. Based on what a
person complicates, the perceptions & categories of complication assail
him/her with regard to past, present, & future forms cognizable via the eye.
[Similarly with the other senses.]... Now, with regard to the cause whereby
the perceptions & categories of complication assail a person: if there is
nothing there to relish, welcome, or remain fastened to, then that is the end
of the obsessions of passion, the obsessions of resistance, the obsessions of
views, the obsessions of uncertainty, the obsessions of conceit, the
obsessions of passion for becoming, & the obsessions of ignorance. That is the
end of taking up rods & bladed weapons, of arguments, quarrels, disputes,
accusations, divisive tale-bearing, & false speech. That is where these evil,
unskillful things cease without remainder."
209:
This verse plays with the various meanings of yoga (task, striving,
application, meditation) and a related term, anuyuñjati (keeping after
something, taking someone to task). In place of the Pali reading
attanuyoginam, "those who kept after themselves," the Patna Dhp reads
atthanuyoginam, "those who kept after/remained devoted to the goal."
218:
"The up-flowing stream": DhpA: the attainment of non-returning, the third of
the four stages of Awakening (see note 22).
231-233:
Bodily misconduct = killing, stealing, engaging in illicit sex. Verbal
misconduct = lies, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter. Mental
misconduct = covetousness, ill will, wrong views.
235:
Yama = the god of the underworld. Yama's minions or underlings were believed
to appear to a person just prior to the moment of death.
236:
Impurities, blemishes = passion, aversion, delusion, and their various
permutations, including envy, miserliness, hypocrisy, and boastfulness.
240:
"One who lives slovenly": As DhpA makes clear, this refers to one who uses the
requisites of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine without the wisdom that
comes with reflecting on their proper use. The Pali term here is
atidhonacarin, a compound built around the word dhona, which means clean or
pure. The ati- in the compound could mean "overly," thus yielding, "one overly
scrupulous in his behavior," but it can also mean "transgressing," thus,
"transgressing against what is clean" = "slovenly." The latter reading fits
better with the image of rust as a deficiency in the iron resulting from
carelessness.
254-255:
"No outside contemplative": No true contemplative, defined as a person who has
attained any of the four stages of Awakening, exists outside of the practice
of the Buddha's teachings (see note 22). In D.16, the Buddha is quoted as
teaching his final student: "In any doctrine & discipline where the noble
eightfold path is not found, no contemplative of the first... second...
third... fourth order [stream-winner, once-returner, non-returner, or arahant]
is found. But in any doctrine & discipline where the noble eightfold path is
found, contemplatives of the first... second... third... fourth order are
found. The noble eightfold path is found in this doctrine & discipline, and
right here there are contemplatives of the first... second... third... fourth
order. Other teachings are empty of knowledgeable contemplatives. And if the
monks dwell rightly, this world will not be empty of arahants." (On the noble
eightfold path, see note 191.)
On "complication," see note 195-196.
256-257:
The sense of the verse, confirmed by DhpA, suggests that the Pali word
dhammattho means "judge." This, in fact, is the theme tying together the
verses in this chapter. The duty of a judge is to correctly determine attha, a
word that denotes both "meaning" and "judgment," these two senses of the word
being connected by the fact that the judge must interpret the meanings of
words used in rules and principles to see how they correctly apply to the
particulars of a case so that he can pass a correct verdict. The remaining
verses in this chapter give examples of interpreting attha in an appropriate
way.
259:
"Sees Dhamma through his body": The more common expression in the Pali canon
is to touch Dhamma through or with the body (phusati or phassati, he touches,
rather than passati, he sees). The Sanskrit recensions and the Patna Dhp all
support the reading, "he would touch," but all Pali recensions are unanimous
in the reading, "he sees." Some scholars regard this latter reading as a
corruption of the verse; I personally find it a more striking image than the
common expression.
265:
This verse plays with a number of nouns and verbs related to the adjective
sama, which means "even," "equal," "on pitch," or "in tune." Throughout
ancient cultures, the terminology of music was used to describe the moral
quality of people and acts. Discordant intervals or poorly-tuned musical
instruments were metaphors for evil; harmonious intervals and well-tuned
instruments, for good. Thus in Pali, samana, or contemplative, also means a
person who is in tune with the principles of rightness and truth inherent in
nature. Here and in 388, I've attempted to give a hint of these implications
by associating the word "contemplative" with "consonance."
268-269:
This verse contains the Buddhist refutation of the idea that "those who know
don't speak, those who speak don't know." For another refutation of the same
idea, see D.12. In Vedic times, a sage (muni) was a person who took a vow of
silence (mona) and was supposed to gain special knowledge as a result. The
Buddhists adopted the term muni, but redefined it to show how true knowledge
was attained and how it expressed itself in the sage's actions. For a fuller
portrait of the ideal Buddhist sage, see Sn.I.12 and A.III.120.
271-272:
This verse has what seems to be a rare construction, in which na +
instrumental nouns + a verb in the aorist tense gives the force of a
prohibitive ("Don't, on account of x, do y"). "The renunciate ease that
run-of-the-mill people don't know," according to DhpA, is the state of
non-returning, the third of the four stages of Awakening (see note 22).
Because non-returners are still attached to subtle states of becoming on the
level of form and formlessness, DhpA drives home the message that even
non-returners should not be complacent by paraphrasing a passage from A.I (203
in the Thai edition; at the end of Chapter XIX in the PTS edition) that reads,
"Just as even a small amount of excrement is foul-smelling, in the same way I
do not praise even a small amount of becoming, not even as much as a
fingersnap."
273:
The four truths: stress, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its
cessation (which is identical to the eightfold path). See note 191.
275:
"I have taught you this path": reading akkhato vo maya maggo with the Thai
edition, a reading supported by the Patna Dhp. "Having known — for your
knowing": two ways of interpreting what is apparently a play on the Pali word,
aññaya, which can be either be the gerund of ajanati or the dative of añña.
On the extraction of arrows as a metaphor for the practice of the Buddha's
teachings, see M.63 and M.105.
277:
For a discussion of this verse, see the articles, "The Not-self Strategy" and
"No-self or Not-self?."
285:
Although the first word in this verse, ucchinda, literally means "crush,"
"destroy," "annihilate," I have found no previous English translation that
renders it accordingly. Most translate it as "cut out" or "uproot," which
weakens the image. On the role played by self-allure in leading the heart to
become fixated on others, see A.VII.48.
288:
Ender = death.
293:
Mindfulness immersed in the body = the practice of focusing on the body at all
times simply as a phenomenon in and of itself, as a way of developing
meditative absorption (jhana) and removing any sense of attraction to,
distress over, or identification with the body. M.119 lists the following
practices as instances of mindfulness immersed in the body: mindfulness of
breathing, awareness of the four postures of the body (standing, sitting,
walking, lying down), alertness to all the actions of the body, analysis of
the body into its 32 parts, analysis of it into its four properties (earth,
water, fire, wind), and contemplation of the body's inevitable decomposition
after death.
294:
This verse and the one following it use terms with ambiguous meanings to shock
the listener. According to DhpA, mother = craving; father = conceit; two
warrior kings = views of eternalism (that one has an identity remaining
constant through all time) and of annihilationism (that one's consciousness is
totally annihilated at death); kingdom = the twelve sense spheres (the senses
of sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling, and ideation, together with their
respective objects); dependency = passions for the sense spheres.
295:
DhpA: two learned kings = views of eternalism and annihilationism; a tiger =
the path where the tiger goes for food, i.e., the hindrance of uncertainty, or
else all five hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, sloth & drowsiness,
restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty). However, in Sanskrit literature,
"tiger" is a term for a powerful and eminent man; if that is what is meant
here, the term may stand for anger.
299:
See note 293.
301:
"Developing the mind" in terms of the 37 Wings to Awakening: the four frames
of reference (ardent, mindful alertness to body, feelings, mind states, and
mental qualities in and of themselves), the four right exertions (to abandon
and avoid evil, unskillful mental qualities, and to foster and strengthen
skillful mental qualities), the four bases of power (concentration based on
desire, persistence, intentness, and discrimination), the five strengths and
five faculties (conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and
discernment), the seven factors of self-awakening (see note 89), and the noble
eightfold path (see note 191). For a full treatment of this topic, see The
Wings to Awakening (Dhamma Dana Publications, 1996).
303:
DhpA: Wealth = both material wealth and the seven forms of noble wealth
(ariya-dhana): conviction, virtue, conscience, concern (for the results of
evil actions), erudition, generosity, discernment.
324:
DhpA: Dhanapalaka was a noble elephant captured for the king of Kasi. Although
given palatial quarters with the finest food, he showed no interest, but
thought only of the sorrow his mother felt, alone in the elephant wood,
separated from her son.
329-330:
DhpA: The bull elephant named Matanga, reflecting on the inconveniences of
living in a herd crowded with she-elephants and young elephants — he was
pushed around as he went into the river, had to drink muddied water, had to
eat leaves that others had already nibbled, etc. — decided that he would find
more pleasure in living alone. His story parallels that of the elephant the
Buddha met in the Parileyyaka Forest (Mv.X.4.6-7).
337:
This verse provides a Buddhist twist to the typical benedictions found in
works of kavya. Instead of expressing a wish that the listeners meet with
wealth, fame, status, or other worldly forms of good fortune, this verse
describes the highest good fortune, which can be accomplished only through
one's own skillful kamma: the uprooting of craving and the resulting state of
total freedom from the round of death and rebirth. A similar twist on the
theme of good fortune is found in the Mangala Sutta (Khp.5, Sn.II.4), which
teaches that the best protective charm is to develop skillful kamma,
ultimately developing the mind to the point where it is untouched by the
vagaries of the world.
339:
36 streams = three forms of desire for each of the internal and external sense
spheres (see note 294) — 3 x 2 x 6 = 36. According to one sub-commentary, the
three forms of desire are desires focused on the present, past, and future.
According to another, they are craving for sensuality, craving for becoming,
and craving for no-becoming.
340:
"Every which way": Reading sabbadhi with the Thai and Burmese editions. The
creeper, according to DhpA, is craving, which sends thoughts out to wrap
around its objects, while it itself stays rooted in the mind.
341:
This verse contains an implied simile: the terms "loosened & oiled," here
applied to joys, were commonly used to describe smooth bowel movements.
343:
For the various meanings that attano — "for himself" — can have in this verse,
see note 402.
346:
"Elastic": The usual translation of the word sithilam — "slack" — does not fit
in this verse, but all the Pali recensions are unanimous on this reading, so I
have chosen a near synonym that does. The Patna Dhp renders this term as
"subtle," whereas the Tibetan commentary to the Udanavarga explains the line
as a whole as meaning "hard for the slack to untie." Both alternatives make
sense, but may be attempts to "correct" a term that could well have originally
meant "elastic," a meaning that got lost with the passage of time.
348:
DhpA: In front = the aggregates of the past; behind = the aggregates of the
future; in between = the aggregates of the present. See also note 385.
350:
"A focus on the foul": A meditative exercise in focusing on the foul parts of
the body so as to help undercut lust and attachment for the body.
352:
"Astute in expression, knowing the combination of sounds — which comes first &
which after": Some arahants, in addition to their ability to overcome all of
their defilements, are also endowed with four forms of acumen (patisambhida),
one of which is acumen with regard to expression (nirutti-patisambhida), i.e.,
a total mastery of linguistic expression. This talent in particular must have
been of interest to the anthologist(s) who put together the Dhp.
"Last-body": Because an arahant will not be reborn, this present body is
his/her last.
353:
According to M.26 and Mv.I.6.7, one of the first people the Buddha met after
his Awakening was an ascetic who commented on the clarity of his faculties and
asked who his teacher was. This verse was part of the Buddha's response.
354:
This verse contains several terms related to aesthetics. Both dhamma (justice)
and dana (gift/generosity) are sub-types of the heroic rasa, or taste. (See
the Introduction.) The third sub-type of the heroic — yuddha (warfare) — is
suggested by the verb "conquer," which occurs four times in the Pali. Rati
(delight/love) is the emotion (bhava) that corresponds to the sensitive rasa.
In effect, the verse is saying that the highest forms of rasa and emotion are
those related to Dhamma; the highest expression of the heroic Dhamma rasa is
in the ending of craving.
360-361:
See note 7-8.
