A Collection of Buddhist Wisdom Verses - Ancient Buddhist Texts

possible to the latter wherever it was possible, and indeed many
of the translations are identical between the editions.
However, there are occasionally ways in which I sought to make
the meaning of the text more clear and more natural for the
English edition. For instance, when making general statements
in English, we normally use the plural, so I have sometimes
changed the singular of the original into the plural here. 1
Where I have judged the verse to contain repetition or padding
that really adds nothing to the sense and has only been included
to fill out the metre I have taken the liberty of excluding it, in
order to get the message across in a more concise way.
I have generally taken the verses one at a time, but sometimes it
has seemed to me to give a more flowing translation to take two
verses together; and occasionally to redivide the verses
according to their sense.
Because of the decision to exclude annotation, I have
occasionally been obliged to include the commentarial definition
in the translation, where the meaning would be otherwise
unclear; but only rarely I have gone as far as paraphrase, when I
could see no other way of getting the teaching of the verse
across.
1 This has the added advantage of getting round the problem we face in
English with using the predominantly male voice in the singular.
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