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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 Pali Dictionary of that much regretted scholar, 1875. I have carefully weighed the remarks of Mr. James D’Alwis in his ’Buddhist Nirvana, 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 H?, 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, 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 Pali 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 H?, 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-ki-lan and others. Its title means ’the S?tra of Law verses,’ kheu being explained by gatha, a verse, a word which we shall meet with again in the Tibetan title, Gathasangraha. In the preface the Chinese translator states that the Shamans in after ages copied from the canonical scriptures various gathas, 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-ke-Fa-kieou, i.e. ?rya-Dharmatrata, the author of the Samyuktabhidharma-sastra and other works, and the uncle of Vasumitra. If this Vasumitra was the patriarch who took a prominent part in the Council under Kanishka, Dharmatrata’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-ki-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.
If the Chinese translation is compared with the Pali 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 Pali. But the Chinese translation has eight additional chapters in the beginning (viz. On Intemperance, Inciting to Wisdom; The Sravaka, Simple Faith, Observance of Duty, Reflection, Loving-kindness, Conversation), and four at the end (viz. Nirvana, Birth and Death, Profit of Religion, and Good Fortune), and one between the 24th and 25th chapter of the Pali text (viz. Advantageous Seivice), all of which are absent in our Pali texts. This, the most ancient
p. lii Chinese translation of Dharmatrata’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.
[TheDhammapadaandTheSuttaNipata]TheDhammapada
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A third Chinese version is called Kuh-yan-king, i.e. the S?tra of the Dawn (avadana?), consisting of seven volumes. Its author was Dharmatrata, its translator Ku-fo-nien (Buddhasmriti), about 410 A.D. The MS. of the work is said to have been broght from India by a Shaman Sanghabhadanga of Kipin (Cabul), about 345 A.D. It is a much more extensive work in 33 chapters, the last being, as in the Pali text, on the Brahmana.
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 ?rya-Dharmatrata.
A Tibetan translation of a Dhammapada was discovered by Schiefner in the 28th volume of the S?tras, in the collection called Udanavarga. It contains 33 chapters, and more than 1000 verses, of which about one-fourth only can be traced in the Pali text. The same collection is found also in the Tangur, vol. 71 of the S?tras, foll. 1-53, followed by a commentary, the Udanavarga-vivarana by the ?karya Prag?avarman. 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 Gathasangraha by Vasubandhu, equally published in the 72nd volume of the S?tras in the Tangur, and accompanied by a commentary.
p. liii
SPELLING OF BUDDHIST TERMS.
I had on a former occasion pleaded so strongly in favour of retaining, as much as possible, the original Sanskrit forms of Pali Buddhist terms, that I feel bound to confess openly that I hold this opinion no longer, or, at all events, that I see it is hopeless to expect that Pali scholars will accept my proposal. My arguments were these: ’Most of the technical terms employed by Buddhist writers come from Sanskrit; and in the eyes of the philologist the various forms which they have assumed in Pali, in Burmese, in Tibetan, in Chinese, in Mongolian, are only so many corruptions of the same original forms. Everything, therefore, would seem to be in favour of retaining the Sanskrit forms throughout, and of writing, for instance, Nirvana instead of the Pali Nibbana, the Burmese Niban or Nepbhan, the Siamese Niruphan, the Chinese Nipan. The only hope, in fact, that writers on Buddhism will ever arrive at a uniform and generally intelligible phraseology seems to lie in their agreeing to use throughout the Sanskrit terms in their original form, instead of the various local disguises and disfigurements which they present in Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, Tibet, China, and Mongolia.’