363:
"Counsel": In the context of Indian literary theory, this is the meaning of
the word manta, which can also mean "chant." The literary context seems to be
the proper one here.
368:
"Stilling-of-fabrications ease": the true ease and freedom experienced when
all five aggregates are stilled.
369:
DhpA: The boat = one's own personhood (the body-mind complex); the water that
needs to be bailed out = wrong thoughts (imbued with passion, aversion, or
delusion).
370:
DhpA: Cut through five = the five lower fetters that tie the mind to the round
of rebirth (self-identity views, uncertainty, grasping at precepts &
practices, sensual passion, resistance); let go of five = the five higher
fetters (passion for form, passion for formless phenomena, conceit,
restlessness, & ignorance); develop five = the five faculties (conviction,
persistence, mindfulness, concentration, & discernment); five attachments =
passion, aversion, delusion, conceit, views.
381:
See note 368.
383:
This verse, addressed to a member of the brahman caste, is one of the few in
Dhp where the word brahman is used in its ordinary sense, as indicating caste
membership, and not in its special Buddhist sense as indicating an arahant.
384:
DhpA: two things = tranquillity meditation and insight meditation.
385:
DhpA: This verse refers to a person who has no sense of "I" or "mine," either
for the senses ("not-beyond") or their objects ("beyond"). The passage may
also refer to the sense of total limitlessness that makes the experience of
Unbinding totally ineffable, as reflected in the following conversation
(Sn.V.6):
Upasiva:
He who has reached the end:
Does he not exist,
or is he for eternity free from dis-ease?
Please, sage, declare this to me
as this phenomenon has been known by you.
The Buddha:
One who has reached the end has no criterion
by which anyone would say that —
it doesn't exist for him.
When all phenomena are done away with,
all means of speaking are done away with as well.
388:
Stains = the impurities listed in note 236. On "consonance," see note 265.
389:
The word "anger" here is added from DhpA, which interprets the "letting loose"
as the act of retaliating with anger against one's assailant. Some translators
read "brahman" as the subject not only of the second line, but also the first:
"A brahman should/would not strike a brahman." However, this reading is
unlikely, for a brahman (in this context, an arahant) would not strike anyone
at all. If a brahman retaliates with anger to being struck, that is a sign
that he is not a true brahman: thus more shame on him for having assumed a
status that was not truly his. On the topic of how to react to violent attack,
see M.21 and M.145.
390:
"What's endearing & not": In the phrase manaso piyehi, piyehi can be read
straight as it is, as "endearing," or as an elided form of apiyehi, "not
endearing." The former reading is more straightforward, but given the
reference to "harmful-heartedness" in the next line, the latter reading serves
to tie the stanza together. It is also consistent with the fact that DhpA
takes this verse to be a continuation of 389. Given the way in which kavya
cultivated a taste for ambiguities and multiple interpretations, both readings
may have been intended.
392:
"Brahman" here is used in its ordinary sense, as indicating caste membership,
and not in its special Buddhist sense as indicating an arahant.
393:
"He is a pure one": reading so suci with the Thai edition, a reading supported
by the Chinese translation of the Dhp.
394:
In India of the Buddha's day, matted hair, etc., were regarded as visible
signs of spiritual status.
396:
"Bho-sayer" — Brahmans addressed others as "bho" as a way of indicating their
(the brahmans') superior caste. "If he has anything" (reading sa ce with the
Burmese edition) = if he/she lays claim to anything as his/her own.
398:
DhpA: strap = hatred; thong = craving; cord = 62 forms of wrong view (listed
in the Brahmajala Suttanta, D.1); bridle = obsessions (sensuality, becoming,
anger, conceit, views, uncertainty, ignorance).
400:
"With no overbearing pride": reading anussadam with the Thai and Burmese
editions. "Last-body": see note 352.
402:
"For himself, on his own, his own ending of stress": Three different ways that
the one word attano functions in this verse.
411:
According to DhpA, "attachments/homes (alaya)" = cravings. "Knowing": the
knowledge of full Awakening.
412:
See note 39.
421:
See note 348.
423:
The forms of mastery listed in this verse correspond to the three knowledges
that comprised the Buddha's Awakening: knowledge of previous lives, knowledge
of how beings pass away and are reborn in the various levels of being, and
knowledge of the ending of the effluents that maintain the process of birth.
Glossary
Aggregate (khandha):
Any one of the five bases for clinging to a sense of self: form (physical
phenomena, including the body), feelings, perceptions (mental labels),
thought-fabrications, consciousness.
Arahant:
A "worthy one" or "pure one"; a person whose mind is free of defilement and
thus is not destined for further rebirth. A title for the Buddha and the
highest level of his noble disciples.
Becoming (bhava):
States of being that develop first in the mind and allow for birth on any of
three levels: the level of sensuality, the level of form, and the level of
formlessness.
Brahma:
An inhabitant of the highest, non-sensual levels of heaven.
Brahman:
The Brahmans of India have long maintained that they, by their birth, are
worthy of the highest respect. Buddhists borrowed the term "brahman" to apply
to arahants to show that respect is earned not by birth, race, or caste, but
by spiritual attainment through following the right path of practice. Most of
the verses in the Dhammapada use the word brahman in this special sense; those
using the word in its ordinary sense are indicated in the notes.
Deva:
Literally, "shining one." An inhabitant of the heavenly realms.
Dhamma:
(1) Event; a phenomenon in and of itself; (2) mental quality; (3) doctrine,
teaching; (4) nibbana. Sanskrit form: Dharma.
Effluent (asava):
One of four qualities — sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance — that
"flow out" of the mind and create the flood of the round of death and rebirth.
Enlightened one (dhira):
Throughout this translation I have rendered buddha as "Awakened," and dhira as
"enlightened." As Jan Gonda points out in his book, The Vision of the Vedic
Poets, the word dhira was used in Vedic and Buddhist poetry to mean a person
who has the heightened powers of mental vision needed to perceive the "light"
of the underlying principles of the cosmos, together with the expertise to
implement those principles in the affairs of life and to reveal them to
others. A person enlightened in this sense may also be awakened, but is not
necessarily so.
Fabrication (sankhara):
Sankhara literally means "putting together," and carries connotations of
jerry-rigged artificiality. It is applied to physical and to mental processes,
as well as to the products of those processes. In some contexts it functions
as the fourth of the five aggregates — thought-fabrications; in others, it
covers all five.
Gandhabba:
Celestial musician, a member of one of the lower deva realms.
Heart (manas):
The mind in its role as will and intention.
Indra:
King of the devas in the Heaven of the Thirty-three.
Jhana:
Meditative absorption. A state of strong concentration, devoid of sensuality
or unskillful thoughts, focused on a single physical sensation or mental
notion which is then expanded to fill the whole range of one's awareness.
Jhana is synonymous with right concentration, the eighth factor in the noble
eightfold path (see note 191).
Kamma:
Intentional act, bearing fruit in terms of states of becoming and birth.
Sanskrit form: karma.
Mara:
The personification of evil, temptation, and death.
Patimokkha:
Basic code of monastic discipline, composed of 227 rules for monks and 310 for
nuns.
Samsara:
Transmigration; the "wandering-on"; the round of death and rebirth.
Sangha:
On the conventional (sammati) level, this term denotes the communities of
Buddhist monks and nuns; on the ideal (ariya) level, it denotes those
followers of the Buddha, lay or ordained, who have attained at least
stream-entry (see note 22).
Stress (dukkha):
Alternative translations for dukkha include suffering, burdensomeness, and
pain. However — despite the unfortunate connotations it has picked up from
programs in "stress-management" and "stress-reduction" — the English word
stress, in its basic meaning as the reaction to strain on the body or mind,
has the advantage of covering much the same range as the Pali word dukkha. It
applies both to physical and mental phenomena, ranging from the intense stress
of acute anguish or pain to the innate burdensomeness of even the most subtle
mental or physical fabrications. It also has the advantage of being
universally recognized as something directly experienced in all life, and is
at the same time a useful tool for cutting through the spiritual pride that
keeps people attached to especially refined or sophisticated forms of
suffering: once all suffering, no matter how noble or refined, is recognized
as being nothing more than stress, the mind can abandon the pride that keeps
it attached to that suffering, and so gain release from it. Still, in some of
the verses of the Dhammapada, stress seems too weak to convey the meaning, so
in those verses I have rendered dukkha as pain, suffering, or suffering &
stress.
Tathagata:
Literally, "one who has become authentic (tatha-agata)," or "one who is really
gone (tatha-gata)," an epithet used in ancient India for a person who has
attained the highest religious goal. In Buddhism, it usually denotes the
Buddha, although occasionally it also denotes any of his arahant disciples.
Unbinding (nibbana, nirvana):
Because nibbana is used to denote not only the Buddhist goal, but also the
extinguishing of a fire, it is usually rendered as "extinguishing" or, even
worse, "extinction." However, a study of ancient Indian views of the workings
of fire (see The Mind Like Fire Unbound) reveals that people of the Buddha's
time felt that a fire, in going out, did not go out of existence but was
simply freed from its agitation, entrapment, and attachment to its fuel. Thus,
when applied to the Buddhist goal, the primary connotation of nibbana is one
of release, along with cooling and peace. Sanskrit form: nirvana.
Abbreviations
AAnguttara Nikaya
DDigha Nikaya
DhpDhammapada/Dharmapada
DhpADhammapada Commentary
ItiItivuttaka
KhpKhuddakapatha
MMajjhima Nikaya
MvMahavagga
PTSPali Text Society
SSamyutta Nikaya
SnSutta Nipata
Bibliography
Brough, John, ed. The Gandhari Dharmapada (London: Oxford University Press,
1962).
Carter, John Ross and Mahinda Palihawadana, trans. and ed. The Dhammapada (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
Cone, Margaret. "Patna Dharmapada, Part I: Text," in Journal of the Pali Text
Society, XIII, 1989: 101-217.
Dhammajoti, Bhikkhu Kuala Lumpur, trans. and ed. The Chinese Version of
Dharmapada (Kelaniya, Sri Lanka: Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist
Studies, 1995).
Gonda, Jan. The Vision of the Vedic Poets (The Hague: Mouton, 1963).
von Hinüber, O., and K.R. Norman, eds. Dhammapada (Oxford: The Pali Text
Society, 1995).
Norman, K.R., trans. The Word of the Doctrine (Oxford: The Pali Text Society,
1997).
Warder, A.K. Indian Kavya Literature, vols. I and II, 2nd rev. eds. (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1989 and 1990).
In addition to the above works, I have also consulted many previous English
translations and renderings of the Dhammapada, complete and incomplete,
including those by Ven. Ananda Maitreya, Babbitt, Beyer, Ven. Buddharakkhita,
Byrom, Cleary, Kaviratna, Vens. Khantipalo and Susañña, Mascaro, Ven. Narada,
Ven. Piyadassi, Radhakrishnan, and Wannapok, as well as Thai translations by
Plengvithaya and Wannapok. In addition, I have consulted translations of the
Udanavarga — again, complete and incomplete — by Sparham and Strong. I have also
drawn from the Royal Thai Edition of the Pali canon, published by Mahamakut
Rajavidalaya Press, Bangkok, 1982.
The Dhammapada
A Translation
Translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation:BuddharakkhitaThanissaro
Source: Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.
Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Access to Insight edition © 1997
For free distribution. This work may be republished, reformatted,
reprinted, and redistributed in any medium. It is the author's wish,
however, that any such republication and redistribution be made available
to the public on a free and unrestricted basis and that translations and
other derivative works be clearly marked as such.
A printed copy of this book is available upon request from Dhamma Dana
Publications.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
The translation:
I. Pairs (vv. 1-20)
II. Heedfulness (21-32)
III. The Mind (33-43)
IV. Blossoms (44-59)
V. Fools (60-75)
VI. The Wise (76-89)
VII. Arahants (90-99)
VIII. Thousands (100-115)
IX. Evil (116-128)
X. The Rod (129-145)
XI. Aging (146-156)
XII. Self (157-166)
XIII. Worlds (167-178)
XIV. Awakened (179-196)
XV. Happy (197-208)
XVI. Dear Ones (209-220)
XVII. Anger (221-234)
XVIII. Impurities (235-255)
XIX. The Judge (256-272)
XX. The Path (273-289)
XXI. Miscellany (290-305)
XXII. Hell (306-319)
XXIII. Elephants (320-333)
XXIV. Craving (334-359)
XXV. Monks (360-382)
XXVI. Brahmans (383-423)
Historical Notes
End Notes
Glossary
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Preface
Another translation of the Dhammapada.
