|
By Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.
There
are many versions of the Dhammapada now extant: several recensions of the Pali
Dhammapada from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand; two incomplete
manuscripts of a Gandhari Dharmapada found in central Asia; and a manuscript of
a Buddhist Hybrid-Sanskrit Dharmapada found in a library in Tibet, called the
Patna Dharmapada because photographs of this manuscript are now kept in Patna,
India. There is also a Chinese translation of the Dharmapada made in the third
century C.E. from a Prakrit original, now no longer extant, similar to -- but
not identical with -- the Pali Dhammapada. Parts of a Dharmapada text are
included in the Mahavastu, a text belonging to the Lokottaravadin Mahasanghika
school. In addition, there are Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese versions of a
text called the Udanavarga, which is known in at least four recensions, all of
them containing many verses in common with the Dhammapada/Dharmapada (Dhp)
texts. To further complicate matters, there are Jain anthologies that contain
verses clearly related to some of those found in these Buddhist anthologies as
well.
Despite
the many similarities among these texts, they contain enough discrepancies to
have fueled a small scholarly industry. The different recensions of the Pali
Dhp contain so many variant readings that there isn't yet -- even after more
than a century of Western scholarship on the topic -- a single edition covering
them all. The discrepancies among the Pali and non-Pali versions are even
greater. They arrange verses in different orders, each contains verses not
found in the others, and among the verses in different versions that are
related, the similarity in terms of imagery or message is sometimes fairly
tenuous.
Fortunately
for anyone looking to the Dhp for spiritual guidance, the differences among the
various recensions -- though many in number -- range in importance from fairly
minor to minor in the extreme. Allowing for a few obvious scribal errors, none
of them fall outside the pale of what has long been accepted as standard early
Buddhist doctrine as derived from the Pali discourses. For example, does the
milk in verse 71 come out, or does it curdle? Is the bond in verse 346 subtle,
slack, or elastic? Is the brahman in verse 393 happy, or is he pure? For all
practical purposes, these questions hardly matter. They become important only
when one is forced to take sides in choosing which version to translate, and
even then the nature of the choice is like that of a conductor deciding which
of the many versions of a Handel oratorio to perform.
Unfortunately
for the translator, though, the scholarly discussions that have grown around
these issues have tended to blow them all out of proportion, to the point where
they call into question the authenticity of the Dhp as a whole. Because the
scholars who have devoted themselves to this topic have come up with such
contradictory advice for the potential translator -- including the suggestion
that it's a waste of time to translate some of the verses at all -- we need to
sort through the discussions to see what, if any, reliable guidance they give.
Those
who have worked on the issues raised by the variant versions of Dhp have, by
and large, directed the discussion to figuring out which version is the oldest
and most authentic, and which versions are later and more corrupt. Lacking any
outside landmarks against which the versions can be sighted, scholars have
attempted to reconstruct what must have been the earliest version by
triangulating among the texts themselves. This textual trigonometry tends to
rely on assumptions from among the following three types:
1) Assumptions concerning what is
inherently an earlier or later form of a verse. These assumptions are the
least reliable of the three, for they involve no truly objective criteria. If,
for instance, two versions of a verse differ in that one is more internally
consistent than the other, the consistent version will seem more genuine to one
scholar, whereas another scholar will attribute the consistency to later
efforts to "clean up" the verse. Similarly, if one version contains a
rendition of a verse different from all other renditions of the same verse, one
scholar will see that as a sign of deviance; another, as a sign of the
authenticity that may have predated a later standardization among the texts.
Thus the conclusions drawn by different scholars based on these assumptions
tell us more about the scholars' presuppositions than they do about the texts
themselves.
2) Assumptions concerning the meter
of the verses in question. One of the great advances in recent Pali
scholarship has been the rediscovery of the metrical rules underlying early
Pali poetry. As the Buddha himself is quoted as saying, "Meter is the
structural framework of verses." (S.I.60) Knowledge of metrical rules thus
helps the editor or translator spot which readings of a verse deviate from the
structure of a standard meter, and which ones follow it. Theoretically, the
obvious choice would be to adopt the latter and reject the former. In practice,
however, the issue is not so clear-cut. Early Pali poetry dates from a time of
great metrical experimentation, and so there is always the possibility that a
particular poem was composed in an experimental meter that never achieved
widespread recognition. There is also the possibility that -- as the poetry was
spontaneous and oral -- a fair amount of metrical license was allowed. This
means that the more "correct" forms of a verse may have been the
products of a later attempt to fit the poetry into standard molds. Thus the
conclusions based on the assumption of standard meters are not as totally
reliable as they might seem.