I fully admitted that many Buddhist words have assumed such a strongly marked local or national character in the different countries and in the different languages in which the religion of Buddha has found a new home, that to translate them back into Sanskrit might seem as affected, nay, prove in certain cases as misleading, as if, in speaking of priests and kings, we were to speak of presbyters and cynings. The rule by which I meant mainly to be guided was to use the Sanskrit forms as much as possible; in fact, everywhere except where it seemed affected to do so. I therefore wrote Buddhaghosha instead of the Pali Buddhaghosa, because the name of that famous theologian, ’the Voice of Buddha,’ seemed to lose its significance if turned
p. liv into Buddhaghosa. But I was well aware what may be said on the other side. The name of Buddhaghosa, ’Voice of Buddha,’ was given him after he had been converted from Brahmanism to Buddhism, and it was given to him by people to whom the Pali word ghosa conveyed the same meaning as ghosha does to us. On the other hand, I retained the Pali Dhammapada instead of Dharmapada, simply because, as the title of a Pali book, it has become so familiar that to speak of it as Dharmapada seemed like speaking of another work. We are accustomed to speak of Samanas instead of Sramanas, for even in the days of Alexander’s conquest, the Sanskrit word Sramana had assumed the prakritized or vulgar form which we find in Pali, and which alone could have been rendered by the later Greek writers (first by Alexander Polyhistor, 80-60 B.C.) by {Greek: samanaioi}. As a Buddhist term, the Pali form Samana has so entirely supplanted that of Sramana that, even in the Dhammapada (v. 388), we find an etymology of Samana as derived from sam, ’to be quiet,’ and not from sram, ’to toil.’ But if we speak of Samanas, we ought also to speak of Bahmanas instead of Brahmanas, for this word had been replaced by bahmana at so early a time, that in the Dhammapada it is derived from a root vah, ’to remove, to separate, to cleanse.’
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I still believe that it would be best if writers on Buddhist literature and religion were to adopt Sanskrit throughout as the lingua franca. For an accurate understanding of the original meaning of most of the technical terms of Buddhism a knowledge of their Sanskrit form is indispensable; and nothing is lost, while much would be gained, if, even in the treating of southern Buddhism, we were to
[1. See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. ii. p. 700, note. That Lassen is right in taking the {Greek: Sarmanai}, mentioned by Megasthenes, for Brahmanic, not for Buddhist ascetics, might be proved also by their dress. Dresses made of the bark of trees are not strictly Buddhistic.
2. See Dhammapada, v. 388; Bastian. V?lker des ?stlichen Asien, vol iii. p. 412: ’Ein buddhistischer M?nch erkl?rte mir, dass die Brahmanen ihren Namen führten, als Leute, die ihre Sünden abgespült h?tten.’ See also Lalita-Vistara, p. 551, line 1; p. 553, line 7.]
p. lv speak of the town of Sravast? instead of Savatthi in Pali, Sevet in Sinhalese; of Tripitaka, ’the three baskets,’ instead of Tipitaka in Pali, Tunpitaka in Sinhalese; of Arthakatha, ’commentary,’ instead of Atthakatha in Pali, Atuwava in Sinhalese; and therefore also of Dharmapada, ’the path of virtue,’ instead of Dhammapada.
But inclinations are stronger than arguments. Pali scholars prefer their Pali terms, and I cannot blame them for it. Mr. D’Alwis (Buddhist Nirvana, p. 68) says: ’It will be seen how very difficult it is to follow the rule rigidly. We are, therefore, inclined to believe that in translating Pali works, at least, much inconvenience may not be felt by the retention of the forms of the language in which the Buddhist doctrines were originally delivered.’ For the sake of uniformity, therefore, I have given up my former plan. I use the Pali forms when I quote from Pali, but I still prefer the Sanskrit forms, not only when I quote from Sanskrit Buddhist books, but also when I have to speak of Buddhism in general. I speak of Nirvana, dharma, and bhikshu, rather than of Nibbana, dhamma, and bhikkhu, when discussing the meaning of these words without special reference to southern Buddhism; but when treating of the literature and religion of the Theravada school I must so far yield to the arguments of Pali scholars as to admit that it is but fair to use their language when speaking of their opinions.