Many other English translations are already available — the fingers of at least
five people would be needed to count them — so I suppose that a new translation
has to be justified, to prove that it's not "just" another one. In doing so,
though, I'd rather not criticize the efforts of earlier translators, for I owe
them a great debt. Instead, I'll ask you to read the Introduction and Historical
Notes, to gain an idea of what is distinctive about the approach I have taken,
and the translation itself, which I hope will stand on its own merits. The
original impulse for making the translation came from my conviction that the
text deserved to be offered freely as a gift of Dhamma. As I knew of no existing
translations available as gifts, I made my own.
The explanatory material is designed to meet with the needs of two sorts of
readers: those who want to read the text as a text, in the context of the
religious history of Buddhism — viewed from the outside — and those who want to
read the text as a guide to the personal conduct of their lives. Although there
is no clear line dividing these groups, the Introduction is aimed more at the
second group, and the Historical Notes more at the first. The End Notes and
Glossary contain material that should be of interest to both. Verses marked with
an asterisk in the translation are discussed in the End Notes. Pali terms — as
well as English terms used in a special sense, such as effluent, enlightened
one, fabrication, stress, and Unbinding — when they appear in more than one
verse, are explained in the Glossary.
In addition to the previous translators and editors from whose work I have
borrowed, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jeanne Larsen for her help in
honing down the language of the translation. Also, John Bullitt, Charles
Hallisey, Karen King, Andrew Olendzki, Ruth Stiles, Clark Strand, Paula Trahan,
and Jane Yudelman offered many helpful comments that improved the quality of the
book as a whole. Any mistakes that remain, of course, are my own responsibility.
— Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Metta Forest Monastery
Valley Center, CA 92082-1409
December, 1997
Introduction
The Dhammapada, an anthology of verses attributed to the Buddha, has long been
recognized as one of the masterpieces of early Buddhist literature. Only more
recently have scholars realized that it is also one of the early masterpieces in
the Indian tradition of kavya, or belles lettres.
This translation of the Dhammapada is an attempt to render the verses into
English in a way that does justice to both of the traditions to which the text
belongs. Although it is tempting to view these traditions as distinct, dealing
with form (kavya) and content (Buddhism), the ideals of kavya aimed at combining
form and content into a seamless whole. At the same time, the early Buddhists
adopted and adapted the conventions of kavya in a way that skillfully dovetailed
with their views of how teaching and listening played a role in their path of
practice. My hope is that the translation presented here will convey the same
seamlessness and skill.
As an example of kavya, the Dhammapada has a fairly complete body of ethical and
aesthetic theory behind it, for the purpose of kavya was to instruct in the
highest ends of life while simultaneously giving delight. The ethical teaching
of the Dhammapada is expressed in the first pair of verses: the mind, through
its actions (kamma), is the chief architect of one's happiness and suffering
both in this life and beyond. The first three chapters elaborate on this point,
to show that there are two major ways of relating to this fact: as a wise
person, who is heedful enough to make the necessary effort to train his/her own
mind to be a skillful architect; and as a fool, who is heedless and sees no
reason to train the mind.
The work as a whole elaborates on this distinction, showing in more detail both
the path of the wise person and that of the fool, together with the rewards of
the former and the dangers of the latter: the path of the wise person can lead
not only to happiness within the cycle of death and rebirth, but also to total
escape into the Deathless, beyond the cycle entirely; the path of the fool leads
not only to suffering now and in the future, but also to further entrapment
within the cycle. The purpose of the Dhammapada is to make the wise path
attractive to the reader so that he/she will follow it — for the dilemma posited
by the first pair of verses is not one in the imaginary world of fiction; it is
the dilemma in which the reader is already placed by the fact of being born.
To make the wise path attractive, the techniques of poetry are used to give
"savor" (rasa) to the message. Ancient Indian aesthetic treatises devoted a
great deal of discussion to the notion of savor and how it could be conveyed.
The basic theory was this: Artistic composition expressed states of emotion or
states of mind called "bhava." The standard list of basic emotions included love
(delight), humor, grief, anger, energy, fear, disgust, and astonishment. The
reader or listener exposed to these presentations of emotion did not participate
in them directly; rather, he/she savored them as an aesthetic experience at one
remove from the emotion. Thus, the savor of grief is not grief, but compassion.
The savor of energy is not energy itself, but admiration for heroism. The savor
of love is not love but an experience of sensitivity. The savor of astonishment
is a sense of the marvelous. The proof of the indirectness of the aesthetic
experience was that some of the basic emotions were decidedly unpleasant, while
the savor of the emotion was to be enjoyed.
Although a work of art might depict many emotions, and thus — like a good meal —
offer many savors for the reader/listener to taste, one savor was supposed to
dominate. Writers made a common practice of announcing the savor they were
trying to produce, usually stating in passing that their particular savor was
the highest of all. The Dhammapada [354] states explicitly that the savor of
Dhamma is the highest savor, which indicates that that is the basic savor of the
work. Classic aesthetic theory lists the savor of Dhamma, or justice, as one of
the three basic varieties of the heroic savor (the other two deal with
generosity and war): thus we would expect the majority of the verses to depict
energy, and in fact they do, with their exhortations to action, strong verbs,
repeated imperatives, and frequent use of the imagery from battles, races, and
conquests.
Dhamma, in the Buddhist sense, implies more than the "justice" of Dhamma in
aesthetic theory. However, the long section of the Dhammapada devoted to "The
Judge" — beginning with a definition of a good judge, and continuing with
examples of good judgment — shows that the Buddhist concept of Dhamma has room
for the aesthetic meaning of the term as well. Classic theory also holds that
the heroic savor should, especially at the end of a piece, shade into the
marvelous. This, in fact, is what happens periodically throughout the
Dhammapada, and especially at the end, where the verses express astonishment at
the amazing and paradoxical qualities of a person who has followed the path of
heedfulness to its end, becoming "pathless" [92-93; 179-180] — totally
indescribable, transcending conflicts and dualities of every sort. Thus the
predominant emotions that the verses express in Pali — and should also express
in translation — are energy and astonishment, so as to produce qualities of the
heroic and marvelous for the reader to savor. This savor is then what inspires
the reader to follow the path of wisdom, with the result that he/she will reach
a direct experience of the true happiness, transcending all dualities, found at
the end of the path.
Classic aesthetic theory lists a variety of rhetorical features that can produce
savor. Examples from these lists that can be found in the Dhammapada include:
accumulation (padoccaya) [137-140], admonitions (upadista) [47-48, 246-248, et.
al.], ambiguity (aksarasamghata) [97, 294-295], benedictions (asis) [337],
distinctions (visesana) [19-20, 21-22, 318-319], encouragement (protsahana) [35,
43, 46, et. al.], etymology (nirukta) [388], examples (drstanta) [30],
explanations of cause and effect (hetu) [1-2], illustrations (udaharana) [344],
implications (arthapatti) [341], rhetorical questions (prccha) [44, 62, 143, et.
al.], praise (gunakirtana) [54-56, 58-59, 92-93, et. al.], prohibitions
(pratisedha) [121-122, 271-272, 371, et. al.], and ornamentation (bhusana)
[passim].
Of these, ornamentation is the most complex, including four figures of speech
and ten "qualities." The figures of speech are simile [passim], extended
metaphor [398], rhyme (including alliteration and assonance), and "lamps"
[passim]. This last figure is a peculiarity of Pali — a heavily inflected
language — that allows, say, one adjective to modify two different nouns, or one
verb to function in two separate sentences. (The name of the figure derives from
the idea that the two nouns radiate from the one adjective, or the two sentences
from the one verb.) In English, the closest we have to this is parallelism
combined with ellipsis. An example from the translation is in verse 7 —
Mara overcomes him
as the wind, a weak tree
— where "overcomes" functions as the verb in both clauses, even though it is
elided from the second. This is how I have rendered lamps in most of the verses,
although in two cases [174, 206] I found it more effective to repeat the
lamp-word.
The ten "qualities" are more general attributes of sound, syntax, and sense,
including such attributes as charm, clarity, delicacy, evenness, exaltation,
sweetness, and strength. The ancient texts are not especially clear on what some
of these terms mean in practice. Even where they are clear, the terms deal in
aspects of Pali/Sanskrit syntax not always applicable to English. What is
important, though, is that some qualities are seen as more suited to a
particular savor than others: strength and exaltation, for example, best convey
a taste of the heroic and marvelous. Of these characteristics, strength (ojas)
is the easiest to quantify, for it is marked by long compounded words. In the
Dhammapada, approximately one tenth of the verses contain compounds that are as
long as a whole line of verse, and one verse [39] has three of its four lines
made up of such compounds. By the standards of later Sanskrit verse, this is
rather mild, but when compared with verses in the rest of the Pali canon and
other early masterpieces of kavya, the Dhammapada is quite strong.
The text also explicitly adds to the theory of characteristics in saying that
"sweetness" is not just an attribute of words, but of the person speaking [363].
If the person is a true example of the virtue espoused, his/her words are sweet.
This point could be generalized to cover many of the other qualities as well.
Another point from classic aesthetic theory that may be relevant to the
Dhammapada is the principle of how a literary work is given unity. Although the
text does not provide a step-by-step sequential portrait of the path of wisdom,
as a lyric anthology it is much more unified than most Indian examples of that
genre. The classic theory of dramatic plot construction may be playing an
indirect role here. On the one hand, a plot must exhibit unity by presenting a
conflict or dilemma, and depicting the attainment of a goal through overcoming
that conflict. This is precisely what unifies the Dhammapada: it begins with the
duality between heedless and heedful ways of living, and ends with the final
attainment of total mastery. On the other hand, the plot must not show smooth,
systematic progress; otherwise the work would turn into a treatise. There must
be reversals and diversions to maintain interest. This principle is at work in
the fairly unsystematic ordering of the Dhammapada's middle sections. Verses
dealing with the beginning stages of the path are mixed together with those
dealing with later stages and even stages beyond the completion of the path.
One more point is that the ideal plot should be constructed with a sub-plot in
which a secondary character gains his/her goal, and in so doing helps the main
character attain his or hers. In addition to the aesthetic pleasure offered by
the sub-plot, the ethical lesson is one of human cooperation: people attain
their goals by working together. In the Dhammapada, the same dynamic is at work.
The main "plot" is that of the person who masters the principle of kamma to the
point of total release from kamma and the round of rebirth; the "sub-plot"
depicts the person who masters the principle of kamma to the point of gaining a
good rebirth on the human or heavenly planes. The second person gains his/her
goal, in part, by being generous and respectful to the first person [106-109,
177], thus enabling the first person to practice to the point of total mastery.
In return, the first person gives counsel to the second person on how to pursue
his/her goal [76-77, 363]. In this way the Dhammapada depicts the play of life
in a way that offers two potentially heroic roles for the reader to choose from,
and delineates those roles in such a way that all people can choose to be
heroic, working together for the attainment of their own true well being.
Perhaps the best way to summarize the confluence of Buddhist and kavya
traditions in the Dhammapada is in light of a teaching from another early
Buddhist text, the Samyutta Nikaya (LV.5), on the factors needed to attain one's
first taste of the goal of the Buddhist path. Those factors are four:
associating with people of integrity, listening to their teachings, using
appropriate attention to inquire into the way those teachings apply to one's
life, and practicing in line with the teachings in a way that does them justice.
Early Buddhists used the traditions of kavya — concerning savor, rhetoric,
structure, and figures of speech — primarily in connection with the second of
these factors, in order to make the teachings appealing to the listener.
However, the question of savor is related to the other three factors as well.
The words of a teaching must be spoken by a person of integrity who embodies
their message in his/her actions if their savor is to be sweet [158, 363]. The
listener must reflect on them appropriately and then put them into practice if
they are to have more than a passing, superficial taste. Thus both the speaker
and listener must act in line with the words of a teaching if it is to bear
fruit. This point is reflected in a pair of verses from the Dhammapada itself
[51-52]:
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
but scentless:
a well-spoken word
is fruitless
when not carried out.
Just like a blossom,
bright colored
& full of scent:
a well-spoken word
is fruitful
when well carried out.
