Texts from the Buddhist canon : commonly known as Dhammapada

INTRODUCTION. 13
works contain the same succession of subjects, wMlst
there are seventy-nine more stanzas in the Chinese than
in the P41i throughout the chapters common to each.
We may reasonably gather from the entire considera-
tion that the version of Dhammapada by Dharmatr^ta,
which -was brought to China by Wei-chi-lan, -was itself
a recension of an earlier edition of the same •work
kno-wn in India— ^that Dharmatr§,ta, -whilst retaining the
number of chapters and their subjects of consideration,
added some additional stanzas to them, and that this -work
so revised or re-edited, was accepted by the Council held
under the presidency of his nephew Vasumitra, during
the reign of Kanishka, and thus acquired the reputation
of a canonical portion of the Tripitaka.l If, however, the
additions made to the number of stanzas in the different
chapters can be referred to the Chinese editors (themselves
Indians),then we may argue that the copies of Dhammapada,
known in the north and south, may both be compilations
of Dharmatrata, and that he was the first to draw up this
collection of texts and to give it (from his own personal
authority) the character of a canonical book.
With respect to the accuracy of the Chinese version, it
will be plain' to every Chinese scholar from the following
passage, that entire reliance may be placed on it. I will
select the twenty-fifth chapter of the PSli and the thirty-
fourth of the Chinese for comparison: the former contains
twenty-three stanzas, the latter thirty-two. The
title in the one case is " The Shaman," in the other " The
Bhikshu":
1 There are some references to Yaibh&shikas. It would not be sur-
Dharmatr4ta in M. Wassilief's work prising if we found that the edition
on "Buddhism" (le Eouddisme, of Dhammapada prepared by Dhar-
Paris, 1865) viz., in §§ 48, 50, 270. matrata, belonged to the Vaibh^ahika
From these it would seem that he school, whilst that known in Ceylon
was one of the great leaders of the was compiled by the Sautr&ntikas.