Texts from the Buddhist Canon

Commonly Known as Dhammapada

Samuel Beal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136376924
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Ethnische Studien

This is Volume IV of sixteen in the Oriental series on Buddhism. First published in 1878, this book includes texts from the Buddhist Canon or 'Dhammapada' with narratives. Dhammapada may be rendered Scriptural texts or verses includes, authentic Texts gathered from ancient canonical books-that are generally connected with some incident or other in the History of Buddha, helping to illustrate everyday life in India at the time when they were written, as well as the method of teaching adopted by the founder of tis religion.

Preface

to the

Chinese Version of Dhammapada.

THERE are four principal copies of Dhammapada in Chinese. The first, approaching most nearly to the Pâli, was made by a Shaman “Wei-chi-lan” (and others), who lived during the Wu dynasty, about the beginning of the third century of the Christian era. As this is the earliest version, we will consider it first.

The title by which it is known is Fa-kheu-King,¹ that is, “The Sûtra of Law Verses.” The symbol kheu (

)does not necessarily mean “a verse,” but is applied to any sentence or phrase : the rendering “Law texts” or “Scripture texts” would therefore be more correct were it not that in the Preface to this work the symbol is explained by “Gâthâ,” which is stated by Childers (sub voce) to mean “a verse or stanza,” or generally “a çloka or anushṭubh stanza.” Nothing can be more precise than the language of the Chinese Preface (to which I have alluded in the “Report on the Catalogue of the Chinese Tripiṭaka,” p. 113), in which it is stated that the work we are considering is the “Tan-po-këě,”

which can only be restored to Dharmagâ-thâpadaḿ, and as gâthâpadam is used for “a stanza,” we come back to the meaning of “Scripture, or Law-stanzas.” Of course, the Chinese affords no assistance in solving the question “whether ‘pada,’ in the singular, can ever mean a collection of verses,”² and the other difficulties attaching to the correct rendering of this word from the Pâli; but as an independent testimony to the sense of the expression “Dhammapada,” as it was understood by the old translators in China, it may be of value.³ The Preface further explains that these verses are “choice selections from all the Sûtras,” which agrees with what we know from actual comparison, as also from the testimony of independent writers.⁴ The Chinese Sûtras, e.g., contain many passages found in Dhammapada—compare the following, p. 49 : “As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower or its colour and scent, so let the sage dwell upon earth,” with Catena, p. 150, “As the butterfly alights on the flower and destroys not its form or its sweetness, but takes a sip and then departs, so the mendicant follower of Buddha (sage) takes not nor hurts another’s possessions.” And the stanza following this (No. 50) is but a part of the same traditional record as coming from a former Buddha (Wessabha) : “Not the failure of others, nor their sins of commission or omission, but his own misdeeds and negligences should the sage take notice of.” So in the Chinese : “He observes not another man’s actions or omissions, looks only to his own behaviour and conduct.” (Op. cit., p. 159.) Again, let us compare v. 183 with the Chinese record of Konagamana Buddha (Catena, 159), “Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one’s mind, this is the teaching of the Awakened;” the Chinese is, “Practising no evil way, advancing in the exercise of virtue, purifying both mind and will, this is the doctrine of all the Buddhas.” Again, stanza 214 in the Pâli is this, “From lust comes grief, from lust comes fear, he who is free from lust knows neither grief nor fear.” This is evidently the same as the testimony of Kâsyapa Buddha, “A man from lust engenders sorrow, and from sorrow guilty fear; banish lust and there will be no sorrow, and if no sorrow then no guilty fear.” (Catena, p. 200.) Without quoting further at length, we will simply note a few other agreements, e.g., compare stanza 239 with Catena, p. 201, § 34; stanza 281 with the record of Kâsyapa (Catena, 159) ; stanza 292 with p. 264 (op. cit.); stanza 372 with p. 247 (op. cit) ; and in many other cases. But perhaps the most curious agreement is to be found in various stanzas which occur in the Chinese version of the “Lankâvatâra Sûtra,” which was translated into Chinese by a priest Gunabhadra, early in the Sung dynasty (Circ. 420 A.D.). Of these I shall only select one as throwing some light on a difficult verse in the Pâli ; I refer to vv. 294, 295, which run thus : “A true Brahmana, though he has killed father and mother and two valiant kings, though he has destroyed a kingdom with, all its subjects, is free from guilt.”

“A true Brahmana, though he has killed father and mother and two holy kings, and even a fifth man, is free from guilt.”

