The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha (Oxford World’s

The Dhammapada, the Pali version of one of the most popular texts of the Buddhist canon, ranks among the classics of the world’s great religious literature.
Like all religious texts in Pali, the Dhammapada belongs to the Therevâda school of the Buddhist tradition, adherents of which are now found primarily in Kampuchea, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Dhammapada, or “sayings of the dhamma,” is taken to be a collection of the utterances of the Buddha himself. Taken together, the verses form a key body of teaching within Buddhism, a guiding voice along the struggle-laden path towards true enlightenment, or Nirvana. However, the appeal of these epithets of wisdom extends beyond its religious heritage to a general and universal spirituality.
This edition provides an introduction and notes which examine the impact that the text has had within the Buddhist heritage through the centuries.

The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha (Oxford World’s Classics)

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• ISBN13: 9780199555130
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User Reviews

a wonderful little book. inspiring. it is clear in these verses that perception... which exists even without the i is the root of all mental/physical processes. loving kindness is advocated though attachment discouraged. an interesting and no doubt attainable goal. i myself value attachment, but without clinging. another paradox/conflict. to me caring reqires a degree of attachment.

the wisdom in this book 'is' profound. awareness, the ability to see and to hear, is something we all have. this seeing is normal and yet when practiced in the humdrum of modern life it is unusual, this is since most of us are thinking so much that we never have time to see, hear, smell or taste anything deeply. and yet all of this is about engaging the heart through the mind. since it is the heart that is touched by perception and not the mind (recepticle of thought). the grass is green in shepherds bush, the busses are bussy driving the roads, the pigeons are happy. they are well fed. when it snows it snows, even in the spring, when the sunshines it is warm. all of this is real, it is thouroughly real, and yet it defies existence. full and yet empty. what is is what is, even what isnt... this is perception.

ive been giving perception a look at this past couple of weeks, and break it down like this:

perception/awareness = understanding, without understanding there can be no perception, since perception is understanding.

understanding = thought + process + speed.

thought = mental cognition + time + effort.
process = time + function + action.
speed = certainty + time + function.

function = understanding + speech + listening.
time = clarity + vision + express.
express = form + function + action.

the above is a way of breaking down perception. but after all this it teaches us only that through the effort of looking into things we see them more clearly... my favourite tools here are action and function, both very important in developing understanding/perception. it is through action and the elements in function that we give and it is through giving that we receive. there is wisdom in both speaking and listening, and these two are intimately linked to understanding. with action it is our physical prescense and active participation in the world that engenders understanding.

"preceded by perception are mental states" and yet mental states engender perception, it works both ways, a circle, one side giving to the other.

what isnt is what isnt, except what is and this too is what isnt. whatever you seek for you find. perception writes what it 'wants' to write when it 'wants' to write. in other words it is what we want that deifnes or filters what we percieve. if we wish to be an optimist we filter everything through the lense of optimism. if we wish to be a pessimist we filter everything through the lense of pessimism. and therefore i say that what we want defines our perception. if we did not want to see the world as 'not such a bad place' then we would not seek to see it as such, and not seeking such we dont find such.

infact what he wants can make a man happy in a cell, or miserable in a palace. we must become aware of what we want, knowing such we will filter reality seeking for this thing we want and as such we shall end up perceiving (finding) it.

perception is 'truth'(understanding). if one seeks emptiness then one finds emptiness, if one seeks form then one finds form. if one seeks both as one 'empty form' then that is what one finds, but these are things and are not 'truth' itself. so in order to find truth one must want truth... not emptiness nor form. wanting truth one will seek truth, seeking truth, one will find it. truth is 'understanding'. do you understand truth or do you understand a thing? you may think that a thing is true, therefore this is an aspect of understanding truth, if you can understand how you are understanding!

take time to disengage the thought process, stop thinking for a while and start feeling (this too requires understanding). start sensing, seeing, feeling... how do all things affect your emotions. a painting. the radiant green of the grass. but you will see if you practice that throughout this emotional engagement thoughts play an integral part within the feeling process, ie judgements are involved..

