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 1
First revision: Nov.13, 2022
Last change: Jan.14, 2025
Searched, Gathered, and Rearranged by Buddhist: Apirak Kanchanakongkha.
1.
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.
1.
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 of
Prayurawongsawas Woraviharn Temple (Wat Prayoon), former disciple 11, period 1975-1983.
1.
2.
page 1
INTRODUCTION
I. THE DHAMMAPADA
1.
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.
1.
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.
---------------
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.
1.
2.
page 2
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.
1.
The Chinese attribute the work to Ārya Dharmatrāta, though it is difficult to find his date4.
---------------
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. 1.
page 3
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.
1.
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.
1.
2.
3.
II. GAUTAMA THE BUDDHA
1.
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.
1.
2.
page 4
1.
2.
1. Life
1.
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.
---------------
1. See Émile Senart, Essai sur la légende du Buddha (1875).
1.
King Aśoka the Great was developed on June 23, 2024.
1.
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.
1.
2.
page 5
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.
Mahāmāyā Devi Vihārn, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, with the Aśoka Pillar in front. Photographed on January 2, 2025, at Lumbini Vana, Nepal.
---------------
1. Professor Macdonell 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 (to show) that the Blessed One was born here’ (Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Aśoka (1925), p.164).
1.
2.
page 6
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. We learn from the Sutta Nipāta the story of an aged seer named Asita who came to see the child, and more or less in the manner of Simeon prophesied the future greatness of the child and wept at the thought that he himself would not live to see it and hear the new gospel. The mother died seven days after the birth of the child, and her sister Mahāprajāpatī, Śuddhodana’s second wife, brought up the baby. In due course Gautama married his cousin Yaśodharā1 and had a son Rāhula. The story that Gautama’s father was particular that chance or the will of the gods set in his path an old man broken and decrepit, a sick man, a dead man, and a wandering ascetic, which last inspired him with the desire to seek in the religious life peace and serenity, indicates that Gautama was of a religious temperament and found the pleasures and ambitions of the world unsatisfying. The ideal of the mendicant life attracted him and we hear frequently in his discourses of the ‘highest goal of the holy life for the sake of which clansmen leave their homes and go forth into homelessness’.2 The efforts of his father to turn his mind to secular interests failed, and at the age of twenty-nine he left his home, put on the ascetic’s garb, and started his career as a wandering seeker of truth. This was the great renunciation.3 of religion on the Indian mind and the ardors and agonies which it was willing to face for gaining the religious end.
---------------
1. Other names are also mentioned, Bhaddakaccā, Gopā.
2. Cf. the Bŗhad-āraņyaka Up.: ‘Knowing him, the ātman, the Brahmins relinquish the desire for posterity, the desire for possessions, the desire for worldly prosperity and go forth as mendicants’ (bhikşācaryāṁ caranti) (iii. 5).
3. In the later legend, his separation from his wife becomes the theme of an affecting tale.
1.
2.
page 7
Gautama’s search led him to become the disciple of the Brāhmin ascetics Ālāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, who instructed him in their own doctrine (dharma) and discipline (vinaya). He possibly learnt from them the need for belief, good conduct, and the practice of meditation, though the content of their teaching seemed to him unsound. The cure for the sorrows of the world was not to be found in the endless logomachines of the speculative thinkers. Determined to attain illumination by the practice of asceticism, he withdrew with five disciples to Uruvelā, ‘a pleasant spot and a beautiful forest’, soothing to the senses and stimulating to the mind. It is a general assumption in India that a holy life is led most easily in peaceful and beautiful landscapes which give a sense of repose and inspiration. Her temples and monasteries are on the banks of rivers or tops of hills, and all her emphasis on piety never made her forget the importance of scenery and climate for the effort of religion. In this beautiful site Gautama chose to devote himself to the severest forms of asceticism. Just as fire cannot be produced by friction from damp wood, but only from dry wood, seekers whose passions are not calmed, he thought, cannot attain enlightenment. He accordingly started a series of severe fasts, practiced exercises of meditation, and inflicted on himself terrible austerities. Weakness of body brought on lassitude of spirit. Though often during this period he found himself at death’s door, he got no glimpse of the riddle of life. He therefore decided that asceticism was not the way to enlightenment and tried to think out another way to it. He remembered how once in his youth he had an experience of mystic contemplation, and now tried to pursue that line. Legend tells us that, at this crisis, Gautama was assailed by Marā, thre temper, who sought in vain, by all manner of terrors and temptations, to shake him from his purpose. These indicate that his inner life was not undisturbed and continuous, and it was with a mental struggle that he broke away from old beliefs to try new methods.
1.