3) Assumptions concerning the
language in which the original Dhp was first composed. These assumptions
require an extensive knowledge of Middle Indic dialects. A scholar will assume
a particular dialect to have been the original language of the text, and will
further make assumptions about the types of translation mistakes that might
have been common when translating from that dialect into the languages of the texts
we now have. The textual trigonometry based on these assumptions often involves
such complicated methods of sighting and computation that it can produce an
"original" version of the text that is just that: very original,
coinciding with none of the versions extant. In other words, where the current
variants of a verse might be a, b, and c, the added assumption
about the Dhp's original language and the ineptitude of ancient translators and
copyists leads to the conclusion that the verse must have been d.
However, for all the impressive erudition that this method involves, not even
the most learned scholar can offer any proof as to what the Dhp's original
language was. In fact, as we will consider below, it is possible that the
Buddha -- assuming that he was the author of the verses -- composed poetry in
more than one language, and more than one version of a particular verse. So, as
with the first set of assumptions, the methods of triangulation based on an
assumed original language of the Dhp tell us more about the individual
scholar's position than they do about the position of the text.
Thus,
although the scholarship devoted to the different recensions of the Dhp has
provided a useful service in unearthing so many variant readings of the text,
none of the assumptions used in trying sort through those readings for
"the original" Dhp have led to any definite conclusions. Their
positive success has been limited mainly to offering food for academic
speculation and educated guesses. On the negative side, though, they have
succeeded in accomplishing something totally useless: a wholesale sense of
distrust for the early Buddhist texts, and the poetic texts in particular. If
the texts contain so many varying reports, the feeling goes, and if their
translators and transmitters were so incompetent, how can any of them be
trusted? This distrust comes from accepting, unconsciously, the assumptions
concerning authorship and authenticity within which our modern, predominately
literate culture operates: that only one version of a verse could have been
composed by its original author, and that all other versions must be later
corruptions. In terms of the Dhp, this comes down to assuming that there was
only one original version of the text, and that it was composed in a single
language.
However,
these assumptions are totally inappropriate for analyzing the oral culture in
which the Buddha taught and in which the verses of the Dhp were first
anthologized. If we look carefully at the nature of that culture -- and in
particular at clear statements from the early Buddhist texts concerning the
events and principles that shaped those texts -- we will see that it is
perfectly natural that there should be a variety of reports about the Buddha's
teachings, all of which might be essentially correct. In terms of the Dhp, we
can view the multiple versions of the text as a sign, not of faulty
transmission, but of an allegiance to their oral origins.
Oral
prose and poetry are very different from their written counterparts. This fact
is obvious even in our own culture. However, we have to make an active effort
of the imagination to comprehend the expectations placed on oral transmission
between speakers and listeners in a culture where there is no written word to
fall back on. In such a setting, the verbal heritage is maintained totally
through repetition and memorization. A speaker with something new to say has to
repeat it often to different audiences -- who, if they feel inspired by the
message, are expected to memorize at least its essential parts. Because
communication is face-to-face, a speaker is particularly prized for an ability
to tailor his/her message to the moment of communication, in terms of the
audience's background from the past, its state of mind at present, and its
hoped-for benefits in the future.
This
puts a double imperative on both the speaker and the listener. The speaker must
choose his/her words with an eye both to how they will affect the audience in
the present and to how they will be memorized for future reference. The
listener must be attentive, both to appreciate the immediate impact of the
words and to memorize them for future use. Although originality in teaching is
appreciated, it is only one of a constellation of virtues expected of a
teacher. Other expected virtues include a knowledge of common culture and an
ability to play with that knowledge for the desired effect in terms of
immediate impact or memorability. The Pali Dhp (verse 45) itself makes this
point in comparing the act of teaching, not to creating something totally new
out of nothing, but to selecting among available flowers to create a pleasing
arrangement just right for the occasion.