are you awake? yes... and no. when you know that you are awake... really awake this truth will come to you. for many years i was not awake... but when you know that the only thing you do know about yourself is that you are awake and that this is. then you are awake... there is a process that leads to this point. it cannot be without a process of searching... seek and ye shall find.

oh well, enough of my patronising nonsense, see things as they are, as they are not.

love, snow-flake. xxx

ps. "he who delights in awareness goes burning like a fire the fetters subtle and gross". the first thing is to be 'aware' of a blemish - negative feeling or thought. secondly one praises the negative thought for its subtlety and cleverness, its craft and for the goodness it will become, then one talks to it -first listening to what it has to say. then you project feelings of love at the blemish, then you bless it for the goodness it will be and bless it with blessings of loving kindness, happiness and permanence by the power of ones own present, past and future virtue and if you want... the love of the one true God, who is loving kindness himself. the final stage is to bless the person or thing against which the negative thought or feeling has arisen.

by this process one sweeps and cleans away blemishes "the one who has arrived at the destination, free from fright, craving and 'blemish', has broken the knives of existence". love. tc. -- Inspiring

The Dhammapada is a deeply-inspiring religious text and the best-known work of the Theravada Buddhist canon. It consists of 423 short verses arranged in 26 chapters which cover, in brief form, the major aspects of the Buddha's teachings from the most mundane to the deepest. About 25 percent of the verses appear elsewhere in the Theravada Buddhist canon. In many Buddhist countries, children memorize this text which has much to teach both the learned and the simple. In its combination of simplicity and depth, the closest analogue to the Dhammapada in the Jewish-Christian Scriptures is the book of Psalms.

The Dhammapada has been well-served by many excellent translations. The translation under review here, by John Ross Carter, Professor of Philosophy at Colgate University, and Mahinda Palhawandana, Professer of Sanskrit Emeritus in Sri Lanka, is unique in its care and in the scope of its learning. In addition to the text, this translation includes line-by-line translations of the earliest Sri Lankan commentaries on the Dhammapada. These commentaries were written over the course of many centuries and systematized in about 1000 A.D. There is a separate and later series of commentaries on the text in which stories were written to illustrate the events that gave rise to the Buddha's utterance of each verse. These stories are not included here, but they are summarized in another well-known translation of the Dhammapada by the monk Narada, which I shall mention below.

This edition begins with a scholarly introduction to the text and the commentaries followed by an English rendition of the text of the Dhammapada without commentary. The next section of the book repeats the English translation together with the Pali text with the addition of the extensive commentary. Each chapter is arranged in accordance with the commentarial arrangement in which some verses are considered singly and others are combined in groups. Following the translation of text and commentary, there is a series of notes. Some of these notes deal with points of grammar while others describe in detail points of Buddhist teaching to illuminate the text and commentary.

The goal of this detailed presentation is to make the Dhammapada and its ancient interpretations available so that the interested reader may study the text with his or her own eyes. As Carter and Palihawanana state in their introduction (p. 9):

"It was our endeavor to make this work as much as possible a 'stitching of the centuries'. What this reveals is on the one hand the prodoundly evocative power of the religious sentiments expressed in the text, and on the other the conservatism of the tradition that interprets the text as we see in these documents. ... But from the way we set about it, what is of singular importance is the arrangement of this book: presenting the text itself as a text and presenting the history of its study in the setting of a growing tradition of interpretation....We wanted to make the text, as something in human hands, to point forward from the past through present into the future."

I want to give two brief examples from the translation. First, verse 183 of the Dhammapada is universally regarded as offering the shortest, most basic statement of the Buddha's teaching. Here it is in Carter and Palihawadana:

"Refraining from all that is detrimental,
The attainment of what is wholesome,
The purification of one's mind:
This is the instruction of Awakened Ones."

