8. Translation

In translating the verses of the Dhammapada, I have followed the edition of the Pāli text, published in 1855 by Dr. Fausböll, and I have derived great advantage from his Latin translation, his notes, and his copious extracts from Buddhaghosa’s commentary. I have also consulted translations, either of the whole of the Dhammapada, or of portions of it, by Burnouf, Gogerly^[2], Upham, Weber, and others. Though it will be seen that in many places my translation differs from those of my predecessors, I can only claim for myself the name of a very humble gleaner in this field of Pāli literature. The greatest credit is due to Dr. Fausböll, whose editio princeps of the Dhammapada will mark for ever an important epoch in the history of Pāli scholarship; and though later critics have been able to point out some mistakes, both in his text and in his translation, the value of their labours is not to be compared with that of the work accomplished single-handed by that eminent Danish scholar.

In revising my translation, first published in 1870^[3], for

[1. Catena, p. 207.

2. Several of the chapters have been translated by Mr. Gogerly, and have appeared in The Friend, vol. iv, 1840. (Spence Hardy, Eastern Monachism, p. 169. )

3. Buddhaghosha’s Parables, translated from Burmese by Captain T. Rogers, R. E. With an Introduction, containing Buddha’s Dhammapada, translated from Pāli by F. Max Müller. London, 1870. ]

p. l the Sacred Books of the East, I have been able to avail myself of 'Notes on Dhammapada,' published by Childers in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (May, 1871), and of valuable hints as to the meaning of certain words and verses scattered about in the Pāli Dictionary of that much regretted scholar, 1875. I have carefully weighed the remarks of Mr. James D'Alwis in his 'Buddhist Nirvāṇa, a review of Max Müller’s Dhammapada' (Colombo, 1871), and accepted some of his suggestions. Some very successful renderings of a number of verses by Mr. Rhys Davids in his ('Buddhism,' and a French translation, too, of the Dhammapada, published by Fernand Hū^[1], have been consulted with advantage.

It was hoped for a time that much assistance for a more accurate understanding of this work might be derived from a Chinese translation of the Dhammapada^[2], of which Mr. S. Beal published an English translation in 1878. But this hope has not been entirely fulfilled. It was, no doubt, a discovery of great interest, when Mr. Beal announced that the text of the Dhammapada was not restricted to the southern Buddhists only, but that similar collections existed in the north, and had been translated into Chinese. It was equally important when Schiefner proved the existence of the same work in the sacred canon of the Tibetans. But as yet neither a Chinese nor a Tibetan translation of the Pāli Dhammapada has been rendered accessible to us by translations of these translations into English or German, and what we have received instead, cannot make up for what we had hoped for.

The state of the case is this. There are, as Mr. Beal informs us, four principal copies of what may be called Dhammapada in Chinese, the first dating from the Wu dynasty, about the beginning of the third century A. D. This translation, called Fa-kheu-king, is the work of a

[1. Le Dhammapada avec introduction et notes par Fernand Hū, suivi du Sutra en 42 articles, traduit du Tibetain, par Léon Feer. Paris, 1878.

2. Texts from the Buddhist Canon, commonly known as Dhammapada, translated from the Chinese by Samuel Beal. London, 1878. ]

p. li Shaman Wei-ci-lan and others. Its title means 'the Sūtra of Law verses,' kheu being explained by gāthā, a verse, a word which we shall meet with again in the Tibetan title, Gāthāsaṅgraha. In the preface the Chinese translator states that the Shamans in after ages copied from the canonical scriptures various gāthās, some of four lines and some of six, and attached to each set of verses a title, according to the subject therein explained. This work of extracting and collecting is ascribed to Tsun-ce-Fa-kieou, i. e. Ārya-Dharmatrāta, the author of the Saṃyuktābhidharma-śāstra and other works, and the uncle of Vasumitra. If this Vasumitra was the patriarch who took a prominent part in the Council under Kanishka, Dharmatrāta’s collection would belong to the first century B. C. ; but this is, as yet, very doubtful.

In the preface to the Fa-kheu-king we are told that the original, which consisted of 500 verses, was brought from India by Wai-ci-lan in 223 A. D. , and that it was translated into Chinese with the help of another Indian called Tsiang-sin. After the translation was finished, thirteen sections were added, making up the whole to 752 verses, 14,580 words, and 39 chapters^[1].

If the Chinese translation is compared with the Pāli text, it appears that the two agree from the 9th to the 35th chapter (with the exception of the 33rd), so far as their subjects are concerned, though the Chinese has in these chapters 79 verses more than the Pāli. But the Chinese translation has eight additional chapters in the beginning (viz. On Intemperance, Inciting to Wisdom; The Śrāvaka, Simple Faith, Observance of Duty, Reflection, Loving-kindness, Conversation), and four at the end (viz. Nirvāṇa, Birth and Death, Profit of Religion, and Good Fortune), and one between the 24th and 25th chapter of the Pāli text (viz. Advantageous Seivice), all of which are absent in our Pāli texts. This, the most ancient

[1. Beal, Dhammapada, p. 30. The real number of verses, however, is 760. In the Pāli text, too, there are five verses more than stated in the Index; see M. M. , Buddhaghosha’s Parables, p. ix, note; Beal, loc. cit. p. 11. note. ]

p. lii Chinese translation of Dharmatrāta’s work, has not been rendered into English by Mr. Beal, but he assures us that it is a faithful reproduction of the original. The book which he has chosen for translation is the Fa-kheu-pi-ü, i. e. parables connected with the Dhammapada, and translated into Chinese by two Shamans of the western Tsin dynasty (A. D. 265-313). These parables are meant to illustrate the teaching of the verses, like the parables of Buddhaghosa, but they are not the same parables, nor do they illustrate all the verses.

A third Chinese version is called Cuh-yan-king, i. e. the Sūtra of the Dawn (avadāna?), consisting of seven volumes. Its author was Dharmatrāta, its translator Cu-fo-nien (Buddhasmṛti), about 410 A. D. The MS. of the work is said to have been broght from India by a Shaman Saṅghabhadaṅga of Kipin (Cabul), about 345 A. D. It is a much more extensive work in 33 chapters, the last being, as in the Pāli text, on the Brāhmaṇa.

A fourth translation dates from the Sung dynasty (800 or 900 A. D. ), and in it, too, the authorship of the text is ascribed to Ārya-Dharmatrāta.

A Tibetan translation of a Dhammapada was discovered by Schiefner in the 28th volume of the Sūtras, in the collection called Udānavarga. It contains 33 chapters, and more than 1000 verses, of which about one-fourth only can be traced in the Pāli text. The same collection is found also in the Tanjur, vol. 71 of the Sūtras, foll. 1-53, followed by a commentary, the Udānavarga-vivaraṇa by the Ācārya Prajñāvarman. Unfortunately Schiefner’s intention of publishing a translation of it (Mélanges Asiatiques, tom. viii. p. 560) has been frustrated by his death. All that he gives us in his last paper is the Tibetan text with translation of another shorter collection, the Gāthāsaṅgraha by Vasubandhu, equally published in the 72nd volume of the Sūtras in the Tanjur, and accompanied by a commentary.

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