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 519

62
THE BOOK OF THE GREAT DECEASE.
CH,
Be steadfast in resolve! Keep watch o'er your
own hearts ! Who wearies not, but holds fast to this truth
and law, Shall cross this sea of life, shall make an end of
grief.
End of the Third Portion for Recitation 2.
Dhamma and vinaya. The Buddhist religion, as just summarised, and the regulations of the order.
It is of great interest to notice what are the points upon which Gotama, in this last address to his disciples, and at the solemn time when death was so near at hand, is reported to have lain such emphatic stress. Unfortunately we have only a fragment of the address, and, as it would seem from its commencement, only the closing fragment. This, however, is in the form of a summary, consisting of an enumeration of certain aggregates, the details of which must have been as familiar to the early Buddhists as the details of similar numerical terms—such as the ten commandments, the twelve tribes, the seven deadly sins, the four gospels, and so on-afterwards were to the Christians. This summary of the Buddha's last address may fairly be taken as a summary of Buddhism, which thus appears to be simply a system of earnest self-culture and self-control.
The following are the details of the aggregate technical terms used in the above summary, but it will be understood that the English equivalents used give rather a general than an exact representation of the ideas expressed by the Pali ones. To attempt more would demand a treatise rather than a note, and it has given me peculiar pleasure to learn, as these sheets are passing through the press, that my friend Dr. Morris intends to devote a book to the treatment of these seven 'Jewels of the Law, as the Kulla Vagga calls them (IX, 1, 4), which form, when united, the bright diadem of Nirvana. The four Earnest Meditations (kattaro Satipatthânâ) are
1. Meditation on the body. 2. Meditation on the sensations. 3. Meditation on the ideas. 4. Meditation on reason and character.
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