Of
course, there are situations in an oral culture where either immediate impact
or memorability is emphasized at the expense of the other. In a classroom,
listening for impact is sacrificed to the needs of listening for memorization,
whereas in a theater, the emphasis is reversed. All indications show, however,
that the Buddha as a teacher was especially alive to both aspects of oral
communication, and that he trained his listeners to be alive to both as well.
On the one hand, the repetitious style of many of his recorded teachings seems
to have been aimed at making them easy to memorize; also, at the end of many of
his discourses, he would summarize the main points of the discussion in an
easy-to-memorize verse. On the other hand, there are many reports of instances
in which his listeners gained immediate Awakening while listening to his words.
And, there is a delightful section in one of his discourses (the Samaññaphala
Suttanta, D.2) satirizing the teachers of other religious sects for their
inability to break away from the formulaic mode of their teachings to give a
direct answer to specific questions ("It's as if, when asked about a
mango, one were to answer with a breadfruit," one of the interlocutors
comments, "or, when asked about a breadfruit, to answer with a
mango.") The Buddha, in contrast, was famous for his ability to speak directly
to his listeners' needs.
This
sensitivity to both present impact and future use is in line with two
well-known Buddhist teachings: first, the basic Buddhist principle of
causality, that an act has repercussions both in the present and on into the future;
second, the Buddha's realization, early on in his teaching career, that some of
his listeners would attain Awakening immediately on hearing his words, whereas
others would be able to awaken only after taking his words, contemplating them,
and putting them into prolonged practice.
A
survey of the Buddha's prose discourses recorded in the Pali Canon gives an
idea of how the Buddha met the double demands placed on him as a teacher. In
some cases, to respond to a particular situation, he would formulate an
entirely original teaching. In others, he would simply repeat a formulaic
answer that he kept in store for general use: either teachings original with
him, or more traditional teachings -- sometime lightly tailored, sometimes not
-- that fit in with his message. In still others, he would take formulaic bits
and pieces, and combine them in a new way for the needs at hand. A survey of
his poetry reveals the same range of material: original works; set pieces --
original or borrowed, occasionally altered in line with the occasion; and
recyclings of old fragments in new juxtapositions.
Thus,
although the Buddha insisted that all his teachings had the same taste -- that
of release -- he taught different variations on the theme of that taste to
different people on different occasions, in line with his perception of their
short- and long-term needs. In reciting a verse to a particular audience, he
might change a word, a line, or an image, to fit in with their backgrounds and
individual needs.
Adding
to this potential for variety was the fact that the people of northern India in
his time spoke a number of different dialects, each with its own traditions of
poetry and prose. The Pali Cullavagga (V.33.1) records the Buddha as insisting
that his listeners memorize his teachings, not in a standardized lingua
franca, but in their own dialects. There is no way of knowing whether he
himself was multi-lingual enough to teach all of his students in their own
dialects, or expected them to make the translations themselves. Still, it seems
likely that, as a well-educated aristocrat of the time, he would have been
fluent in at least two or three of the most prevalent dialects. Some of the
discourses -- such as D. 21 -- depict the Buddha as an articulate connoisseur
of poetry and song, so we can expect that he would also have been sensitive to
the special problems involved in the effective translation of poetry -- alive,
for instance, to the fact that skilled translation requires more than simply
substituting equivalent words. The Mahavagga (V.13.9) reports that the Buddha
listened, with appreciation, as a monk from the southern country of Avanti
recited some of his teachings -- apparently in the Avanti dialect -- in his
presence. Although scholars have often raised questions about which language
the Buddha spoke, it might be more appropriate to remain open to the
possibility that he spoke -- and could compose poetry in -- several. This
possibility makes the question of "the" original language or
"the" original text of the Dhp somewhat irrelevant.
The
texts suggest that even during the Buddha's lifetime his students made efforts
to collect and memorize a standardized body of his teachings under a rubric of
nine categories: dialogues, narratives of mixed prose and verse, explanations,
verses, spontaneous exclamations, quotations, birth stories, amazing events,
question and answer sessions. However, the act of collecting and memorizing was
pursued by only a sub-group among his monks, while other monks, nuns, and lay
people doubtlessly had their own individual memorized stores of teachings they
had heard directly from the Buddha or indirectly through the reports of their
friends and acquaintances.
