A Comparative Edition of the Dhammapada

1
Introduction
Texts of the early Buddhist tradition are preserved in Pāḷi, Gāndhārī, and various other
forms of Sanskritised Prakrit; 1 besides being found in Chinese and Tibetan translation. Of
the MIA versions the only one that has come down to us in anything like a complete
recension is preserved in the Pāḷi Tipiṭaka, 2 and it is certainly the Pāḷi texts, mainly in
modern translations, that constitute the best known version of the early teachings, which
is not surprising as they belong to a living Buddhist tradition.
Of the Pāḷi texts the Dhammapada is perhaps the best-loved collection of the Buddha’s
teachings. There have been many editions, 3 and almost innumerable translations of this
ever-popular text in nearly all modern languages. 4 And in countries that have a
Theravāda tradition there is a copy of the book in most Buddhist homes, and many people
know at least some of the verses by heart.
Apart from the Pāḷi Dhammapada, however, there are comparable collections of the
Dharmapadāni verses available in complete, or very nearly complete, editions in three
other MIA recensions, and these parallels can often throw light on the early teachings,
and act as a complement, and sometimes also as a corrective, to the Pāḷi verses. There are
also parallels to individual verses found in other texts belonging to the early Buddhist
traditions of other schools. 5
1
This term seems to me to be preferable to the usual Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit or Mixed
Sanskrit, which makes it sound as if we are dealing with forms of Sanskrit, whereas the
languages underlying all the early texts, including Pāḷi, are forms of Prakrit that have
been Sanskritised to a greater or lesser degree.
2
The Tipiṭaka, of course, contains texts of various ages, but undoubtedly in the four main
nikāyas it preserves a fairly reliable recension of the original teaching.
3
The main editions in Roman script were made by V. Fausböll (1855, 2nd ed. London,
1900); S. Sumangala Thera (London, 1914); D.J. Kalupahana (Lanham, 1986); J.R.
Carter & M. Palihawadana (Oxford, 1987); O. von Hinüber & K.R. Norman (Oxford,
1994). I also made a New Edition myself in 2002, which is the text used here.
4
For a survey of the Dhammapada translations up to 1989, see Russel Webb: The
Dhammapada - East and West (Buddhist Studies Review 6.2 1989: 166-175).
5
According to Bhikkhu Kuala Lumpur Dhammajoti, in The Chinese Version of
Dharmapada (Colombo, 1995, p. 26), there are "2 versions of the Dharmapada and 2
versions of the Udānavarga in Chinese ... and two or three versions of the Udānavarga
in Tibetan".
Moreover, there are parallels in the Jaina and Brahmanical traditions. Jaina Parallels
have been enumerated by W.B. Bollée, in his Reverse Index of the Dhammapada,
Suttanipāta, Thera- and Therīgāthā Pādas with Parallels from the Āyāraṅga, Sūyagaḍa,
Uttarajjhāyā, Dasaveyāliya and Isibhāsiyāiṁ (Reinbek, 1983).
The Brahmanical parallels have been collected by W. Rau in his essay: "Bermerkungen
und nicht-buddhistische Sanskrit-Parallelen zum Pāli-Dhammapada", which was
published in Jñānamuktāvalī. Commemoration Volume in Honour of Johannes Nobel...
edited by Claus Vogel (New Delhi, 1959).
None of these, however, have been dealt with here, as we are concerned in this work with
the relationship of the recensions of the verses in the various collections made in MIA.