Appropriate reflection, the first step a listener should follow in carrying out
the well-spoken word, means contemplating one's own life to see the dangers of
following the path of foolishness and the need to follow the path of wisdom. The
Buddhist tradition recognizes two emotions as playing a role in this reflection.
The first is samvega, a strong sense of dismay that comes with realizing the
futility and meaningless of life as it is normally lived, together with a
feeling of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. The
second emotion is pasada, the clarity and serenity that come when one recognizes
a teaching that presents the truth of the dilemma of existence and at the same
time points the way out. One function of the verses in the Dhammapada is to
provide this sense of clarity, which is why verse 82 states that the wise grow
serene on hearing the Dhamma, and 102 states that the most worthwhile verse is
the meaningful one that, on hearing, brings peace.
However, the process does not stop with these preliminary feelings of peace and
serenity. The listener must carry through with the path of practice that the
verses recommend. Although much of the impetus for doing so comes from the
emotions of samvega and pasada sparked by the content of the verses, the heroic
and marvelous savor of the verses plays a role as well, by inspiring the
listener to rouse within him or herself the energy and strength that the path
will require. When the path is brought to fruition, it brings the peace and
delight of the Deathless [373-374]. This is where the process initiated by
hearing or reading the Dhamma bears its deepest savor, surpassing all others. It
is the highest sense in which the meaningful verses of the Dhammapada bring
peace.
In preparing the following translation, I have kept the above points in mind,
motivated both by a firm belief in the truth of the message of the Dhammapada,
and by a desire to present it in a compelling way that will induce the reader to
put it into practice. Although trying to stay as close as possible to the
literal meaning of the text, I've also tried to convey its savor. I'm operating
on the classic assumption that, although there may be a tension between giving
instruction (being scrupulously accurate) and giving delight (providing an
enjoyable taste of the mental states that the words depict), the best
translation is one that plays with that tension without submitting totally to
one side at the expense of the other. To convey the savor of the work, I have
aimed at a spare style flexible enough to express not only its dominant emotions
— energy and astonishment — but also its transient emotions, such as humor,
delight, and fear. Although the original verses conform to metrical rules, the
translations are in free verse. This is the form that requires the fewest
deviations from literal accuracy and allows for a terse directness that conforms
with the heroic savor of the original. The freedom I have used in placing words
on the page also allows many of the poetic effects of Pali syntax — especially
the parallelism and ellipsis of the "lamps" — to shine through.
I have been relatively consistent in choosing English equivalents for Pali
terms, especially where the terms have a technical meaning. Total consistency,
although it may be a logical goal, is by no means a rational one, especially in
translating poetry. Anyone who is truly bilingual will appreciate this point.
Words in the original were chosen for their sound and connotations, as well as
their literal sense, so the same principles — within reasonable limits — have
been used in the translation. Deviations from the original syntax are rare, and
have been limited primarily to six sorts. The first four are for the sake of
immediacy: occasional use of the American "you" for "one"; occasional use of
imperatives ("Do this!") for optatives ("One should do this"); substituting
active for passive voice; and replacing "one who does this" with "he does this"
in many of the verses defining the true brahman in Chapter 26. The remaining two
deviations are: making minor adjustments in sentence structure to keep a word at
the beginning or end of a verse when this position seems important (e.g., 158,
384); and changing the number from singular ("the wise person") to plural ("the
wise") when talking about personality types, both to streamline the language and
to lighten the gender bias of the original Pali. (As most of the verses were
originally addressed to monks, I have found it impossible to eliminate the
gender bias entirely, and so apologize for whatever bias remains.) In verses
where I sense that a particular Pali word or phrase is meant to carry multiple
meanings, I have explicitly given all of those meanings in the English, even
where this has meant a considerable expansion of the verse. (Many of these
verses are discussed in the notes.) Otherwise, I have tried to make the
translation as transparent as possible, in order to allow the light and energy
of the original to pass through with minimal distortion.
The Dhammapada has for centuries been used as an introduction to the Buddhist
mindset. However, the text is by no means elementary, either in terms of content
or style. Many of the verses presuppose at least a passing knowledge of Buddhist
doctrine; others employ multiple levels of meaning and wordplay typical of
polished kavya. For this reason, I have added notes to the translation to help
draw out some of the implications of verses that might not be obvious to people
who are new to either of the two traditions that the text represents.
I hope that whatever delight you gain from this translation will inspire you to
put the Buddha's words into practice, so that you will someday taste the savor,
not just of the words, but of the Deathless to which they point.
Historical Notes
There are many versions of the Dhammapada now extant: several recensions of the
Pali Dhammapada from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand; two
incomplete manuscripts of a Gandhari Dharmapada found in central Asia; and a
manuscript of a Buddhist Hybrid-Sanskrit Dharmapada found in a library in Tibet,
called the Patna Dharmapada because photographs of this manuscript are now kept
in Patna, India. There is also a Chinese translation of the Dharmapada made in
the third century C.E. from a Prakrit original, now no longer extant, similar to
— but not identical with — the Pali Dhammapada. Parts of a Dharmapada text are
included in the Mahavastu, a text belonging to the Lokottaravadin Mahasanghika
school. In addition, there are Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese versions of a text
called the Udanavarga, which is known in at least four recensions, all of them
containing many verses in common with the Dhammapada/Dharmapada (Dhp) texts. To
further complicate matters, there are Jain anthologies that contain verses
clearly related to some of those found in these Buddhist anthologies as well.
Despite the many similarities among these texts, they contain enough
discrepancies to have fueled a small scholarly industry. The different
recensions of the Pali Dhp contain so many variant readings that there isn't yet
— even after more than a century of Western scholarship on the topic — a single
edition covering them all. The discrepancies among the Pali and non-Pali
versions are even greater. They arrange verses in different orders, each
contains verses not found in the others, and among the verses in different
versions that are related, the similarity in terms of imagery or message is
sometimes fairly tenuous.
Fortunately for anyone looking to the Dhp for spiritual guidance, the
differences among the various recensions — though many in number — range in
importance from fairly minor to minor in the extreme. Allowing for a few obvious
scribal errors, none of them fall outside the pale of what has long been
accepted as standard early Buddhist doctrine as derived from the Pali
discourses. For example, does the milk in verse 71 come out, or does it curdle?
Is the bond in verse 346 subtle, slack, or elastic? Is the brahman in verse 393
happy, or is he pure? For all practical purposes, these questions hardly matter.
They become important only when one is forced to take sides in choosing which
version to translate, and even then the nature of the choice is like that of a
conductor deciding which of the many versions of a Handel oratorio to perform.
Unfortunately for the translator, though, the scholarly discussions that have
grown around these issues have tended to blow them all out of proportion, to the
point where they call into question the authenticity of the Dhp as a whole.
Because the scholars who have devoted themselves to this topic have come up with
such contradictory advice for the potential translator — including the
suggestion that it's a waste of time to translate some of the verses at all — we
need to sort through the discussions to see what, if any, reliable guidance they
give.
Those who have worked on the issues raised by the variant versions of Dhp have,
by and large, directed the discussion to figuring out which version is the
oldest and most authentic, and which versions are later and more corrupt.
Lacking any outside landmarks against which the versions can be sighted,
scholars have attempted to reconstruct what must have been the earliest version
by triangulating among the texts themselves. This textual trigonometry tends to
rely on assumptions from among the following three types:
1) Assumptions concerning what is inherently an earlier or later form of a
verse. These assumptions are the least reliable of the three, for they involve
no truly objective criteria. If, for instance, two versions of a verse differ in
that one is more internally consistent than the other, the consistent version
will seem more genuine to one scholar, whereas another scholar will attribute
the consistency to later efforts to "clean up" the verse. Similarly, if one
version contains a rendition of a verse different from all other renditions of
the same verse, one scholar will see that as a sign of deviance; another, as a
sign of the authenticity that may have predated a later standardization among
the texts. Thus the conclusions drawn by different scholars based on these
assumptions tell us more about the scholars' presuppositions than they do about
the texts themselves.
2) Assumptions concerning the meter of the verses in question. One of the great
advances in recent Pali scholarship has been the rediscovery of the metrical
rules underlying early Pali poetry. As the Buddha himself is quoted as saying,
"Meter is the structural framework of verses." (S.I.60) Knowledge of metrical
rules thus helps the editor or translator spot which readings of a verse deviate
from the structure of a standard meter, and which ones follow it. Theoretically,
the obvious choice would be to adopt the latter and reject the former. In
practice, however, the issue is not so clear-cut. Early Pali poetry dates from a
time of great metrical experimentation, and so there is always the possibility
that a particular poem was composed in an experimental meter that never achieved
widespread recognition. There is also the possibility that — as the poetry was
spontaneous and oral — a fair amount of metrical license was allowed. This means
that the more "correct" forms of a verse may have been the products of a later
attempt to fit the poetry into standard molds. Thus the conclusions based on the
assumption of standard meters are not as totally reliable as they might seem.
3) Assumptions concerning the language in which the original Dhp was first
composed. These assumptions require an extensive knowledge of Middle Indic
dialects. A scholar will assume a particular dialect to have been the original
language of the text, and will further make assumptions about the types of
translation mistakes that might have been common when translating from that
dialect into the languages of the texts we now have. The textual trigonometry
based on these assumptions often involves such complicated methods of sighting
and computation that it can produce an "original" version of the text that is
just that: very original, coinciding with none of the versions extant. In other
words, where the current variants of a verse might be a, b, and c, the added
assumption about the Dhp's original language and the ineptitude of ancient
translators and copyists leads to the conclusion that the verse must have been
d. However, for all the impressive erudition that this method involves, not even
the most learned scholar can offer any proof as to what the Dhp's original
language was. In fact, as we will consider below, it is possible that the Buddha
— assuming that he was the author of the verses — composed poetry in more than
one language, and more than one version of a particular verse. So, as with the
first set of assumptions, the methods of triangulation based on an assumed
original language of the Dhp tell us more about the individual scholar's
position than they do about the position of the text.
Thus, although the scholarship devoted to the different recensions of the Dhp
has provided a useful service in unearthing so many variant readings of the
text, none of the assumptions used in trying sort through those readings for
"the original" Dhp have led to any definite conclusions. Their positive success
has been limited mainly to offering food for academic speculation and educated
guesses. On the negative side, though, they have succeeded in accomplishing
something totally useless: a wholesale sense of distrust for the early Buddhist
texts, and the poetic texts in particular. If the texts contain so many varying
reports, the feeling goes, and if their translators and transmitters were so
incompetent, how can any of them be trusted? This distrust comes from accepting,
unconsciously, the assumptions concerning authorship and authenticity within
which our modern, predominately literate culture operates: that only one version
of a verse could have been composed by its original author, and that all other
versions must be later corruptions. In terms of the Dhp, this comes down to
assuming that there was only one original version of the text, and that it was
composed in a single language.
However, these assumptions are totally inappropriate for analyzing the oral
culture in which the Buddha taught and in which the verses of the Dhp were first
anthologized. If we look carefully at the nature of that culture — and in
particular at clear statements from the early Buddhist texts concerning the
events and principles that shaped those texts — we will see that it is perfectly
natural that there should be a variety of reports about the Buddha's teachings,
all of which might be essentially correct. In terms of the Dhp, we can view the
multiple versions of the text as a sign, not of faulty transmission, but of an
allegiance to their oral origins.
Oral prose and poetry are very different from their written counterparts. This
fact is obvious even in our own culture. However, we have to make an active
effort of the imagination to comprehend the expectations placed on oral
transmission between speakers and listeners in a culture where there is no
written word to fall back on. In such a setting, the verbal heritage is
maintained totally through repetition and memorization. A speaker with something
new to say has to repeat it often to different audiences — who, if they feel
inspired by the message, are expected to memorize at least its essential parts.
Because communication is face-to-face, a speaker is particularly prized for an
ability to tailor his/her message to the moment of communication, in terms of
the audience's background from the past, its state of mind at present, and its
hoped-for benefits in the future.
This puts a double imperative on both the speaker and the listener. The speaker
must choose his/her words with an eye both to how they will affect the audience
in the present and to how they will be memorized for future reference. The
listener must be attentive, both to appreciate the immediate impact of the words
and to memorize them for future use. Although originality in teaching is
appreciated, it is only one of a constellation of virtues expected of a teacher.
