The Buddha's Path of Virtue Part 1

The Buddha's Path of Virtue.

by Frank Lee Woodward.

FOREWORD

The Dhammapada, of which a metrical translation by Mr. Woodward is here presented, is a precious Buddhist Scripture which deserves to be widely known. The Theosophical Society is to be congratulated on securing so competent and sympathetic a translator and on publishing it in a popular form.

The _Dhammapada_ is a part of the _Khuddaka Nikaya_ of the Buddhistic Canon and consists of about 420 stanzas in the _sloka_ metre. Every fully ordained _bhikkhu_[1] is expected to know the book by heart, and its verses are often on the lips of pious laymen. The beginner of Buddhist studies can have no better introduction to Buddhism and must go back to it again and again to enter into the spirit of Buddha and his apostles.

The Scriptures of the Buddhist Canon are known collectively as the _Ti-pi?aka_ (Sansk. _Tri-pi?aka_), "the Three Baskets or Treasuries". These divisions correspond to the two Testaments of the Christian Bible and contain (excluding repet.i.tions) more than twice as much matter. They are known separately as the _Vinaya pi?aka_, _Sutta pi?aka_ and _Abhidhamma pi?aka_, the Basket of Discipline, the Basket of Discourses and the Basket of Metaphysics. These scriptures are regarded with the utmost veneration by Buddhists as containing the word of Buddha (_Buddha-vacanam_), and are reputed to have been recited at the first Council held, according to tradition, at Rajagaha immediately after Buddha's death _circa_ 540 B.C.

It seems more probable that they grew up gradually and did not receive their final shape till about three centuries later, at the Council held under the auspices of the Emperor Asoka at Pa?aliputra _circa_ 247 B.C. The account given of the First Council in the closing chapter of the _Culla vagga_ seems to indicate that the Basket of Metaphysics was then unknown or unrecognised, and that the scriptures were then a _Dvi-pi?aka_ (Two Baskets) rather than a _Ti-pi?aka_ (Three Baskets).

If the _Culla vagga_ account is accepted, it would appear that at this Council, expressly held by the Emperor for the consecrative settlement of the holy texts, the five Nikayas or divisions which const.i.tute the second Basket formed the subject of discussion between the President Ka.s.sappa and Buddha's favourite pupil Ananda. The _Dhammapada_ is a book of the fifth Nikaya. The _Mahavansa_ (Ch. v, 68) carries it back a few years earlier than the Council, to the time of the Emperor's conversion to the Buddhist faith, for on that occasion his teacher, Nigrodha, is said to have explained to him the _Appamada-vagga_, which is the second chapter of the work. It was therefore known in the middle or early part of the third century B.C.

It seems to be an Anthology, prepared for the use of the faithful, of verses believed to be the real words of Buddha, short improvisations in which he expressed striking thoughts and embellished his preaching.

They were current among the early Buddhists, and have been culled from the other scriptures as of high ethical and spiritual value. The importance of the _Dhammapada_ for a critical study of Buddhism is thus considerable.

For a thorough understanding of the work and of the orthodox Buddhist view of it, it should be studied with the valuable commentary of Buddhaghosa. Buddhism owes a profound debt to this great man, and has recognised it in the name by which he is known in the Buddhist world.

Says the _Mahavansa_ (Ch. x.x.xvii, 174): "Because he was as profound in his eloquence (_ghosa_) as Buddha himself, they conferred on him the appellation of _Buddha-ghosa_ (the Voice of Buddha), and throughout the world he became as renowned as Buddha." He was an Indian Brahmana and a great Vedic scholar and apostle. On his conversion to Buddhism he became a not less ardent champion of the new Faith. He came to Ceylon from the cradle of Buddhism, "the terrace of the great Bo-tree" in Buddha Gaya, in the beginning of the fifth century, _i.e._, nearly a thousand years after Buddha's death. He came in search of the old commentaries on the Tripi?akas. The commentaries had been brought to Ceylon by the Emperor Asoka's son, the apostle Mahinda, and by him translated into Sinhalese. They continued to be orally transmitted until reduced to writing, in the reign of the Ceylon king, Va??agamini (88-76 B.C.), at a convocation of learned _bhikkhus_ at the cave-temple of Alu Vihare in the Matale district.

The original Pali version having perished in India, Buddhaghosa, during his residence in the Maha-vihare at Anuradhapura, re-translated it from Sinhalese to Pali. His version supplanted the Sinhalese (since lost) and is now the only record remaining of the ancient tradition. He also wrote elaborate commentaries (_A??ha katha_)[2] on almost every part of the Tri-pi?aka and composed the _Visuddhi magga_, an extensive and systematic treatise on Buddhist doctrine, a veritable cyclopaedia of Buddhist theology. His writings are regarded as absolute authorities in the interpretation of the Buddhist scriptures, and he is regarded as the second founder of Buddhism in Ceylon. He is held in high reverence also in Burma as the founder of Buddhism in that country (450 of the Christian era), having taken the Buddhist scriptures there from Ceylon.

