Buddha Image in The Principal Chedi, A dispelling fear image (standing) in the West, Ancient Monuments in Phra Si Iriyabot Temple, Kamphaeng Petch Province, Thailand, a picture was taken on Oct.31, 2021.
The Dhammapada 101, 02, 03.
First revision: Nov.13, 2022
Last change: Jun.23, 2024
Searched, Gathered, and Rearranged by Buddhist: Apirak Kanchanakongkha.
With Highly Buddhist Monk Pariyatti Dilok (Phara Ajarn Vichit Issaro) 9-sentence sermons, assistant abbot of Prayurawongsawas Woraviharn Temple, Dhonburi, former primate of 11, Prayoon Temple, taken on September 7, 2014.
With the benefits and virtues that those who are interested can get from this Dhammapada blog, I would like to pay homage to the Highly Buddhist monk Pariyatti Dilok (Phra Ajarn Vichit Issaro) 9-sentence sermons here. May the soul of Phra Ajarn Vichit Issaro ascend to a peaceful world and approach Nirvana quickly.
from a disciple Apirak (Tong) of
Prayurawongsawas Woraviharn Temple (Wat Prayoon), former disciple 11, period 1975-1983.
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INTRODUCTION
I. THE DHAMMAPADA
THE Dhammapada, a part of the Khuddaka Nikāya of the Sutta Piṭaka, has in the Pāli version 423 verses divided into 26 chapters1. It is an anthology of Buddhist devotion and practice, which combines verses in popular use or gathered from different sources. Though it may not contain the very words of the Buddha, it does embody the spirit of the Buddha’s teaching, summoning men to a process of strenuous mental and moral effort. Dhamma is discipline, law, and religion;2. pada is a path,3. means (upāya), way (Magga). Dhammapada is thus the path of virtue. Pada also means the base; Dhammapada is then the base or the foundation of religion. If pada is taken as a part of a verse, then Dhammapada means the utterances of religion. The Chinese translate Dhammapada as ‘scriptural texts’ since it contains passages from various canonical books.
We can not definitey fix the date of the Dhammapada as that depends on the date of the Buddhist canon of which it forms a part. The Buddhist tradition, with which Buddhaghoṣa agrees, holds that the Canon was settled at the First Council. Yuan Chwang’s statement that the Tipiṭaka was written down at the end of the First Council under the orders of Kāśyapa shows the prevalent view in the seventh century A.D.
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1. There are Chinese and Tibetan versions of the Dhammapada which differ slightly from the Pāli text, though they all agree in substance. The Chinese version has 39 chapters, while the Pāli has 26. In the former, there are eight chapters at the beginning, four at the end, and Chapter 33 in addition to those found in the Pāli version. Even in the chapters which are common to the Chinese and the Pāli versions, there are 79 more verses in the Chinese than in the Pāli.
2. Dhamma also means things or form (see 279) or way of life (167).
3. Cf. appamādo amatapadam, 21; vigilance is the path that leads to eternal life.
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The Māhavaṁśa tells us that in the reign of King Vaṭṭagāmani (88 to 76 B.C.), ‘the profoundly wise priests had theretofore orally1 perpetuated the Pāli of the Piṭakattaya and Aṭṭhakathā (commentary), but that at this period the priests, foreseeing the perdition of the people, assembled and, so that the religion might endure for ages, recorded the same in books’.2 The Mahāvaṁśa belongs to the fifth century A.D. (A.D. 459-77), though it is founded on an older Aṭṭhakathā, which represents an unbroken line of Ceylonese tradition. The Milindapañha, which belongs to the beginning of the Christian era, mentions the Dhammapada. The Kathāvatthu contains many quotations from the Dhammapada as well as from the Mahāniddesa and Cullaniddesa. In the Tipiṭaka itself, no mention is made of the Third Council under Aśoka at Pāṭaliputra about 247 B.C. There are references to the First Council at Rājagṛha (477 B.C.) and the Second Council of Vaiśalī (377 B.C.). Evidently, the Buddhist Canon, as it has come down to us, was closed after the Second Council was convened only to consider the ten deviations from the strict discipline of the earliest times for which Vinaya Piṭaka had no provision, the bulk of the Vinaya Piṭaka should have been completed before the Second Council at Vaiśalī. The verses of the Dhammapada were believed from very early times, from the period of the First Council, which settled the Canon, to have been utterances of the Buddha himself3.
The Chinese attribute the work to Ārya Dharmatrāta, though it is difficult to find his date4.
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1. mukhapāṭhena.
2. pottakesu likhāpayum (Mahāvaṁśa, p. 37).
3. Max Müller thinks that the writings commented on by Buddhaghoṣa date from the first century B.C. when Vaṭṭagāmani ordered the Sacred Canon to be reduced to writing (S. B. E., vol. x (1881), p. xiv).
4. Samuel Beal suggests that he lived about 70 B.C. See his Dhammapada (1902), p.9.
Buddhaghoṣa, source: the Facebook page "IIT—International Institute of Theravada," access date: April 09, 2024.
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The verses are generally connected with incidents in the life of the Buddha and illustrate the method of teaching adopted by him. In the Pāli commentary attributed to Buddhaghoṣa, the meaning of the verses is explained by references to parables believed to have been used by the Buddha, not only a wise teacher but a compassionate friend of his fellow men, in preaching to the multitudes that came to hear him.
