Dhammapada

A Buddhist sacred text, one of the best-known and most translated books of the Pali canon (Tipitaka), included within the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka, composed in Pali — the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism — and made up of 423 aphoristic verses grouped into twenty-six thematic chapters, traditionally regarded as a collection of maxims spoken by the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama himself on various occasions throughout his ministry, though modern textual criticism recognises it as probably a later compilation of oral teachings transmitted and systematised by the early monastic community. The term 'dhammapada' can be roughly translated as 'verses of the doctrine' or 'the path of truth', and the text functions as an accessible, memorisable synthesis of the fundamental ethical and psychological principles of early Buddhism, without the more elaborate philosophical and cosmological apparatus of other canonical texts. Its verses address themes such as the impermanence of all things, the origin of suffering in desire and attachment, the decisive importance of disciplining the mind ('mind is everything: what you think you become'), karma as a law of moral cause and effect, and the superiority of self-control and compassion over violence and revenge — the chapter devoted to non-violence (Dandavagga) is among the most frequently cited in the whole of Buddhist literature. Precisely because of its aphoristic brevity, its near-total absence of specialised technical terminology and the universality of its ethical message, the Dhammapada has become, alongside the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most translated Asian religious texts into Western languages since the nineteenth century, often the first point of contact a Western reader has with Buddhist thought, and it continues to be recited and memorised daily by millions of Buddhists worldwide, especially within the Theravada traditions of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.

1 works

• The Dhammapada