Other expected virtues include a knowledge of common culture and an ability to
play with that knowledge for the desired effect in terms of immediate impact or
memorability. The Pali Dhp (verse 45) itself makes this point in comparing the
act of teaching, not to creating something totally new out of nothing, but to
selecting among available flowers to create a pleasing arrangement just right
for the occasion.
Of course, there are situations in an oral culture where either immediate impact
or memorability is emphasized at the expense of the other. In a classroom,
listening for impact is sacrificed to the needs of listening for memorization,
whereas in a theater, the emphasis is reversed. All indications show, however,
that the Buddha as a teacher was especially alive to both aspects of oral
communication, and that he trained his listeners to be alive to both as well. On
the one hand, the repetitious style of many of his recorded teachings seems to
have been aimed at making them easy to memorize; also, at the end of many of his
discourses, he would summarize the main points of the discussion in an
easy-to-memorize verse. On the other hand, there are many reports of instances
in which his listeners gained immediate Awakening while listening to his words.
And, there is a delightful section in one of his discourses (the Samaññaphala
Suttanta, D.2) satirizing the teachers of other religious sects for their
inability to break away from the formulaic mode of their teachings to give a
direct answer to specific questions ("It's as if, when asked about a mango, one
were to answer with a breadfruit," one of the interlocutors comments, "or, when
asked about a breadfruit, to answer with a mango.") The Buddha, in contrast, was
famous for his ability to speak directly to his listeners' needs.
This sensitivity to both present impact and future use is in line with two
well-known Buddhist teachings: first, the basic Buddhist principle of causality,
that an act has repercussions both in the present and on into the future;
second, the Buddha's realization, early on in his teaching career, that some of
his listeners would attain Awakening immediately on hearing his words, whereas
others would be able to awaken only after taking his words, contemplating them,
and putting them into prolonged practice.
A survey of the Buddha's prose discourses recorded in the Pali canon gives an
idea of how the Buddha met the double demands placed on him as a teacher. In
some cases, to respond to a particular situation, he would formulate an entirely
original teaching. In others, he would simply repeat a formulaic answer that he
kept in store for general use: either teachings original with him, or more
traditional teachings — sometime lightly tailored, sometimes not — that fit in
with his message. In still others, he would take formulaic bits and pieces, and
combine them in a new way for the needs at hand. A survey of his poetry reveals
the same range of material: original works; set pieces — original or borrowed,
occasionally altered in line with the occasion; and recyclings of old fragments
in new juxtapositions.
Thus, although the Buddha insisted that all his teachings had the same taste —
that of release — he taught different variations on the theme of that taste to
different people on different occasions, in line with his perception of their
short- and long-term needs. In reciting a verse to a particular audience, he
might change a word, a line, or an image, to fit in with their backgrounds and
individual needs.
Adding to this potential for variety was the fact that the people of northern
India in his time spoke a number of different dialects, each with its own
traditions of poetry and prose. The Pali Cullavagga (V.33.1) records the Buddha
as insisting that his listeners memorize his teachings, not in a standardized
lingua franca, but in their own dialects. There is no way of knowing whether he
himself was multi-lingual enough to teach all of his students in their own
dialects, or expected them to make the translations themselves. Still, it seems
likely that, as a well-educated aristocrat of the time, he would have been
fluent in at least two or three of the most prevalent dialects. Some of the
discourses — such as D. 21 — depict the Buddha as an articulate connoisseur of
poetry and song, so we can expect that he would also have been sensitive to the
special problems involved in the effective translation of poetry — alive, for
instance, to the fact that skilled translation requires more than simply
substituting equivalent words. The Mahavagga (V.13.9) reports that the Buddha
listened, with appreciation, as a monk from the southern country of Avanti
recited some of his teachings — apparently in the Avanti dialect — in his
presence. Although scholars have often raised questions about which language the
Buddha spoke, it might be more appropriate to remain open to the possibility
that he spoke — and could compose poetry in — several. This possibility makes
the question of "the" original language or "the" original text of the Dhp
somewhat irrelevant.
The texts suggest that even during the Buddha's lifetime his students made
efforts to collect and memorize a standardized body of his teachings under a
rubric of nine categories: dialogues, narratives of mixed prose and verse,
explanations, verses, spontaneous exclamations, quotations, birth stories,
amazing events, question and answer sessions. However, the act of collecting and
memorizing was pursued by only a sub-group among his monks, while other monks,
nuns, and lay people doubtlessly had their own individual memorized stores of
teachings they had heard directly from the Buddha or indirectly through the
reports of their friends and acquaintances.
The Buddha had the foresight to ensure that this less standardized fund of
memories not be discounted by later generations; at the same time, he
established norms so that mistaken reports, deviating from the principles of his
teachings, would not be allowed to creep into the accepted body of doctrine. To
discourage fabricated reports of his words, he warned that anyone who put words
in his mouth was slandering him (AN 2.23). This, however, could in no way
prevent mistaken reports based on honest misunderstandings. So, shortly before
his death, he summarized the basic principles of his teachings: the 37 Wings to
Awakening (bodhi-pakkhiya dhamma — see note to verse 301) in the general
framework of the development of virtue, concentration, and discernment, leading
to release. Then he announced the general norms by which reports of his
teachings were to be judged. The Maha-parinibbana Suttanta (D.16) quotes him as
saying:
"There is the case where a monk says this: 'In the Blessed One's presence have I
heard this, in the Blessed One's presence have I received this... In the
presence of a community with well-known leading elders... In a monastery with
many learned elders who know the tradition... In the presence of a single elder
who knows the tradition have I heard this, in his presence have I received this:
This is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher's instruction.' His
statement is neither to be approved nor scorned. Without approval or scorn, take
careful note of his words and make them stand against the discourses and tally
them against the Vinaya. If, on making them stand against the discourses and
tallying them against the Vinaya, you find that they don't stand with the
discourses or tally with the Vinaya, you may conclude: 'This is not the word of
the Blessed One; this monk has misunderstood it' — and you should reject it. But
if... they stand with the discourses and tally with the Vinaya, you may
conclude: 'This is the word of the Blessed One; this monk has understood it
rightly.'"
Thus, a report of the Buddha's teachings was to be judged, not on the authority
of the reporter or his sources, but on the principle of consistency: did it fit
in with what was already known of the doctrine? This principle was designed to
ensure that nothing at odds with the original would be accepted into the
standard canon, but it did open the possibility that teachings in line with the
Buddha's, yet not actually spoken by him, might find their way in. The early
redactors of the canon seem to have been alert to this possibility, but not
overly worried by it. As the Buddha himself pointed out many times, he did not
design or create the Dhamma. He simply found it in nature. Anyone who developed
the pitch of mental strengths and abilities needed for Awakening could discover
the same principles as well. Thus the Dhamma was by no means exclusively his.
This attitude was carried over into the passages of the Vinaya that cite four
categories of Dhamma statements: spoken by the Buddha, spoken by his disciples,
spoken by seers (non-Buddhist sages), spoken by heavenly beings. As long as a
statement was in accordance with the basic principles, the question of who first
stated it did not matter. In an oral culture, where a saying might be associated
with a person because he authored it, approved it, repeated it often, or
inspired it by his/her words or actions, the question of authorship was not the
overriding concern it has since become in literate cultures. The recent
discovery of evidence that a number of teachings associated with the Buddha may
have pre- or post-dated his time would not have fazed the early Buddhists at
all, as long as those teachings were in accordance with the original principles.
Shortly after the Buddha's passing away, the Cullavagga (XI) reports, his
disciples met to agree on a standardized canon of his teachings, abandoning the
earlier nine-fold classification and organizing the material into something
approaching the canon we have today. There is clear evidence that some of the
passages in the extant canon do not date to the first convocation, as they
report incidents that took place afterwards. The question naturally arises as to
whether there are any other later additions not so obvious. This question is
particularly relevant with regard to texts like the Dhp, whose organization
differs considerably from redaction to redaction, and leads naturally to the
further question of whether a later addition to the canon can be considered
authentic. The Cullavagga (XI.1.11) recounts an incident that sheds light on
this issue:
Now at that time, Ven. Purana was wandering on a tour of the Southern Hills with
a large community of monks, approximately 500 in all. Then, having stayed as
long as he liked in the Southern Hills while the elder monks were standardizing
the Dhamma and Vinaya, he went to the Bamboo Park, the Squirrels' Sanctuary, in
Rajagaha. On arrival, he went to the elder monks and, after exchanging
pleasantries, sat to one side. As he was sitting there, they said to him,
"Friend Purana, the Dhamma and Vinaya have been standardized by the elders.
Switch over to their standardization." [He replied:] "The Dhamma and Vinaya have
been well-standardized by the elders. Still, I will hold simply to what I have
heard and received in the presence of the Blessed One."
In other words, Ven. Purana maintained — and undoubtedly taught to his followers
— a record of the Buddha's teachings that lay outside the standardized version,
but was nevertheless authentic. As we have already noted, there were monks,
nuns, and lay people like him even while the Buddha was alive, and there were
probably others like him who continued maintaining personal memories of the
Buddha's teachings even after the latter's death. This story shows the official
early Buddhist attitude towards such differing traditions: each accepted the
trustworthiness of the others. As time passed, some of the early communities may
have made an effort to include these "external" records in the standardized
canon, resulting in various collections of prose and verse passages. The range
of these collections would have been determined by the material that was
available in, or could be effectively translated into, each individual dialect.
Their organization would have depended on the taste and skill of the individual
collectors.
Thus, for instance, we find verses in the Pali Dhp that do not exist in other
Dhps, as well as verses in the Patna and Gandhari Dhps that the Pali tradition
assigns to the Jataka or Sutta Nipata. We also find verses in one redaction
composed of lines scattered among several verses in another. In any event, the
fact that a text was a later addition to the standardized canon does not
necessarily mean that it was a later invention. Given the ad hoc way in which
the Buddha sometimes taught, and the scattered nature of the communities who
memorized his teachings, the later additions to the canons may simply represent
earlier traditions that escaped standardization until relatively late.
When Buddhists began committing their canons to writing, approximately at the
beginning of the common era, they brought a great change to the dynamic of how
their traditions were maintained. The advantages of written over oral
transmission are obvious: the texts are saved from the vagaries of human
long-term memory and do not die out if those who have memorized them die before
teaching others to memorize them as well. The disadvantages of written
transmission, however, are less obvious but no less real. Not only is there the
possibility of scribal error, but — because transmission is not face-to-face —
there can also be the suspicion of scribal error. If a reading seems strange to
a student, he has no way of checking with the scribe, perhaps several
generations distant, to see if the reading was indeed a mistake. When confronted
with such problems, he may "correct" the reading to fit in with his ideas of
what must be right, even in cases where the reading was correct, and its
perceived strangeness was simply a result of changes in the spoken dialect or of
his own limited knowledge and imagination. The fact that manuscripts of other
versions of the text were also available for comparison in such instances could
have led scribes to homogenize the texts, removing unusual variants even when
the variants themselves may have gone back to the earliest days of the
tradition.
These considerations of how the Dhp may have been handed down to the present —
and especially the possibility that (1) variant recensions might all be
authentic, and that (2) agreement among the recensions might be the result of
later homogenization — have determined the way in which I have approached this
translation of the Pali Dhp. Unlike some other recent translators, I am treating
the Pali Dhp as a text with its own integrity — just as each of the alternative
traditions has its own integrity — and have not tried to homogenize the various
traditions. Where the different Pali recensions are unanimous in their readings,
even in cases where the reading seems strange (e.g., 71, 209, 259, 346), I have
stuck with the Pali without trying to "rectify" it in light of less unusual
readings given in the other traditions. Only in cases where the different Pali
redactions are at variance with one another, and the variants seem equally
plausible, have I checked the non-Pali texts to see which variant they support.
The translation here is drawn from three editions of the text: the Pali Text
Society (PTS) edition edited by O. von Hinüber and K.R. Norman (1995); the
Oxford edition edited by John Ross Carter and Mahinda Palihawadana, together
with its extensive notes (1987); and the Royal Thai edition of the Pali canon
(1982). The PTS edition gives the most extensive list of variant readings among
the Pali recensions, but even it is not complete. The Royal Thai edition, for
example, contains 49 preferred and 8 variant readings not given in the PTS
version at all. Passages where I have differed from the PTS reading are cited in
the End Notes.
