It should be remembered, also, that the idea of representing life, and particularly the life of the faithful, as a path of duty or virtue leading to deliverance, (in Sanskrit dharmapatha,) is very familiar to Buddhists. The four great truths of their religion[4] consist in the recognition of the following principles: 1. that there is suffering; 2. that there is a cause of that suffering; 3. that such cause can be removed; 4. that there is a way of deliverance, viz. the doctrine of Buddha. This way is the ashtanga-marga, the eightfold way[5], taught by Buddha, and leading to Nirvana[6]. The faithful advances on that road, padat padam,

[1. See M. M.'s Sanskrit Grammar, § 519.

2. Mr. D'Alwis' arguments (Buddhist Nirvana, pp. 63-67) in support of this view, viz. the dhammapada may be a collective term, do not seem to me to strengthen my own conjecture.

3. Dhammapada from Chinese, p. 4.

4. Spence Hardy, Manual, p. 496.

5. Burnouf, Lotus, p. 520, 'Ajoutons, pour terminer ce que nous trouvons a dire sur le mot magga, quelque commentaire qu'on en donne d'ailleurs, que suivant une definition rapportee par Turnour, le magga renferme une sous-division que l'on nomme patipada, en sanscrit pratipad. Le magga, dit Tumour, est la voie qui conduit au Nibbana, la patipada, litteralement "la marche pas a pas, ou le degre," est la vie de rectitude qu'on doit suivre, quand on marche dans la voie du magga.'

6. See Spence Hardy, Manual, p. 496. Should not katurvidha-dharmapada, mentioned on p. 497, be translated by 'the fourfold path of the Law?' It can hardly be the fourfold word of the Law.]

p. xlix step by step, and it is therefore called patipada, lit. the step by step.

If we make allowance for these ambiguities, inherent in the name of Dhammapada, we may well understand how the Buddhists themselves play with the word pada (see v. 45). Thus we read in Mr. Beal's translation of a Chinese version of the Pratimoksha[1]:

'Let all those who desire such birth,
Who now are living in the world,
Guard and preselve these Precepts, as feet.'

TRANSLATION.