2.
page 8
He persisted in his meditations1 and passed through the four stages of contemplation culminating in pure self-possession and equanimity. He saw the whole universe as a system of law, composed of striving creatures, happy or unhappy, noble, or mean, continually passing away from one form of existence and taking shape in another. In the last watch of the night ‘ignorance was destroyed, knowledge had arisen … as I sat there, earnest, strenuous, resolute.’ Gautama had attained bodhi or illumination and became the Buddha, the enlightened one.2
While the Buddha was hesitating whether he should attempt to proclaim his teaching, the Scriptures say that the deity Brahmā besought him to preach the truth. This means, perhaps, that as he was debating within himself as to what he should do, he received a warning, somewhat similar to that delivered by the demon of Socrates, against withdrawal from life. He concludes that ‘the doors of immortality are open. Let them that have ears to hear show faith,’ and starts on his ministry. He not merely preached, which is easy, but lived the kind of life which he taught that men should live. He adopted a mendicant missionary’s life with all its dangers of poverty, unpopularity, and opposition. He converted in the first place the five disciples who had borne him company in the years of his asceticism, and in the deer park, ‘where ascetics were allowed to dwell and animals might not be killed,’ at the modern Sārnāth, he preached his first sermon. Disciples began to flock to him.
---------------
1. Cf. Lalitavisara:
ihāsane śuşyatu me śarīraṁ
tvagasthimāṁsaṁ pralayaṁ ca yātu
aprāpya bodhiṁ bahukalpadurlabhaṁ
naivāsanat kāyam etat calişyati
2. The name ‘Buddha’ is a title like Christ or Messiah, only it is not confined to one individual. On the site in Bodhgaya, where Gautama is said to have attained enlightenment, stands the Mahabodhi temple.
1.
2.
page 9
At the end of three months there were sixty, including the beloved Ānanda, the companion of all his wanderings. He said to them one day: ‘Go now and wander for the gain of many, for the welfare of many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, for the gain and for the welfare of goods and men. Let not two of you go the same way. Preach the doctrine, which is glorious in the beginning, glorious in the middle, and glorious in the end, in the spirit and in the letter: proclaim a consummate, perfect and pure life of holiness.’ The Buddha himself travelled far and wide for forty-five years and gathered many followers. Brāhmins and monks, hermits and outcasts, Nobel ladies, and repentant sinners joined the community. Much of the Buddha’s activity was concerned with the instruction of his disciples and the organization of the Order. In our times he would be taken for an intellectual. When we read his discourses, we are impressed by his spirit of reason. His ethical path has for its first step right views, a rational outlook. He endeavors to brush aside all cobwebs that interfere with mankind’s vision of itself and its destiny. He questions his hearers who appear full of wisdom, though really without it, challenges them to relate their empty words of vague piety to facts. It was a period when many professed to have direct knowledge of God. They tell us with assurance not only whether He is or is not but also what He thinks, wills, and does. The Buddha convicts many of them of putting on spiritual airs. In the Tevijja Sutta he declares that the teachers who talk about Brahma have not seen him face to face. They are like a man in love who cannot say who the lady is, or like one who wishing to cross a river who should call the other side to come to him.1 Many of us have the religious sense and disposition, but are not clear as to the object to which this sense is directed.
---------------
1. Dīgha, i. 235.
1.
2.
page 10
Devotion, to be reasonable, must be founded on truth. The Buddha explains to them the significance of brahmavihāra, or dwelling with Brahma, as a certain kind of meditation, a state of mind where love utterly free from hatred and malice obtains for all. It is not, of course, nirvāņa, to which the eight-fold path is the means.
In view of the variety of counsel he advised his disciples to test by logic and life the different programs submitted to them and not to accept anything out of regard for their authors. He did not make an exception of himself. He says: ‘Accept not what you hear by report, accept not tradition: do not hastily conclude that “it must so.” Do not accept a statement on the ground that it is found in our books, nor on the supposition that “this is acceptable,” nor because it is the saying of your teacher.’1 With a touching solicitude he begs his followers not to be hampered in their thought by the prestige of his name.
---------------
1. “This I have said to you, O Kālāmās, but you may accept it, not because it is a report, not because it is a tradition, not because it is so said in the past, not because it is given from the scripture, not for the sake of discussion, not for the sake of a particular method, not for the sake of careful consideration, not for the sake of forbearing with wrong views, not because it appears to be suitable, not because your preceptor is a recluse, but if you yourselves understand that this is so meritorious and blameless, and, when accepted, is for benefit and happiness, then you may accept it.’ iti kho kālāmā yaṁ taṁ avocumha – ettha tumhe kālāmā mā anussavena mā paramparāya mā itikirāyā vā mā piṭakasampādanena mā takkahetu mā nayahetu ākāra-paravitakkena mā jhānakkhantiyā mā bhavyarūpatāya mā samaṇo no garūti, yadā tumhe kālāmā attanā vā jāneyyātha – ime dhammā kusalā ime dhammā anavajjā ime dhammā viňňupasaṭṭhā ime dhammā Samattā samādinnā hitāya sukhāya saṁvattantiti atha tumhe kālāmā upasampajja vihareyyāthā ti – iti yaṁ taṁ vuttam etam paṭicca vuttam. (Aṅguttara, iii. 653.) ‘Would you then, mendicants, thus knowing, this seeing, say thus, “Esteemed is our teacher (satthā) and out of esteem for the teacher we say thus”?’ ‘Not so, revered sir.’ ‘What you say, mendicants, is it not what you yourselves know, yourselves perceive, yourselves have comprehended?” It is so, revered sir.’ Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta.