Drawing selectively on various recensions in this way, I cannot guarantee that
the resulting reading of the Dhp corresponds exactly to the Buddha's words, or
to any one text that once existed in ancient India. However, as I mentioned at
the beginning of this note, all the recensions agree in their basic principles,
so the question is immaterial. The true test of the reading — and the resulting
translation — is if the reader feels engaged enough by the verses to put their
principles into practice and finds that they do indeed lead to the release that
the Buddha taught. In the final analysis, nothing else really counts.
Notes
(Numbers refer to verses.)
1-2:
The fact that the word mano is paired here with dhamma would seem to suggest
that it is meant in its role as "intellect," the sense medium that conveys
knowledge of ideas or mental objects (two possible meanings for the word
dhamma). However, the illustrations in the second sentence of each verse show
that it is actually meant in its role as the mental factor responsible for the
quality of one's actions (as in mano-kamma), the factor of will and intention,
shaping not only mental events, but also physical reality (on this point, see
S.XXXV.145). Thus, following a Thai tradition, I have rendered it here as
"heart."
The images in these verses are carefully chosen. The cart, representing
suffering, is a burden on the ox pulling it, and the weight of its wheels
obliterates the ox's track. The shadow, representing happiness, is no weight
on the body at all.
All Pali recensions of this verse give the reading, manomaya = made of the
heart, while all other recensions give the reading manojava = impelled by the
heart.
7-8:
Focused on the foul: A meditative exercise in focusing on the foul aspects of
the body so as to help undercut lust and attachment for the body (see M.119).
A.III.16 gives a standard definition for restraint with the senses: "And how
does a monk guard the doors to his sense faculties? There is the case where a
monk, on seeing a form with the eye, does not grasp at any theme or
particulars by which — if he were to dwell without restraint over the faculty
of the eye — evil, unskillful qualities such as greed or distress might assail
him. He practices with restraint. He guards the faculty of the eye. He
achieves restraint with regard to the faculty of the eye. (Similarly with the
ear, nose, tongue, body & intellect.) This is how a monk guards the doors to
his sense faculties."
11-12:
Wrong resolves = mental resolves for sensuality, ill will, or harmfulness.
Right resolves = mental resolves for freedom from sensuality, for freedom from
ill will, and for harmlessness.
17-18:
"Destination" in these two verses and throughout the text means one's
destination after death.
21:
The Deathless = Unbinding (nibbana/nirvana), which gives release from the
cycle of death and rebirth.
22:
"The range of the noble ones": Any of the four stages of Awakening, as well as
the total Unbinding to which they lead. The four stages are: (1) stream-entry,
at which one abandons the first three mental fetters tying one to the round of
rebirth: self-identity views, uncertainty, and grasping at precepts and
practices; (2) once-returning, at which passion, aversion, and delusion are
further weakened; (3) non-returning, at which sensual passion and resistance
are abandoned; and (4) arahantship, at which the final five fetters are
abandoned: passion for form, passion for formless phenomena, conceit,
restlessness, and ignorance. For other references to the "range of the noble
ones," see 92-93 and 179-180.
23:
AN 4.10 lists four yokes: the yoke of sensuality, the yoke of becoming, the
yoke of views, and the yoke of ignorance. To gain rest from the first three
yokes, one must discern, as it actually is present, the origination, the
passing away, the allure, the drawbacks, and the escape from that yoke. One
will then not be obsessed with passion, delight, attraction, infatuation,
thirst, fever, fascination, craving with regard to that yoke. To gain rest
from the yoke of ignorance, one must discern, as it actually is present, the
origination, the passing away, the allure, the drawbacks, and the escape from
the six sense media. One will then not be obsessed with not-knowing.
37:
"Lying in a cave": According to the Dhp Commentary (hereafter referred to as
DhpA), "cave" here means the physical heart, as well as the four great
properties — earth (solidity), water (liquidity), fire (heat), and wind
(motion) — that make up the body. Sn.IV.2 also compares the body to a cave.
39:
According to DhpA, "unsoddened mind" means one into which the rain of passion
doesn't penetrate (see 13 and 14); "unassaulted awareness" means a mind not
assaulted by anger. "Beyond merit & evil": The arahant is beyond merit and
evil in that he/she has none of the mental defilements — passion, aversion, or
delusion — that would lead to evil actions, and none of the attachments that
would cause his/her actions to bear kammic fruit of any sort, good or bad.
40:
"Without settling there, without laying claim": two meanings of the word
anivesano.
42:
A.VII.60 illustrates this point with seven ways that a person harms
him/herself when angry, bringing on results that an enemy would wish: He/she
becomes ugly, sleeps badly, mistakes profit for loss and loss for profit,
loses wealth, loses his/her reputation, loses friends, and acts in such a way
that — after death — he/she reappears in a bad rebirth.
44-45:
"Dhamma-saying": This is a translation for the term dhammapada. To ferret out
the well-taught Dhamma-saying means to select the appropriate maxim to apply
to a particular situation, in the same way that a flower-arranger chooses the
right flower, from a heap of available flowers (see 53), to fit into a
particular spot in the arrangement. "The learner-on-the-path": A person who
has attained any of the first three of the four stages of Awakening (see note
22).
48:
According to DhpA, the End-maker is death. According to another ancient
commentary, the End-maker is Mara.
53:
The last line of the Pali here can be read in two ways, either "even so, many
a skillful thing should be done by one born & mortal" or "even so, many a
skillful thing should be done with what's born & mortal." The first reading
takes the phrase jatena maccena, born & mortal, as being analogous to the
flower-arranger implicit in the image. The second takes it as analogous to the
heap of flowers explicitly mentioned. In this sense, "what's born & is mortal"
would stand for one's body, wealth, and talents.
54-56:
Tagara = a shrub that, in powdered form, is used as a perfume. A.III.78
explains the how the scent of a virtuous person goes against the wind and
wafts to the devas, by saying that those human and celestial beings who know
of the good character of a virtuous person will broadcast one's good name in
all directions.
57:
"Right knowing": the knowledge of full Awakening.
71:
"Doesn't — like ready milk — come out right away": All Pali recensions of this
verse give the verb muccati — "to come out" or "to be released" — whereas DhpA
agrees with the Sanskrit recensions in reading the verb as if it were
mucchati/murchati, "to curdle." The former reading makes more sense, both in
terms of the image of the poem — which contrasts coming out with staying
hidden — and with the plain fact that fresh milk doesn't curdle right away.
The Chinese translation of Dhp supports this reading, as do two of three
scholarly editions of the Patna Dhp.
79:
"Drinking the Dhamma, refreshed by the Dhamma": two meanings of the word,
dhammapiti. "Clear... calm": two meanings of vipasannena.
83:
"Stand apart": reading cajanti with DhpA and many Asian editions.
86:
The syntax of this verse yields the best sense if we take param as meaning
"across," and not as "the far shore."
89:
Factors of self-awakening = mindfulness, analysis of qualities, persistence,
rapture, serenity, concentration, and equanimity.
92-93:
"Having comprehended food... independent of nutriment": The first question in
the Novice's Questions (Khp 4) is "What is one?" The answer: "All animals
subsist on nutriment." The concept of food and nutriment here refers to the
most basic way of understanding the causal principle that plays such a central
role in the Buddha's teaching. As S.XII.64 points out, "There are these four
nutriments for the establishing of beings who have taken birth or for the
support of those in search of a place to be born. Which four? Physical
nutriment, gross or refined; contact as the second, consciousness the third,
and intellectual intention the fourth." The present verses make the point that
the arahant has so fully understood the process of physical and mental
causality that he/she is totally independent of it, and thus will never take
birth again. Such a person cannot be comprehended by any of the forms of
understanding that operate within the causal realm.
94:
"Such (tadin)": an adjective used to describe one who has attained the goal of
Buddhist practice, indicating that the person's state is indefinable but not
subject to change or influences of any sort. "Right knowing": the knowledge of
full Awakening.
95:
Indra's pillar = a post set up at the gate of a city. According to DhpA, there
was an ancient custom of worshipping this post with flowers and offerings,
although those who wanted to show their disrespect for this custom would
urinate and defecate on the post. In either case, the post did not react.
97:
This verse is a series of puns. The negative meanings of the puns are on the
left side of the slashes; the positive meanings, on the right. The negative
meanings are so extremely negative that they were probably intended to shock
their listeners. One scholar has suggested that the last word — uttamaporiso,
the ultimate person — should also be read as a pun, with the negative meaning,
"the extreme of audacity," but that would weaken the shock value of the verse.
100:
According to DhpA, the word sahassam in this and the following verses means
"by the thousands" rather than "a thousand." The same principle would also
seem to hold for satam — "by the hundreds" rather than "a hundred" — in 102.
108:
"Doesn't come to a fourth": DhpA: The merit produced by all sacrificial
offerings given in the world in the course of a year doesn't equal even one
fourth of the merit made by paying homage once to one who has gone the
straight way to Unbinding.
121-122:
"('It won't come to me')": The Thai edition reads this line as na mattam
agamissati = "[Thinking] it won't amount to much."
126:
Heaven and hell, in the Buddhist view of the cosmos, are not eternal states.
One may be reborn on one of the various levels of heaven or hell as the result
of one's kamma on the human plane, and then leave that level when that
particular store of kamma wears out.
143:
Some translators have proposed that the verb apabodheti, here translated as
"awakens" should be changed to appam bodheti, "to think little of." This,
however, goes against the sense of the verse and of a recurrent image in the
Canon, that the better-bred the horse, the more sensitive it is even to the
idea of the whip, to say nothing of the whip itself. See, for example,
A.IV.113.
The question raised in this verse is answered in SN 1.18:
Those restrained by conscience
are rare —
those who go through life
always mindful.
Having reached the end
of suffering & stress,
they go through what is uneven
evenly;
go through what is out-of-tune
in tune.
152:
Muscles: This is a translation of the Pali mansani, which is usually rendered
in this verse as "flesh." However, as the Pali word is in the plural form,
"muscles" seems more accurate — and to the point.
153-154:
DhpA: These verses were the Buddha's first utterance after his full Awakening.
For some reason, they are not reported in any of the other canonical accounts
of the events following on the Awakening.
DhpA: "House" = selfhood; house-builder = craving. "House" may also refer to
the nine abodes of beings — the seven stations of consciousness and two
spheres (see Khp 4 and D.15).
The word anibbisam in 153 can be read either as the negative gerund of
nibbisati ("earning, gaining a reward") or as the negative gerund of nivisati,
altered to fit the meter, meaning "coming to a rest, settled, situated." Both
readings make sense in the context of the verse, so the word is probably
intended to have a double meaning: without reward, without rest.
157:
"The three watches of the night": this is the literal meaning of the verse,
but DhpA shows that the image of staying up to nurse someone in the night is
meant to stand for being wakeful and attentive throughout the three stages of
life: youth, middle age, and old age. The point here is that it is never too
early or too late to wake up and begin nurturing the good qualities of mind
that will lead to one's true benefit. On this point, see A.III.51 & 52, in
which the Buddha counsels two old brahmans, nearing the end of their life
span, to begin practicing generosity along with restraint in thought, word,
and deed.
162:
DhpA completes the image of the poem by saying that one's vice bring about
one's own downfall, just as a maluva creeper ultimately brings about the
downfall of the tree it overspreads. See note 42.
164:
A bamboo plant bears fruit only once, and then dies soon after.
165:
"No one purifies another. No other purifies one." These are the two meanings
of the one phrase, nañño aññam visodhaye.
166:
A.IV.95 lists four types of people in descending order: those devoted to their
own true welfare as well as that of others, those devoted to their own true
welfare but not that of others, those devoted to the true welfare of others
but not their own, and those devoted neither to their own true welfare nor
that of others. S.XLVII.19 makes the point that if one is truly devoted to
one's own welfare, others automatically benefit, in the same way that an
acrobat maintaining his/her own balance helps his/her partner stay balanced as
well.
170:
The Sutta Nipata (V.15) reports a conversation between the Buddha and the
brahman Mogharaja with a point similar to that of this verse:
Mogharaja:
In what way does one view the world
so as not to be seen
by Death's king?
The Buddha:
View the world, Mogharaja,
as empty —
always mindful
to have removed any view
about self.
This way one is above & beyond death.
This is the way one views the world
so as not to be seen
by Death's king.
