Dhammapada

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The Dhammapada (P?li; Prakrit: ?????? Dhammapada;) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures. The original version of the Dhammapada is in the Khuddaka Nikaya, a division of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism.

The Buddhist scholar and commentator Buddhaghosa explains that each saying recorded in the collection was made on a different occasion in response to a unique situation that had arisen in the life of the Buddha and his monastic community. His commentary, the Dhammapada Atthakatha, presents the details of these events and is a rich source of legend for the life and times of the Buddha.

Video Dhammapada

Title

The title, "Dhammapada," is a compound term composed of dhamma and pada, each word having a number of denotations and connotations. Generally, dhamma can refer to the Buddha's "doctrine" or an "eternal truth" or "righteousness" or all "phenomena"; and, at its root, pada means "foot" and thus by extension, especially in this context, means either "path" or "verse" (cf. "prosodic foot") or both. In Tamil language 'Padam' means subject, English translations of this text's title have used various combinations of these and related words.

Maps Dhammapada

History

According to tradition, the Dhammapada's verses were spoken by the Buddha on various occasions. "By distilling the complex models, theories, rhetorical style and sheer volume of the Buddha's teachings into concise, crystalline verses, the Dhammapada makes the Buddhist way of life available to anyone...In fact, it is possible that the very source of the Dhammapada in the third century B.C.E. is traceable to the need of the early Buddhist communities in India to laicize the ascetic impetus of the Buddha's original words." The text is part of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka, although over half of the verses exist in other parts of the Pali Canon. A 4th or 5th century CE commentary attributed to Buddhaghosa includes 305 stories which give context to the verses.

Although the P?li edition is the best-known, a number of other versions are known:

• "G?ndh?r? Dharmapada" - a version possibly of Dharmaguptaka or K??yap?ya origin in G?ndh?r? written in Kharosthi script
• "Patna Dharmapada" - a version in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, most likely Sammatiya
• "Ud?navarga" - a seemingly related Mula-Sarvastivada or Sarvastivada text in
  • 3 Sanskrit versions
  • a Tibetan translation, which is popular in traditional Tibetan Buddhism
• "Mah?vastu" - a Lokottaravada text with parallels to verses in the P?li Dhammapada's Sahassa Vagga and Bhikkhu Vagga.
• "FaJuJing ???" - 4 Chinese works; one of these appears to be an expanded translation of the Pali version; this has not traditionally been very popular.

Comparing the Pali Dhammapada, the Gandhari Dharmapada and the Udanavarga, Brough (2001) identifies that the texts have in common 330 to 340 verses, 16 chapter headings and an underlying structure. He suggests that the three texts have a "common ancestor" but underlines that there is no evidence that any one of these three texts might have been the "primitive Dharmapada" from which the other two evolved.

The Dhammapada is considered one of the most popular pieces of Theravada literature. A critical edition of the Dhammapada was produced by Danish scholar Viggo Fausbøll in 1855, becoming the first Pali text to receive this kind of examination by the European academic community.

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Organization

The Pali Dhammapada contains 423 verses in 26 chapters (listed below in English and, in parentheses, Pali).

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Excerpts

The following English translations are from Müller (1881). The Pali text is from the Sri Lanka Tripitaka Project (SLTP) edition.

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English translations

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Musical Settings

• Ronald Corp, 2010, a cappella choral setting of Francis Booth's translation, released on Stone Records.

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Notes

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Sources

• ?nandajoti, Bhikkhu (2007). A Comparative Edition of the Dhammapada. U. of Peradeniya. Ancient Buddhist Texts Retrieved 25 Nov 2008.
• Brough, John (2001). The G?ndh?r? Dharmapada. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited.
• Buswell, Robert E. (ed.) (2003). Encyclopedia of Buddhism. MacMillan Reference Books. ISBN 978-0-02-865718-9.
• Cone, Margaret (transcriber) (1989). "Patna Dharmapada" in the Journal of the Pali Text Society (Vol. XIII), pp. 101-217. Oxford: PTS. Online text interspersed with Pali parallels compiled by ?nandajoti Bhikkhu (2007). Ancient Buddhist Texts Retrieved 06-15-2008.
• Easwaran, Eknath (2007) (see article). The Dhammapada. Nilgiri Press. ISBN 978-1-58638-020-5.
• Fronsdal, Gil (2005). The Dhammapada. Boston: Shambhala. ISBN 1-59030-380-6.
• Geiger, Wilhelm (trans. by Batakrishna Ghosh) (1943, 2004). P?li Literature and Language. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. ISBN 81-215-0716-2.
• Harvey, Peter (1990, 2007). An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-31333-3.
• Hinüber, Oskar von (2000). A Handbook of P?li Literature. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016738-7.
• Müller, F. Max (1881). The Dhammapada (Sacred Books Of The East, Vol. X). Oxford University Press.
• Ñ??amoli, Bhikkhu (trans.) & Bhikkhu Bodhi (ed.) (2001). The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nik?ya. Boston: Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-072-X.
• Rhys Davids, T.W. & William Stede (eds.) (1921-5). The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary. Chipstead: Pali Text Society. Search inside the Pali-English Dictionary, University of Chicago

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External links

Translations

• by Max Müller (1881) from Wikisource
• by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1950) Reprint, Oxford University Press (1996)
• by Harischandra Kaviratna (1980)
• by Buddharakkhita (1985) (pdf has intro by Bhikkhu Bodhi)
• by John Richards (1993)
• by Thomas Byrom (1993)
• by Eknath Easwaran (1996)
• by Thanissaro (1997)
• by Gil Fronsdal - Reading by Chapter from The Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic with Annotations - 2006
• by Bhikkhu Varado and Samanera Bodhesako (2008)
• Detailed word-by-word translation of the Dhammapada, including explanation of grammar
• Multilingual edition of Dhammapada in the Bibliotheca Polyglotta
• Parallel Reading (paragraph granularity) of The Buddha's Path of Wisdom-- Dhammapada (Dhp.)

Voice recordings

• Readings (mp3) from the Dhammapada, translated and read by Gil Fronsdal
• The Dhammapada public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Source of article : Wikipedia