Dhammapada

SR No.: 007674
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Max Muller
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2540
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 45 MB

Page 50

INTRODUCTION.
xlvii
footing in the Good Law, showed (preached) the holy Path of the Law.'
Gogerly, again, who may generally be taken as a faithful representative of the tradition of the Buddhists still preserved in Ceylon, translates the title by the Footsteps of Religion,' so that there can be little doubt that the priests of that island accept Dhammapada in the sense of Vestiges of Religion,' or, from a different point of view, 'The Path of Virtue.
M. L. Feer takes a slightly different view, and assigning to pada the meaning of foot or base, he translates Dhammapada by Loi fondamentale, or Base de la Religion.
But it cannot be denied that the title of Dhammapada was very soon understood in a different sense also, namely, as 'Sentences of Religion.' Pada means certainly a foot of a verse, a verse, or a line, and dhammapadam actually occurs in the sense of a 'religious sentence.' Thus we read in verse 102, 'Though a man recite a hundred Gâthâs made up of senseless words, one dhammapadam, i.e. one single word or line of the law, is better, which if a man hears, he becomes quiet.' But here we see at once the difficulty of translating the title of.dhammapadam' by 'religious sentences.' Dhammapadam means one law verse, or wise saw, not many. Professor Fausböll, who in his excellent edition of the Dhammapada translated that title by a collection of verses on religion,' appeals to such passages as verses 44 and 102 in support of his interpretation. But in verse 42 dhammapadam sudesitam, even if it does not mean the path of the law, could never mean'versus legis bene enarratos,' but only versum legis bene enarratum, as Dr. Fausböll himself renders ekam dhammapadam, in verse 102, by unus legis versus. Buddhaghosa, too, when he speaks of many law verses uses the plural, for instance ?, 'Be it known that the Gatha consists of the Dhammapadâni, Theragâthà, Therîgâthâ, and those unmixed (detached) Gâthâ not comprehended in any of the above-named Suttânta.'
* Revue Critique, 1870, p. 378.
D’Alwis, Pali Grammar, p. 61.
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