Note how the translation avoids the use of the word "bad" in line one and "good" in line two. Many might question this. But the point of this translation is to avoid the theistic connotations many Western readers will bring to the words "good" and "bad". Also note the term "Awakened Ones" in the final line rather than the more literal and traditional translation, "all the Buddhas". The difference points in the direction of universalizing the teaching rather than, perhaps, limiting it by sectarianism.

I want to look briefly at verse 1 of the Dhammapada which is basic to much of what follows in the text. It is also perhaps the most difficult verse in the work. Here it is in Carter and Palihawadana:

"Preceded by perception are mental states,
For them is perception supreme,
From perception have they sprung.
If, with perception polluted, one speaks or acts,
Thence suffering follows
As a wheel the draught ox's foot."

Most translation of verse 1 speak in terms of "the mind." Thus, Narada translates the beginning of the verse: "Mind is the forerunner of (all evil) states. Mind is chief: mind-made are they." ... Carter and Palihawadana try to present the text in a way that will not encourage the Western reader to equate it with the idealism of Plato or Berkeley. The verse remains a difficult and deep teaching on any reading.

I have the good fortune to participate in a Sutta Study Group where we read the Dhammapada chapter-by-chapter over the course of about one year. We used Carter and Palihawadana together with several other translations, as we discussed and debated and tried to understand the Dhammapada together.

The reader may not by lucky enough to have access to such a group, but the Dhammapada is a work that will reward individual study at any level. Some readers may find Carter and Palihawandana more than they need to begin. But for those wanting to make a detailed study of this great text, this work is invaluable.
-- A Scholarly Dhammapada

Carter and Palihawadana have done an excellet job keeping close to the Pali with their 1987 work.

If the chapters sound stilted and harsh to the Western ears, then that may have more to do with the awkwardness of the English language which often fails to simply render the spiritual depths of the heart of the Buddha adequately.

The layout of the book is of three parts:
Introduction, The Text and the Text With Transliteration and Commentary.

The introduction by Jaroslav Pelikan, a noted Yale historian with an academic knowledge of organized religion, notes that this is a long-distance collaboration where the originaly manuscript may have been a lot of ocean voyages on its own.

The Text covers the English translation from Chapters 1 to 26.

If the text is dry in parts, it might be because both authors may not have had the luxury of a long ocean voyage during which such allusions to the spiritual ocean of mercy and love (compassion) may have had time to be realized as the complement of the spiritual wisdom hinted at through the academic knowledge contained in Pelikan's introduction, Carter's invisible hand at the Text, and Palihawadana's translation and philological commentary.

However, the lack of numbered reference notes to match the citations throughout Palihawadana left me eager for the pages that match the numbered references with the proper citations.

Indeed, there are 63 such references awaiting final resolution. Yet the commentaries are very edifying and always delight me with a somewhat greater familitarity with Pali than before I opened the book. -- Dhammapada as close to the Pali as the Buddha is to the hear

This is one of the finest versions of the classic Theravada text out there. Carter and Palihawadana managed to strike the perfect balance of getting the timeless message of the Buddha's teaching across while at the same time presenting it in a straight foward, easy to understand manner. Those who are unfamiliar with The Dhammapada will find this translation very accessible while those who are will greatly appreciate beautiful wisdom-filled verses that Carter and Palihawadana have so eloquently preserved. The Introduction and explanatory notes throughout the text also provide a great deal of rich knowledge which adds even more depth to this most cherished of work of Buddhist literature. -- Excellent Translation

I have previously read classic Max Muller's version and some translations foud at numerous web-pages. I think this is clearly
the best of them. Carter and Palihawadana have retained texts lyric style but still their ambition is to bring autentic text as such to us. Hence reader have to use glossary where most importánt words and referensees are. I may be a bit annoying but
If you really want know exactly what what is in original dhammapada you has to use such method. Some at web "intreprete"
too much, then the text may look easier but It may go also wrong.
Only negative comment is that people to which english is not native language, text may have too mamy many fine but unfamiliar words. I recommend this book. It is one of the classics of Worlds religious teachings. -- Fine translation

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