The commentary on the Dhammapada, called Dhammapada Aṭṭhakathā is ascribed to Buddhaghoṣa, as is evident from the colophon. Buddhaghoṣa was a learned Brāhmin who was converted to Buddhism and flourished about A.D.400. He wrote commentaries on each of the four great collections or Nikāyas. His great work is the Visuddhimagga. His is the greatest name in the history of Pāli Buddhist scholasticism, and naturally, the authorship of the commentary on the Dhammapada was also attributed to him. But, as the language and the style of this commentary differ much form those of his well-known works, Visuddhimagga, the commentaries on the Vinaya, and the four greater Nikāyas, Buddhaghoṣa’s authorship is not generally accepted.
II. GAUTAMA THE BUDDHA
In Gautama the Buddha, we have a master mind from the East, second to none so far as the influence on the thought and life of the human race is concerned, and sacred to all as the founder of a religious tradition whose hold is hardly less wide and deep than any other. He belongs to the history of the world’s thought, to the general inheritance of all cultivated men; for judged by intellectual integrity, moral earnestness, and spiritual insight, he is undoubtedly one of the greatest figures in history.
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1. Life
Though his historical character has been called into question,1 there are few competent scholars, if any, at the present day who doubt that he was a historical person whose date can be fixed, whose life can be sketched at least in outline, and whose teachings on some of the essential problems of the philosophy of religion can be learned with reasonable certainty. I cannot here enter into a detailed justification for holding that certain parts of the early Canonical literature contain the recollections of those who had seen and heard the Master.2 It was a world in which writing was not much in use, so memories were more accurate and tenacious than is usual now.
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1. See Émile Senart, Essai sur la légende du Buddha (1875).
King Aśoka the Great was developed on June 23, 2024.
2. The tradition is that the Dharma and the Vinaya were rehearsed in a Council held immediately after the death of the Buddha and that a second Council was held a hundred years later at Vaiśalī, when the Vinaya was again recited, and ten errors of discipline were condemned. According to the Ceylonese school, the Third Buddhist Council was held in the time of Aśoka, about 247 B.C. From the Bhābrū edict of Aśoka, where seven passages which are identified with parts of the Sutta Piṭaka are cited for study by his co-religionists, it may be inferred that Buddhist texts of the type preserved in that book were in existence in Aśoka’s time. In the inscriptions at Sāñchi, the terms dhammakathika, ‘preacher of the Law,’ peṭaki, one who knows a Piṭaka, sutātikinī, one who knows a Suttanta, pañcanekāyika, one who knows the five Nikāyas, occur, and they indicate that Piṭakas, Dialogues, and the five Nikāyas were well known at the time. These inscriptions are admitted to be of the second century B.C. We may take it as fairly certain that the Canonical tradition was well established about the Aśoka. This fact is confirmed by the evidence of the Chinese translations and the discovery of Sanskrit texts answering to parts of five Nikāyas. Within the Canon itself there are strata of varying dates and signs of much addition and alteration, though the whole of it is said to be the word or preaching of the Buddha, buddhavacana or pravacana. It is clear that there has been a floating tradition from the time of the Buddha himself.
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This is evident from the fact that a document of a much earlier date, the Ṛg Veda, has come down to us, preserved in men’s memories, with fewer variant readings than many texts of late ages.1 Though the Buddhist documents have undergone a good deal of editing in later times, the memorable sayings and deeds of the Founder can be learned with moderate accuracy. The ornate supernatural elements and unhistorical narratives such as those about the marvels attending the birth of Gautama represent the reactions to his personality of his early followers, who were more devoted than discerning. There is, however, fundamental agreement between the Pāli Canon, the Ceylon Chronicles, and the Sanskrit works about the important events of his life, the picture of the world in which he moved, and the earliest form of his teaching. The stories of his childhood and youth have undoubtedly a mytical air, but there is no reason to distrust the traditional accounts of his lineage. He was born in the year 563 B.C.,2 the son of Śuddhodana of the Kṣatriya clan known as Śākya of Kapilavatu, on the Nepalese border, one hundred miles north of Benares. The spot was afterwards marked by the emperor Aśoke with a column which is still standing.3 His own name is Siddhārtha, Gautama being his family name. The priests who were present at his birth said that he would be an emperor (cakravartin) if he should consent to reign; he would become a Buddha, if he adopted the life of a wandering ascetic.
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1. Professor Madonell writes: ‘It appears that the kernel of Vedic tradition, as represented by the Ṛg Veda, has come down to us, with a high degree of fixity and remarkable care for verbal integrity, from a period which can hardly be less remote than 1000 B.C.’ (A History of Sanskrit Literature (1900), pp. 46-7).
2. Tradition is unanimous that he died in his eightieth year, and this date is assigned to 483 B.C. Vincent Smith thought that he died about 543 B.C. See Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1918, p.547; Oxford History of India (1923), p.48.
3. It bears an inscription: ‘When King Devānāmpriya Priyadarśin [Aśoka’s title in inscriptions] had been anointed twenty years, he came himself and worshipped this spot, because Buddha Śakyamuni was born here…. He caused a stone pillar to be set up (in order to show) that the Blessed one was born here’ (Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Aśoka (1925), p.164).
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Evidently the same individual could not be both an emperor and a Buddha, for renunciation of a worldly career was regarded as an indispensable preliminary for serious religion.
Sources, Vocabularies, and Narratives:
01. The Dhammapada: With Introductory Essays, Pali Text, English Translation, and Notes (Oxford India Paperbacks), Revised ed. Edition by S. Radhakrishnan, 2004.
02. The Buddha's words in THE DHAMMAPADA, by Royal Sage (Rajabundit) Sethiaphong Wannapok, ISBN: 974-497-496-6, 11th edition, Publisher: Dhammasabha and Bunleu-Dham Institute, Bangkok. 2009.
03. The Dhammapada, Introduced & Translated by Eknath Eswaran, Nilgiri Press, Second Edition, CA. USA., 2007.
