CHAPTER 1. The Twin Verses 3
" 2. On Earnestness 9
" 3. Thought 12
" 4. Flowers 16
" 5. The Fool 20
" 6. The Wise Man (Pandita) 23
" 7. The Venerable (Arhat) 27
" 8. The Thousands 31
" 9. Evil 34
" 10. Punishment 36
" 11. Old Age 41
" 12. Self 45
" 13. The World 47
" 14. The Buddha (the Awakened) 49
" 15. Happiness 53
" 16. Pleasure 56
" 17. Anger 58
" 18. Impurity 60
" 19. The Just 64
" 20. The Way 67
" 21. Miscellaneous 70
" 22. The Downward Course 74
" 23. The Elephant 77
" 24. Thirst 80
" 25. The Bhikshu (Mendicant) 85
" 26. The Brahmana (Arhat) 89
Index 97

p. ix

INTRODUCTION

TO

THE DHAMMAPADA.

THE DHAMMAPADA, A CANONICAL BOOK.

THE Dhammapada forms part of the Pali Buddhist canon, though its exact place varies according to different authorities, and we have not as yet a sufficient number of complete MSS. of the Tipitaka to help us to decide the question[1].

Those who divide that canon into three Pitakas or baskets, the Vinaya-pitaka, Sutta-pitaka, and Abhidhamma-pitaka, assign the Dhammapada to the Sutta-pitaka. That Pitaka consists of five Nikayas: the Digha-nikaya, the Magghima-nikaya, the Samyutta-nikaya, the Anguttara-nikaya, and the Khuddaka-nikaya. The fifth, or Khuddaka-nikaya, comprehends the following works: 1. Khuddaka-patha; 2. DHAMMAPADA; 3. Udana; 4. Itivuttaka; 5. Sutta-nipata; 6. Vimanavatthu; 7. Petavatthu; 8. Theragatha; 9. Therigatha; 10. Gataka; 11. Niddesa; 12. Patisambhida; 13. Apadana; 14. Buddhavamsa; 15. Kariya-pitaka.

According to another division[2], however, the whole Buddhist canon consists of five Nikayas: the Digha-nikaya, the Magghima-nikaya, the Samyutta-nikaya, the Anguttara-nikaya, and the fifth, the Khuddaka-nikaya, which Khuddaka-nikaya is then made to comprehend the whole of the Vinaya (discipline) and Abhidhamma (metaphysics), together with the fifteen books beginning with the Khuddaka-patha.

The order of these fifteen books varies, and even, as it would seem, their number. The Dighabhanaka school

[1. see Feer, Journal Asiatique, 1871, p. 263. There is now at least one complete MS. of the Tipitaka, the Phayre MS., at the India Office, and Professor Forchhammer has just published a most useful List of Pali MSS. collected in Burma, the largest collection hitherto known.

2. See Childers, s. v. Nikaya, and extracts from Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Brahmagala-sutta.]