Cf. also: ‘As the wise test gold by burning, cutting and robbing it (on a piece of touchstone), so are you to accept my words after examining them and not merely out of regard for me.’
Tāpāc chedāc ca nikaṣāt suvarṇam iva paṇḍitaiḥ
Parīkṣya bhikṣavo grāhyaṁ madvaco na tu gauravāt.
(Jňānasāra-samuccaya, 31.)
1.
2.
page 11
‘Such faith have I, Lord,’ said Sāriputta, ‘that methinks there never has been nor will be nor is now any other greater or wiser than the Blessed One.’ Of course, Sāriputta,’ is reply, ‘you have known all the Buddhas of the past?’ ‘No, Lord.’ ‘Well then, you know those of the future?’ ‘No, Lord.’ ‘Then at least you know me and have penetrated my mind thoroughly?’ ‘Not even that, Lord.’ ‘Then why, Sariputta, are your words so grand and bold?” There is nothing esoteric about his teaching. He speaks with scorn of those who profess to have secret truths. ‘O disciples, there are three to whom secrecy belongs and not openness. Who are they? Secrecy belongs to women, not openness; secrecy belongs to priestly wisdom, not openness; secrecy belongs to false doctrine, not openness.… The doctrines and the rules proclaimed by the perfect Buddha shine before all the world and not in secret,’ Speaking to his disciple Ānanda shortly before the death, the Buddha says: ‘I have preached the truth without making any distinction between exoteric and esoteric doctrine; for in respect of the truths Ānanda, the Tathāgata has no such things back.”1 In many of his discourses he is represented as arguing with his interlocutors in a more or less Socratic manner, and persuading them insensibly to accept positions different from those from which they started. He would not let his adherents refuse the burden of spiritual liberty. They must not abandon the search for truth by accepting an authority. They must be free men able to be a light and a help to themselves. He continues: ‘Be ye as those who have the self as their light.
---------------
1. Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta, 32.
page 12
Be ye as those who have the self as their refuge. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as to a refuge.’1 The highest seat of authority is the voice of the spirit in us. There is little of what we call dogma in the Buddha’s teaching. With a breadth of view rare in that age and not common in ours he refuses to stifle criticism. Intolerance seemed to him the greatest enemy of religion. Once he entered a public hall at Ambalatthika and found some of his disciples talking of a Brahmin who had just been accusing Gautama of impiety and finding fault with the Order of mendicants he had founded. ‘Brethren’, said Gautama, ‘if others speak against me, or against my religion, or against the Order, there is no reason why you should be angry, discontented, or displeased with them. If you are so, you will not only bring yourselves into danger of spiritual loss, but you will not be able to judge whether what they say is correct or not correct’ – a most enlightened sentiment, even after 2,500 years of energetic enlightenment. Doctrines are not more or less true simply because they happen to flatter or wound our prejudices. There was no paradox, however strange, no heresy, however extreme, that the Buddha was unwilling or afraid to consider. He was sure that the only way to meet the confusion and extravagance of the age was by patient sifting of opinions and by helping men to rebuild their lives on a foundation of reason. He denounced unfair criticism of other creeds. ‘It is’, he said, ‘as a man who looks up and spits at heaven; the spittle does not soil the heaven, but comes back and defiles his own person.’
There was never an occasion when the Buddha flamed forth in anger, never an incident when an unkind word escaped his lips. He had vast tolerance for his kind. He thought of the world as ignorant than wicked, as unsatisfactory rather than rebellious.
---------------
1. attadīpa attasaraṇa, anaňňasaraṇa; dhammadīpa dhmmasaraṇa (Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta, 33; see also 35.).
1.
2.
page 13
He met opposition with calm and confidence. There was no nervous irritability of fierce anger about him. His conduct was the perfect expression of courtesy and good feeling with a spice of irony in it. On one of his rounds he was repulsed by a householder with bitter words of abuse. He replied: ‘Friend, if a householder sets food before a beggar, but the beggar refuses to accept the food, to whom does the food then belong? The man replied: ‘Why, to the householder of course.’ The Buddha said: ‘Then, If I refuse to accept your abuse and ill will, it returns to you, does it not? But I must go away the poorer because I have lost a friend.’1 Conversion by compulsion was unknown to him. Practice, not belief, is the foundation of his system. He wished to create a temper and a habit. We are unhappy because of our foolish desires. To make ourselves happy all that is necessary is to make ourselves a new heart and see with new eyes.
---------------
1. Majjhima, 75.
1.
2.
3.
References:
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.
