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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
( 100 )
('f. Fa-khel-pii-u, sec. XVI. (" The Thousands"),
p. 104 :
"A man may be able to l'epeat many books, but if he
cannot explain them, what profit is there in this ? But to explain ove sentence of the Law; and to walk accordingly, this is the way to find suprenie wisdom”.
Cf. Udanav., cb. xxiv. (“ Numbers "), v. 2 :
“It is better to speak one word of the law which brings
one nigh unto peace, than to recite a bundred gätlås which are not of the law".
Notes.--These four verses (2-5) are very much alike, differing
only, in the words of M. Senart, in some differentiation of detail. All of them teach that one Dhammapada gūthū, full of poetry and meaning, is far better and valuable than 80 many hundreds, thousands or millions (as the Jātaka puts it) of the Vedic hymns regarded as dealing with useless subjects, i.e., setting forth, in the langu ge of the Dhammapada-Comy., the descriptions of the sky, the mountains, the forest and the like, which do not throw light on the path to salvation (ākāsarannanā-pabbatavaņņanā-vana. rannanadini pakāsakehi aniyyānailipakehi anaithakehi padehi sanhitāyil va balukā honti). History, however, goes to prove that the Buddhists themselves, especially the Mabāyānists, were not immune from the same kind of adverse criticism not only from the modern critics, but at the hands of their brethren, the advocates of the Sahajiyā doctrine?.
Verse 1.-Eka vaya pada would correspond to a Pāli ekarir nācapadan. Şebha=Pāli seyyn, Sk. y eyar. The th may be accounted for as due to the influence of the final or which is dropped in both Pāli and Prakrit. Similarly the # may be said to have been due to the desire to compensate for the lost sound r in śr.
Soo Dr. R. I.. Mitra's olxorvations in the introvluction to his cdition of the Astashasrika Prnjildprumita (Bibl. indice scricu).
• Handdha Gau.o. Doha, p. 88.
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