176:
This verse is also found at Iti.25, where the context makes clear the meaning
of ekam dhammam, or "this one thing": the principle of truthfulness.
178:
The fruit of stream-entry is the first of the four stages of Awakening (see
note 22). A person who has attained stream-entry — entry into the stream that
flows inevitably to Unbinding — is destined to attain full Awakening within at
most seven lifetimes, never falling below the human state in the interim.
183-185:
These verses are a summary of a talk called the Ovada Patimokkha, which the
Buddha is said to have delivered to an assembly of 1,250 arahants in the first
year after his Awakening. Verse 183 is traditionally viewed as expressing the
heart of the Buddha's teachings.
191:
The noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right
action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right
concentration.
195-196:
Complications = papañca. Alternative translations of this term would be
proliferation, elaboration, exaggeration. The term is used both in
philosophical contexts — in connection with troubles and disputes — and in
artistic contexts, in connection with excessive detail and elaboration. M.18
states: "Dependent on eye & forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of
the three is contact. With contact as a requisite condition, there is feeling.
What one feels, one apperceives (labels in the mind). What one apperceives,
one thinks about. What one thinks about, one complicates. Based on what a
person complicates, the perceptions & categories of complication assail
him/her with regard to past, present, & future forms cognizable via the eye.
[Similarly with the other senses.]... Now, with regard to the cause whereby
the perceptions & categories of complication assail a person: if there is
nothing there to relish, welcome, or remain fastened to, then that is the end
of the obsessions of passion, the obsessions of resistance, the obsessions of
views, the obsessions of uncertainty, the obsessions of conceit, the
obsessions of passion for becoming, & the obsessions of ignorance. That is the
end of taking up rods & bladed weapons, of arguments, quarrels, disputes,
accusations, divisive tale-bearing, & false speech. That is where these evil,
unskillful things cease without remainder."
209:
This verse plays with the various meanings of yoga (task, striving,
application, meditation) and a related term, anuyuñjati (keeping after
something, taking someone to task). In place of the Pali reading
attanuyoginam, "those who kept after themselves," the Patna Dhp reads
atthanuyoginam, "those who kept after/remained devoted to the goal."
218:
"The up-flowing stream": DhpA: the attainment of non-returning, the third of
the four stages of Awakening (see note 22).
231-233:
Bodily misconduct = killing, stealing, engaging in illicit sex. Verbal
misconduct = lies, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter. Mental
misconduct = covetousness, ill will, wrong views.
235:
Yama = the god of the underworld. Yama's minions or underlings were believed
to appear to a person just prior to the moment of death.
236:
Impurities, blemishes = passion, aversion, delusion, and their various
permutations, including envy, miserliness, hypocrisy, and boastfulness.
240:
"One who lives slovenly": As DhpA makes clear, this refers to one who uses the
requisites of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine without the wisdom that
comes with reflecting on their proper use. The Pali term here is
atidhonacarin, a compound built around the word dhona, which means clean or
pure. The ati- in the compound could mean "overly," thus yielding, "one overly
scrupulous in his behavior," but it can also mean "transgressing," thus,
"transgressing against what is clean" = "slovenly." The latter reading fits
better with the image of rust as a deficiency in the iron resulting from
carelessness.
254-255:
"No outside contemplative": No true contemplative, defined as a person who has
attained any of the four stages of Awakening, exists outside of the practice
of the Buddha's teachings (see note 22). In D.16, the Buddha is quoted as
teaching his final student: "In any doctrine & discipline where the noble
eightfold path is not found, no contemplative of the first... second...
third... fourth order [stream-winner, once-returner, non-returner, or arahant]
is found. But in any doctrine & discipline where the noble eightfold path is
found, contemplatives of the first... second... third... fourth order are
found. The noble eightfold path is found in this doctrine & discipline, and
right here there are contemplatives of the first... second... third... fourth
order. Other teachings are empty of knowledgeable contemplatives. And if the
monks dwell rightly, this world will not be empty of arahants." (On the noble
eightfold path, see note 191.)
On "complication," see note 195-196.
256-257:
The sense of the verse, confirmed by DhpA, suggests that the Pali word
dhammattho means "judge." This, in fact, is the theme tying together the
verses in this chapter. The duty of a judge is to correctly determine attha, a
word that denotes both "meaning" and "judgment," these two senses of the word
being connected by the fact that the judge must interpret the meanings of
words used in rules and principles to see how they correctly apply to the
particulars of a case so that he can pass a correct verdict. The remaining
verses in this chapter give examples of interpreting attha in an appropriate
way.
259:
"Sees Dhamma through his body": The more common expression in the Pali canon
is to touch Dhamma through or with the body (phusati or phassati, he touches,
rather than passati, he sees). The Sanskrit recensions and the Patna Dhp all
support the reading, "he would touch," but all Pali recensions are unanimous
in the reading, "he sees." Some scholars regard this latter reading as a
corruption of the verse; I personally find it a more striking image than the
common expression.
265:
This verse plays with a number of nouns and verbs related to the adjective
sama, which means "even," "equal," "on pitch," or "in tune." Throughout
ancient cultures, the terminology of music was used to describe the moral
quality of people and acts. Discordant intervals or poorly-tuned musical
instruments were metaphors for evil; harmonious intervals and well-tuned
instruments, for good. Thus in Pali, samana, or contemplative, also means a
person who is in tune with the principles of rightness and truth inherent in
nature. Here and in 388, I've attempted to give a hint of these implications
by associating the word "contemplative" with "consonance."
268-269:
This verse contains the Buddhist refutation of the idea that "those who know
don't speak, those who speak don't know." For another refutation of the same
idea, see D.12. In Vedic times, a sage (muni) was a person who took a vow of
silence (mona) and was supposed to gain special knowledge as a result. The
Buddhists adopted the term muni, but redefined it to show how true knowledge
was attained and how it expressed itself in the sage's actions. For a fuller
portrait of the ideal Buddhist sage, see Sn.I.12 and A.III.120.
271-272:
This verse has what seems to be a rare construction, in which na +
instrumental nouns + a verb in the aorist tense gives the force of a
prohibitive ("Don't, on account of x, do y"). "The renunciate ease that
run-of-the-mill people don't know," according to DhpA, is the state of
non-returning, the third of the four stages of Awakening (see note 22).
Because non-returners are still attached to subtle states of becoming on the
level of form and formlessness, DhpA drives home the message that even
non-returners should not be complacent by paraphrasing a passage from A.I (203
in the Thai edition; at the end of Chapter XIX in the PTS edition) that reads,
"Just as even a small amount of excrement is foul-smelling, in the same way I
do not praise even a small amount of becoming, not even as much as a
fingersnap."
273:
The four truths: stress, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its
cessation (which is identical to the eightfold path). See note 191.
275:
"I have taught you this path": reading akkhato vo maya maggo with the Thai
edition, a reading supported by the Patna Dhp. "Having known — for your
knowing": two ways of interpreting what is apparently a play on the Pali word,
aññaya, which can be either be the gerund of ajanati or the dative of añña.
On the extraction of arrows as a metaphor for the practice of the Buddha's
teachings, see M.63 and M.105.
277:
For a discussion of this verse, see the articles, "The Not-self Strategy" and
"No-self or Not-self?."
285:
Although the first word in this verse, ucchinda, literally means "crush,"
"destroy," "annihilate," I have found no previous English translation that
renders it accordingly. Most translate it as "cut out" or "uproot," which
weakens the image. On the role played by self-allure in leading the heart to
become fixated on others, see A.VII.48.
288:
Ender = death.
293:
Mindfulness immersed in the body = the practice of focusing on the body at all
times simply as a phenomenon in and of itself, as a way of developing
meditative absorption (jhana) and removing any sense of attraction to,
distress over, or identification with the body. M.119 lists the following
practices as instances of mindfulness immersed in the body: mindfulness of
breathing, awareness of the four postures of the body (standing, sitting,
walking, lying down), alertness to all the actions of the body, analysis of
the body into its 32 parts, analysis of it into its four properties (earth,
water, fire, wind), and contemplation of the body's inevitable decomposition
after death.
294:
This verse and the one following it use terms with ambiguous meanings to shock
the listener. According to DhpA, mother = craving; father = conceit; two
warrior kings = views of eternalism (that one has an identity remaining
constant through all time) and of annihilationism (that one's consciousness is
totally annihilated at death); kingdom = the twelve sense spheres (the senses
of sight, hearing, smell, taste, feeling, and ideation, together with their
respective objects); dependency = passions for the sense spheres.
295:
DhpA: two learned kings = views of eternalism and annihilationism; a tiger =
the path where the tiger goes for food, i.e., the hindrance of uncertainty, or
else all five hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, sloth & drowsiness,
restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty). However, in Sanskrit literature,
"tiger" is a term for a powerful and eminent man; if that is what is meant
here, the term may stand for anger.
299:
See note 293.
301:
"Developing the mind" in terms of the 37 Wings to Awakening: the four frames
of reference (ardent, mindful alertness to body, feelings, mind states, and
mental qualities in and of themselves), the four right exertions (to abandon
and avoid evil, unskillful mental qualities, and to foster and strengthen
skillful mental qualities), the four bases of power (concentration based on
desire, persistence, intentness, and discrimination), the five strengths and
five faculties (conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, and
discernment), the seven factors of self-awakening (see note 89), and the noble
eightfold path (see note 191). For a full treatment of this topic, see The
Wings to Awakening (Dhamma Dana Publications, 1996).
303:
DhpA: Wealth = both material wealth and the seven forms of noble wealth
(ariya-dhana): conviction, virtue, conscience, concern (for the results of
evil actions), erudition, generosity, discernment.
324:
DhpA: Dhanapalaka was a noble elephant captured for the king of Kasi. Although
given palatial quarters with the finest food, he showed no interest, but
thought only of the sorrow his mother felt, alone in the elephant wood,
separated from her son.
329-330:
DhpA: The bull elephant named Matanga, reflecting on the inconveniences of
living in a herd crowded with she-elephants and young elephants — he was
pushed around as he went into the river, had to drink muddied water, had to
eat leaves that others had already nibbled, etc. — decided that he would find
more pleasure in living alone. His story parallels that of the elephant the
Buddha met in the Parileyyaka Forest (Mv.X.4.6-7).
337:
This verse provides a Buddhist twist to the typical benedictions found in
works of kavya. Instead of expressing a wish that the listeners meet with
wealth, fame, status, or other worldly forms of good fortune, this verse
describes the highest good fortune, which can be accomplished only through
one's own skillful kamma: the uprooting of craving and the resulting state of
total freedom from the round of death and rebirth. A similar twist on the
theme of good fortune is found in the Mangala Sutta (Khp.5, Sn.II.4), which
teaches that the best protective charm is to develop skillful kamma,
ultimately developing the mind to the point where it is untouched by the
vagaries of the world.
339:
36 streams = three forms of desire for each of the internal and external sense
spheres (see note 294) — 3 x 2 x 6 = 36. According to one sub-commentary, the
three forms of desire are desires focused on the present, past, and future.
According to another, they are craving for sensuality, craving for becoming,
and craving for no-becoming.
340:
"Every which way": Reading sabbadhi with the Thai and Burmese editions. The
creeper, according to DhpA, is craving, which sends thoughts out to wrap
around its objects, while it itself stays rooted in the mind.
341:
This verse contains an implied simile: the terms "loosened & oiled," here
applied to joys, were commonly used to describe smooth bowel movements.
343:
For the various meanings that attano — "for himself" — can have in this verse,
see note 402.
346:
"Elastic": The usual translation of the word sithilam — "slack" — does not fit
in this verse, but all the Pali recensions are unanimous on this reading, so I
have chosen a near synonym that does. The Patna Dhp renders this term as
"subtle," whereas the Tibetan commentary to the Udanavarga explains the line
as a whole as meaning "hard for the slack to untie." Both alternatives make
sense, but may be attempts to "correct" a term that could well have originally
meant "elastic," a meaning that got lost with the passage of time.
348:
DhpA: In front = the aggregates of the past; behind = the aggregates of the
future; in between = the aggregates of the present. See also note 385.
350:
"A focus on the foul": A meditative exercise in focusing on the foul parts of
the body so as to help undercut lust and attachment for the body.
