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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
(vi) method of naming them would be, i think, to apply to them the name of the language in which they are composed. So far as the Tibetan or Chinese versions of some of these Dhammapada texts are concerned, they are to be considered as translations of one or other recension of the Dhammapada. The Chinese Fa-khen-hing, as may be judged from Beal's English translation of its commentary, the la-khrn-pi-n, is neither a faithful translation nor entirely a new compilation, but bears the character of both. special case is therefore to be made ont for it. It may be put down as a Chinese Recension in translation and considered along with a Pali, Prakrit or Sanskrit recension, upon which its translation portion is based. If, in the case of a particular Dhammapaula recension, or text, as we shoull also call it, 2.4., the Sanskrit Walnavarga, the faithful translations differ in expressions or in ileas, if it happens that there are two or more Tibetan translations of certain originals in Indian language which generally agree in contents and differ slightly liere and there, we cannot but admit that their originals were only so many recensions of only one text. If, applying this consideration to the study of two or more translations of a particular Dhammapada text, it appears that they differ cither in regard to the arrangement of chapters, the number and arrangement of verses and expres. sions, then we have to regard them as different versions based upon different recensions of the same text, leaving a sufficient margin for the errors of the translators as well as for the hlanders in the original manuscripts of the text from which the translations were made.
Now, coming to the question of the title on our text, it is clear and armitted on all lands that it is composed in a Prakrit dialect, and, as will be shown anon, it is on the wbole an original compilation, having some verses and ideas in common with other Dhanımapadla tex's that are now known to us in Pali, in Mixed Sanskrit or in Classical Sanskrit. It is this common substratim of the Dhammapada texts and the uniform plan and literary principle which they conform to wherein
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