With respect to these verses, both. Professor Max Müller and Professor Childers are inclined to regard them as showing that a truly holy man who commits such sins as those specified is nevertheless guiltless. But in the third book, p. 3, of the “Lankâvatâra Sûtra” we find the following exposition of this doctrine :—“At this time Mahâmati Bodhisatwa addressed Buddha and said, ‘According to the assertion of the Great Teacher, if a male or female disciple should commit either of the unpardonable sins, he or she, nevertheless, shall not be cast into hell. World-honoured One ! how can this be, that such a disciple shall escape though guilty of such sins ?’ To whom Buddha replied, ‘Mahâmati ! attend, and weigh my words well !.... What are these five unpardonable sins of which, you speak ? They are these, to slay father or mother, to wound a Rahat, to offend (i.e., to place a stumbling-block in the way of) the members of the sañgha (church), to draw the blood from the body of a Buddha. Mahâmati ! say, then, how a man committing these sins can be guiltless ? In this way ;—is not Love (Taṇhá) which covets pleasure more and more, and so produces ‘birth’ —is not this the mother (mâtâ) of all ? And is not ‘ignorance’ (avidyâ) the father (pitâ) of all ? To destroy these two, then, is to slay father and mother. And again, to cut off and destroy those ten ‘kleshas’ (Ch. shi) which like the rat, or the secret poison, work invisibly, and to get rid of all the consequences of these faults (i.e., to destroy all material associations), this is to wound a Rahat. And so to cause offence and overthrow a church or assembly, what is this but to separate entirely the connection of the five skan-dhas? (‘five aggregates,’ which, is the same word as that used above for the ‘Church.’) And again, to draw the blood of a Buddha, what is this but to wound and get rid of the seven-fold body by the three methods of escape. (The seven-fold body, literally ‘the body with seven kinds of knowledge’—the number seven in this connection evidently runs parallel with the seven Buddhas, whose blood is supposed to be spilt ; the three methods of escape are the same as the three ‘yânas,’ or vehicles ; viz., Srâvakas, Bodhisatwas, Buddhas). Thus it is, Maliâmati, the holy male or female disciple may slay father and mother, wound a Rahat, overthrow the assembly, draw the blood of Buddha, and yet escape the punishment of the lowest hell (avîchi). And in order to explain and enforce this more fully, the World-honoured One added the following stanzas:—

‘Lust, or carnal desire, this is the Mother,

“Ignorance,” this is the Father,

The highest point of knowledge, this is Buddha,

All the “Kleshas” these are the Rahats,

The five Skandhas, these are the Priests,

To commit the five unpardonable sins

Is to destroy these five

And yet not suffer the pains of hell.’”

These comparisons will be sufficient to show the plan of the work under consideration, and to confirm the statement of. the writer of the preface, “that these stanzas are but choice selections from the various Sûtras.”⁵ We shall now understand the remark that “there are various arrangements or editions of the Dhammapada” (Chinese Preface), for it seems plain that these selections from the canonical books were not made at any one time, or generally accepted in their present form, until a much later period than the compilation of the Sûtras themselves. The language of the Preface is equally distinct on this point, “It was from these works, viz., the Canonical Scriptures, that the Shamans in after ages copied out various Gâthâs, some of four lines, and some of six lines,⁶ and attached to each set of verses a title according to the subject therein explained.” We may thus account for the various editions of the work which exist in China, compiled from original versions in India, shewing that there existed in that country also not one, but several copies of these “excerpta.” We must accept Dhammapada then in its present form, simply as a redaction made at an early period from canonical books, for the purpose of ready reference, or as a religious “vade-mecum.”

The Chinese copies of this work, without exception, refer its first arrangement to the venerable Dharmatrâta⁷ (vid. Julien, sub voce Fâ-kἰeou, iii. p. 441). The difficulty is to find out when Dharmatrâta lived. He was certainly the author of the Samyuktâbhidharma Shaster—but although the Chinese version of this book is before me, it gives no clue to the time in which its author flourished. Burnouf (Introduction, pp. 566, 567) alludes to the Sthavira Dharmatrâta, otherwise Bhadanta Dharmatrâta, as one of the most illustrious of the earliest Apostles of Buddhism. But there is much confusion in the whole matter. Whether Sthavira Dharmatrâta is a different personage from Bhadanta Dharmatrâta, and when either of them lived is not explained. Suffice it to say, that the author of Dhammapada is all along spoken of in our Chinese books as “Tsun-che-fă-kἰeou,” that is, Ârya Dharmatrâta, and in the preface to the “Ch’uh-yau-king” he is said to have been the uncle of “Po-su-meh,” i.e., Vasumitra. If this patriarch be the one “who took a principal part in the last revision of the Canon, as the President of the Synod under Kanishka” (Eitel, sub voce, Vasumitra), then we have fair ground for assigning him an approximate date. Kanishka we assume to have reigned about 40 B.C., and if so, then Dharmatrâta may with much probability be placed some thirty years earlier—or about 70 B.C.

The question to be considered now is whether it is likely that a book compiled at this date would have gained such, authority as to be accepted as semi-canonical by the numerous translators who flocked to China some two or three hundred years afterwards. (We dismiss for the present the consideration of the relation of this work to that known in the South.) Considering the wonderful impetus given to Buddhist research at the time alluded to, there can be no difficulty in accepting this position. The writings of Asañgha, Vasubandhu, Nâgârjuna, Vasnmitra, and others who lived during the first century B.C., are accepted in the Northern School of Buddhism as authoritative. They have just that weight and character which works written by those called “Fathers of the Christian Church.” have in Christendom. In the Chinese Tripitaka there is no effort to conceal the human composition of these books. On the title page of every Shaster the author’s name is given—they are called “Sûtras” or “Shasters”—but...