352:
"Astute in expression, knowing the combination of sounds — which comes first &
which after": Some arahants, in addition to their ability to overcome all of
their defilements, are also endowed with four forms of acumen (patisambhida),
one of which is acumen with regard to expression (nirutti-patisambhida), i.e.,
a total mastery of linguistic expression. This talent in particular must have
been of interest to the anthologist(s) who put together the Dhp.
"Last-body": Because an arahant will not be reborn, this present body is
his/her last.
353:
According to M.26 and Mv.I.6.7, one of the first people the Buddha met after
his Awakening was an ascetic who commented on the clarity of his faculties and
asked who his teacher was. This verse was part of the Buddha's response.
354:
This verse contains several terms related to aesthetics. Both dhamma (justice)
and dana (gift/generosity) are sub-types of the heroic rasa, or taste. (See
the Introduction.) The third sub-type of the heroic — yuddha (warfare) — is
suggested by the verb "conquer," which occurs four times in the Pali. Rati
(delight/love) is the emotion (bhava) that corresponds to the sensitive rasa.
In effect, the verse is saying that the highest forms of rasa and emotion are
those related to Dhamma; the highest expression of the heroic Dhamma rasa is
in the ending of craving.
360-361:
See note 7-8.
363:
"Counsel": In the context of Indian literary theory, this is the meaning of
the word manta, which can also mean "chant." The literary context seems to be
the proper one here.
368:
"Stilling-of-fabrications ease": the true ease and freedom experienced when
all five aggregates are stilled.
369:
DhpA: The boat = one's own personhood (the body-mind complex); the water that
needs to be bailed out = wrong thoughts (imbued with passion, aversion, or
delusion).
370:
DhpA: Cut through five = the five lower fetters that tie the mind to the round
of rebirth (self-identity views, uncertainty, grasping at precepts &
practices, sensual passion, resistance); let go of five = the five higher
fetters (passion for form, passion for formless phenomena, conceit,
restlessness, & ignorance); develop five = the five faculties (conviction,
persistence, mindfulness, concentration, & discernment); five attachments =
passion, aversion, delusion, conceit, views.
381:
See note 368.
383:
This verse, addressed to a member of the brahman caste, is one of the few in
Dhp where the word brahman is used in its ordinary sense, as indicating caste
membership, and not in its special Buddhist sense as indicating an arahant.
384:
DhpA: two things = tranquillity meditation and insight meditation.
385:
DhpA: This verse refers to a person who has no sense of "I" or "mine," either
for the senses ("not-beyond") or their objects ("beyond"). The passage may
also refer to the sense of total limitlessness that makes the experience of
Unbinding totally ineffable, as reflected in the following conversation
(Sn.V.6):
Upasiva:
He who has reached the end:
Does he not exist,
or is he for eternity free from dis-ease?
Please, sage, declare this to me
as this phenomenon has been known by you.
The Buddha:
One who has reached the end has no criterion
by which anyone would say that —
it doesn't exist for him.
When all phenomena are done away with,
all means of speaking are done away with as well.
388:
Stains = the impurities listed in note 236. On "consonance," see note 265.
389:
The word "anger" here is added from DhpA, which interprets the "letting loose"
as the act of retaliating with anger against one's assailant. Some translators
read "brahman" as the subject not only of the second line, but also the first:
"A brahman should/would not strike a brahman." However, this reading is
unlikely, for a brahman (in this context, an arahant) would not strike anyone
at all. If a brahman retaliates with anger to being struck, that is a sign
that he is not a true brahman: thus more shame on him for having assumed a
status that was not truly his. On the topic of how to react to violent attack,
see M.21 and M.145.
390:
"What's endearing & not": In the phrase manaso piyehi, piyehi can be read
straight as it is, as "endearing," or as an elided form of apiyehi, "not
endearing." The former reading is more straightforward, but given the
reference to "harmful-heartedness" in the next line, the latter reading serves
to tie the stanza together. It is also consistent with the fact that DhpA
takes this verse to be a continuation of 389. Given the way in which kavya
cultivated a taste for ambiguities and multiple interpretations, both readings
may have been intended.
392:
"Brahman" here is used in its ordinary sense, as indicating caste membership,
and not in its special Buddhist sense as indicating an arahant.
393:
"He is a pure one": reading so suci with the Thai edition, a reading supported
by the Chinese translation of the Dhp.
394:
In India of the Buddha's day, matted hair, etc., were regarded as visible
signs of spiritual status.
396:
"Bho-sayer" — Brahmans addressed others as "bho" as a way of indicating their
(the brahmans') superior caste. "If he has anything" (reading sa ce with the
Burmese edition) = if he/she lays claim to anything as his/her own.
398:
DhpA: strap = hatred; thong = craving; cord = 62 forms of wrong view (listed
in the Brahmajala Suttanta, D.1); bridle = obsessions (sensuality, becoming,
anger, conceit, views, uncertainty, ignorance).
400:
"With no overbearing pride": reading anussadam with the Thai and Burmese
editions. "Last-body": see note 352.
402:
"For himself, on his own, his own ending of stress": Three different ways that
the one word attano functions in this verse.
411:
According to DhpA, "attachments/homes (alaya)" = cravings. "Knowing": the
knowledge of full Awakening.
412:
See note 39.
421:
See note 348.
423:
The forms of mastery listed in this verse correspond to the three knowledges
that comprised the Buddha's Awakening: knowledge of previous lives, knowledge
of how beings pass away and are reborn in the various levels of being, and
knowledge of the ending of the effluents that maintain the process of birth.
Glossary
Aggregate (khandha):
Any one of the five bases for clinging to a sense of self: form (physical
phenomena, including the body), feelings, perceptions (mental labels),
thought-fabrications, consciousness.
Arahant:
A "worthy one" or "pure one"; a person whose mind is free of defilement and
thus is not destined for further rebirth. A title for the Buddha and the
highest level of his noble disciples.
Becoming (bhava):
States of being that develop first in the mind and allow for birth on any of
three levels: the level of sensuality, the level of form, and the level of
formlessness.
Brahma:
An inhabitant of the highest, non-sensual levels of heaven.
Brahman:
The Brahmans of India have long maintained that they, by their birth, are
worthy of the highest respect. Buddhists borrowed the term "brahman" to apply
to arahants to show that respect is earned not by birth, race, or caste, but
by spiritual attainment through following the right path of practice. Most of
the verses in the Dhammapada use the word brahman in this special sense; those
using the word in its ordinary sense are indicated in the notes.
Deva:
Literally, "shining one." An inhabitant of the heavenly realms.
Dhamma:
(1) Event; a phenomenon in and of itself; (2) mental quality; (3) doctrine,
teaching; (4) nibbana. Sanskrit form: Dharma.
Effluent (asava):
One of four qualities — sensuality, views, becoming, and ignorance — that
"flow out" of the mind and create the flood of the round of death and rebirth.
Enlightened one (dhira):
Throughout this translation I have rendered buddha as "Awakened," and dhira as
"enlightened." As Jan Gonda points out in his book, The Vision of the Vedic
Poets, the word dhira was used in Vedic and Buddhist poetry to mean a person
who has the heightened powers of mental vision needed to perceive the "light"
of the underlying principles of the cosmos, together with the expertise to
implement those principles in the affairs of life and to reveal them to
others. A person enlightened in this sense may also be awakened, but is not
necessarily so.
Fabrication (sankhara):
Sankhara literally means "putting together," and carries connotations of
jerry-rigged artificiality. It is applied to physical and to mental processes,
as well as to the products of those processes. In some contexts it functions
as the fourth of the five aggregates — thought-fabrications; in others, it
covers all five.
Gandhabba:
Celestial musician, a member of one of the lower deva realms.
Heart (manas):
The mind in its role as will and intention.
Indra:
King of the devas in the Heaven of the Thirty-three.
Jhana:
Meditative absorption. A state of strong concentration, devoid of sensuality
or unskillful thoughts, focused on a single physical sensation or mental
notion which is then expanded to fill the whole range of one's awareness.
Jhana is synonymous with right concentration, the eighth factor in the noble
eightfold path (see note 191).
Kamma:
Intentional act, bearing fruit in terms of states of becoming and birth.
Sanskrit form: karma.
Mara:
The personification of evil, temptation, and death.
Patimokkha:
Basic code of monastic discipline, composed of 227 rules for monks and 310 for
nuns.
Samsara:
Transmigration; the "wandering-on"; the round of death and rebirth.
Sangha:
On the conventional (sammati) level, this term denotes the communities of
Buddhist monks and nuns; on the ideal (ariya) level, it denotes those
followers of the Buddha, lay or ordained, who have attained at least
stream-entry (see note 22).
Stress (dukkha):
Alternative translations for dukkha include suffering, burdensomeness, and
pain. However — despite the unfortunate connotations it has picked up from
programs in "stress-management" and "stress-reduction" — the English word
stress, in its basic meaning as the reaction to strain on the body or mind,
has the advantage of covering much the same range as the Pali word dukkha. It
applies both to physical and mental phenomena, ranging from the intense stress
of acute anguish or pain to the innate burdensomeness of even the most subtle
mental or physical fabrications. It also has the advantage of being
universally recognized as something directly experienced in all life, and is
at the same time a useful tool for cutting through the spiritual pride that
keeps people attached to especially refined or sophisticated forms of
suffering: once all suffering, no matter how noble or refined, is recognized
as being nothing more than stress, the mind can abandon the pride that keeps
it attached to that suffering, and so gain release from it. Still, in some of
the verses of the Dhammapada, stress seems too weak to convey the meaning, so
in those verses I have rendered dukkha as pain, suffering, or suffering &
stress.
Tathagata:
Literally, "one who has become authentic (tatha-agata)," or "one who is really
gone (tatha-gata)," an epithet used in ancient India for a person who has
attained the highest religious goal. In Buddhism, it usually denotes the
Buddha, although occasionally it also denotes any of his arahant disciples.
Unbinding (nibbana, nirvana):
Because nibbana is used to denote not only the Buddhist goal, but also the
extinguishing of a fire, it is usually rendered as "extinguishing" or, even
worse, "extinction." However, a study of ancient Indian views of the workings
of fire (see The Mind Like Fire Unbound) reveals that people of the Buddha's
time felt that a fire, in going out, did not go out of existence but was
simply freed from its agitation, entrapment, and attachment to its fuel. Thus,
when applied to the Buddhist goal, the primary connotation of nibbana is one
of release, along with cooling and peace. Sanskrit form: nirvana.
Abbreviations
AAnguttara Nikaya
DDigha Nikaya
DhpDhammapada/Dharmapada
DhpADhammapada Commentary
ItiItivuttaka
KhpKhuddakapatha
MMajjhima Nikaya
MvMahavagga
PTSPali Text Society
SSamyutta Nikaya
SnSutta Nipata
Bibliography
Brough, John, ed. The Gandhari Dharmapada (London: Oxford University Press,
1962).
Carter, John Ross and Mahinda Palihawadana, trans. and ed. The Dhammapada (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
Cone, Margaret. "Patna Dharmapada, Part I: Text," in Journal of the Pali Text
Society, XIII, 1989: 101-217.
Dhammajoti, Bhikkhu Kuala Lumpur, trans. and ed. The Chinese Version of
Dharmapada (Kelaniya, Sri Lanka: Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist
Studies, 1995).
Gonda, Jan. The Vision of the Vedic Poets (The Hague: Mouton, 1963).
von Hinüber, O., and K.R. Norman, eds. Dhammapada (Oxford: The Pali Text
Society, 1995).
Norman, K.R., trans. The Word of the Doctrine (Oxford: The Pali Text Society,
1997).
Warder, A.K. Indian Kavya Literature, vols. I and II, 2nd rev. eds. (Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass, 1989 and 1990).
In addition to the above works, I have also consulted many previous English
translations and renderings of the Dhammapada, complete and incomplete,
including those by Ven. Ananda Maitreya, Babbitt, Beyer, Ven. Buddharakkhita,
Byrom, Cleary, Kaviratna, Vens. Khantipalo and Susañña, Mascaro, Ven. Narada,
Ven. Piyadassi, Radhakrishnan, and Wannapok, as well as Thai translations by
Plengvithaya and Wannapok. In addition, I have consulted translations of the
Udanavarga — again, complete and incomplete — by Sparham and Strong. I have also
drawn from the Royal Thai Edition of the Pali canon, published by Mahamakut
Rajavidalaya Press, Bangkok, 1982.
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