The
Buddha had the foresight to ensure that this less standardized fund of memories
not be discounted by later generations; at the same time, he established norms
so that mistaken reports, deviating from the principles of his teachings, would
not be allowed to creep into the accepted body of doctrine. To discourage
fabricated reports of his words, he warned that anyone who put words in his
mouth was slandering him (AN II.23). This, however, could in no way prevent
mistaken reports based on honest misunderstandings. So, shortly before his
death, he summarized the basic principles of his teachings: the 37 Wings to
Awakening (bodhi-pakkhiya dhamma -- see note to verse 301) in the
general framework of the development of virtue, concentration, and discernment,
leading to release. Then he announced the general norms by which reports of his
teachings were to be judged. The Maha-Parinibbana Suttanta (D.16) quotes him as
saying:
"There
is the case where a monk says this: 'In the Blessed One's presence have I heard
this, in the Blessed One's presence have I received this... In the presence of
a community with well-known leading elders... In a monastery with many learned
elders who know the tradition... In the presence of a single elder who knows
the tradition have I heard this, in his presence have I received this: This is
the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the Teacher's instruction.' His
statement is neither to be approved nor scorned. Without approval or scorn,
take careful note of his words and make them stand against the discourses and
tally them against the Vinaya. If, on making them stand against the discourses
and tallying them against the Vinaya, you find that they don't stand with the
discourses or tally with the Vinaya, you may conclude: 'This is not the word of
the Blessed One; this monk has misunderstood it' -- and you should reject it.
But if... they stand with the discourses and tally with the Vinaya, you may
conclude: 'This is the word of the Blessed One; this monk has understood it
rightly.'"
Thus,
a report of the Buddha's teachings was to be judged, not on the authority of
the reporter or his sources, but on the principle of consistency: did it fit in
with what was already known of the doctrine? This principle was designed to
ensure that nothing at odds with the original would be accepted into the
standard canon, but it did open the possibility that teachings in line with the
Buddha's, yet not actually spoken by him, might find their way in. The early
redactors of the canon seem to have been alert to this possibility, but not
overly worried by it. As the Buddha himself pointed out many times, he did not
design or create the Dhamma. He simply found it in nature. Anyone who developed
the pitch of mental strengths and abilities needed for Awakening could discover
the same principles as well. Thus the Dhamma was by no means exclusively his.
This
attitude was carried over into the passages of the Vinaya that cite four
categories of Dhamma statements: spoken by the Buddha, spoken by his disciples,
spoken by seers (non-Buddhist sages), spoken by heavenly beings. As long as a
statement was in accordance with the basic principles, the question of who
first stated it did not matter. In an oral culture, where a saying might be
associated with a person because he authored it, approved it, repeated it
often, or inspired it by his/her words or actions, the question of authorship
was not the overriding concern it has since become in literate cultures. The
recent discovery of evidence that a number of teachings associated with the
Buddha may have pre- or post-dated his time would not have fazed the early Buddhists
at all, as long as those teachings were in accordance with the original
principles.
Shortly
after the Buddha's passing away, the Cullavagga (XI) reports, his disciples met
to agree on a standardized canon of his teachings, abandoning the earlier nine-fold
classification and organizing the material into something approaching the canon
we have today. There is clear evidence that some of the passages in the extant
canon do not date to the first convocation, as they report incidents that took
place afterwards. The question naturally arises as to whether there are any
other later additions not so obvious. This question is particularly relevant
with regard to texts like the Dhp, whose organization differs considerably from
redaction to redaction, and leads naturally to the further question of whether
a later addition to the canon can be considered authentic. The Cullavagga
(XI.1.11) recounts an incident that sheds light on this issue:
Now
at that time, Ven. Purana was wandering on a tour of the Southern Hills with a
large community of monks, approximately 500 in all. Then, having stayed as long
as he liked in the Southern Hills while the elder monks were standardizing the
Dhamma and Vinaya, he went to the Bamboo Park, the Squirrels' Sanctuary, in
Rajagaha. On arrival, he went to the elder monks and, after exchanging
pleasantries, sat to one side. As he was sitting there, they said to him,
"Friend Purana, the Dhamma and Vinaya have been standardized by the
elders. Switch over to their standardization." [He replied:] "The
Dhamma and Vinaya have been well-standardized by the elders. Still, I will hold
simply to what I have heard and received in the presence of the Blessed
One."
In
other words, Ven. Purana maintained -- and undoubtedly taught to his followers
-- a record of the Buddha's teachings that lay outside the standardized
version, but was nevertheless authentic. As we have already noted, there were
monks, nuns, and lay people like him even while the Buddha was alive, and there
were probably others like him who continued maintaining personal memories of
the Buddha's teachings even after the latter's death. This story shows the
official early Buddhist attitude towards such differing traditions: each
accepted the trustworthiness of the others. As time passed, some of the early
communities may have made an effort to include these "external"
records in the standardized canon, resulting in various collections of prose
and verse passages. The range of these collections would have been determined
by the material that was available in, or could be effectively translated into,
each individual dialect. Their organization would have depended on the taste
and skill of the individual collectors.
Thus,
for instance, we find verses in the Pali Dhp that do not exist in other Dhps,
as well as verses in the Patna and Gandhari Dhps that the Pali tradition
assigns to the Jataka or Sutta Nipata. We also find verses in one redaction
composed of lines scattered among several verses in another. In any event, the
fact that a text was a later addition to the standardized canon does not
necessarily mean that it was a later invention. Given the ad hoc way in which
the Buddha sometimes taught, and the scattered nature of the communities who
memorized his teachings, the later additions to the canons may simply represent
earlier traditions that escaped standardization until relatively late.
When
Buddhists began committing their canons to writing, approximately at the
beginning of the common era, they brought a great change to the dynamic of how
their traditions were maintained. The advantages of written over oral
transmission are obvious: the texts are saved from the vagaries of human
long-term memory and do not die out if those who have memorized them die before
teaching others to memorize them as well. The disadvantages of written
transmission, however, are less obvious but no less real. Not only is there the
possibility of scribal error, but -- because transmission is not face-to-face
-- there can also be the suspicion of scribal error. If a reading seems
strange to a student, he has no way of checking with the scribe, perhaps
several generations distant, to see if the reading was indeed a mistake. When
confronted with such problems, he may "correct" the reading to fit in
with his ideas of what must be right, even in cases where the reading was
correct, and its perceived strangeness was simply a result of changes in the
spoken dialect or of his own limited knowledge and imagination. The fact that
manuscripts of other versions of the text were also available for comparison in
such instances could have led scribes to homogenize the texts, removing unusual
variants even when the variants themselves may have gone back to the earliest
days of the tradition.
These
considerations of how the Dhp may have been handed down to the present -- and
especially the possibility that (1) variant recensions might all be authentic,
and that (2) agreement among the recensions might be the result of later
homogenization -- have determined the way in which I have approached this
translation of the Pali Dhp. Unlike some other recent translators, I am
treating the Pali Dhp as a text with its own integrity -- just as each of the
alternative traditions has its own integrity -- and have not tried to
homogenize the various traditions. Where the different Pali recensions are
unanimous in their readings, even in cases where the reading seems strange
(e.g., 71, 209, 259, 346), I have stuck with the Pali without trying to
"rectify" it in light of less unusual readings given in the other
traditions. Only in cases where the different Pali redactions are at variance
with one another, and the variants seem equally plausible, have I checked the
non-Pali texts to see which variant they support. The translation here is drawn
from three editions of the text: the Pali Text Society (PTS) edition edited by
O. von Hinüber and K.R. Norman (1995); the Oxford edition edited by John Ross
Carter and Mahinda Palihawadana, together with its extensive notes (1987); and
the Royal Thai edition of the Pali Canon (1982). The PTS edition gives the most
extensive list of variant readings among the Pali recensions, but even it is
not complete. The Royal Thai edition, for example, contains 49 preferred and 8
variant readings not given in the PTS version at all. Passages where I have
differed from the PTS reading are cited in the End Notes.
Drawing
selectively on various recensions in this way, I cannot guarantee that the
resulting reading of the Dhp corresponds exactly to the Buddha's words, or to
any one text that once existed in ancient India. However, as I mentioned at the
beginning of this note, all the recensions agree in their basic principles, so
the question is immaterial. The true test of the reading -- and the resulting
translation -- is if the reader feels engaged enough by the verses to put their
principles into practice and finds that they do indeed lead to the release that
the Buddha taught. In the final analysis, nothing else really counts.
|