Buddhaghosa's commentary on the _Dhammapada_ mentions the occasions on which, and the audiences to whom, most of the verses were addressed by Buddha when, as an itinerant preacher, he went with his followers through the land--mid-Ganges valley and sub-Himalayan tract in the modern provinces of Agra, Oude and Behar; his watchwords--not wealth, fame or dominion, but peace, happiness, deliverance from the burden of sorrow and death, and his message: "Open ye your ears, the deliverance from death is found."[3]

When he first attained enlightenment under the Bodhi-tree (at Buddha Gaya), a descendant of which still flourishes in Anuradhapura, the oldest historical tree in the world, Buddha is said to have broken out into a song of triumph which is included in the anthology of the _Dhammapada_ (153-4) and has been spiritedly rendered by Mr. Woodward:

Through many a round of birth and death I ran, Nor found the builder that I sought. Life's stream Is birth and death and birth with sorrow filled.

Now house-holder, thou'rt seen! no more shalt build!

Broken are all thy rafters, split thy beam!

All that made up this mortal self is gone; Mind hath slain craving. I have crossed the stream!

The way that he claimed to have discovered is known as the Middle Way (_Majjhima Pa?ipada_), equally removed from an ign.o.ble life of pleasure and a gloomy life of mortification, and consists in a realisation of the Four Great Truths (_cattari ariya saccani_) of suffering, its origin, its end and the path thereto. All existence, he declares, is suffering, its origin is desire, its end is the extinction of desire, to be attained by the Eightfold Path (_a??hangiko maggo_) of right belief, right resolve, right speech, right act, right occupation, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration and tranquillity.[4] The exposition and ill.u.s.tration of the Truths and the Way fill numerous tomes of the Buddhist scriptures.

It is these ideals of self-control, self-culture and heroic endeavour, the graces of wisdom, purity and love, the eternal law of _Karma_, or causality and moral retribution--under which every deed, good or bad, comes back most to the doer and yields fruit, helping or marring his progress--that are enshrined in the _Dhammapada_ in luminous, pithy verse which lingers in the memory as a fountain of n.o.ble inspiration.

They are almost too ethereal for human nature's daily food, and it is granted to few to realise in actual life these counsels of perfection unaided.

Buddha failed to make allowance for the weakness of humanity. His stoic agnosticism and self-reliant courage ignored G.o.d, denied the soul, repudiated worship and prayer and made man the master of his fate. This line of thought was not new to India, however stamped with his own personality. But human needs and aspirations have a.s.serted themselves, and Buddhism has been compelled to absorb elements of doctrine and practice which he condemned. This has happened, especially, in the countries where the doctrine of the Mahayana (the Great Vehicle) prevails.

In China, Amitabha (Boundless Light), of whom Gautama Buddha is held to be an incarnation, and Kwanyin the G.o.ddess of mercy, have laid great hold on the affections of the Buddhist population. Kwanyin (Sansk.

_Kanya_, the Virgin) is the gracious _Sakti_ (Cosmic Power) of the Hindus,

Mother of millions of world-cl.u.s.ters, Yet Virgin by the Vedas called.

In j.a.pan, Amitabha is the Eternal one who is the Light, the Way, and the Life, and took human form to open the door of salvation to all. Kwanyin shares with him the sovereignty of Heaven. In Tibet are worshipped these and other emanations of heavenly beings--Manju Sri, the personification of wisdom, Avalokitesvara, "the Lord who looketh down" on the world with mercy to help and protect, Vajrapana, and others, with a host of minor deities.

In Ceylon, which claims to belong to the purer faith, Buddhism is interwoven with the worship of, the popular G.o.ds of the Hindus and with animism and demonology. Under Mahayanist influence Buddha has become a G.o.d, greater than others, but worshipped less fervently, for (as Robert Knox[5] found during his twenty years' residence in the island in the seventeenth century) the popular mind looks to Buddha for the soul, to the G.o.ds for the things of this world. His own doctrine remains a dream of philosophers.

Fifty years ago Buddhism was at one of the lowest ebbs in its history in the Island. The arrival of Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, the founders of the Theosophical Society, and their zealous propaganda, materially helped the efforts of the saintly Sri Sumangala to stem the tide, and there arose a renaissance which has had far-reaching effects.

Colonel Olcott by his speech and writings did much to remove the prevailing ignorance and indifference, and recalled Buddhists to a sense of the value of their Faith.[6] He laid the foundation of that educational activity which has filled many parts of the Island with Buddhist schools and colleges.

Mr. Woodward is one of the n.o.ble band of Theosophists who have carried on Colonel Olcott's mission in Ceylon, and is perhaps the greatest of them all. Not being a Theosophist or Buddhist, I can speak of him more freely. Self-sacrificing zeal and devotion are commonplace words to use of him. They are often said of men, good and zealous in their way, who have had the compensations of good incomes and creature comforts, congenial friends and efficient fellow-workers. Mr. Woodward (or, to call him by his Sanskrit name, _Vanapala_) was little favoured in these respects. His was a life of ascetic simplicity and self-denial and strenuous well-doing. An English gentleman of the best type, he combined in a rare degree the culture of the West and Bast, combined also the active spirit of the West with the mysticism of the East. He belongs to the roll of the great apostles of Mahayanist Buddhism who carried its message and its culture over the mountains and deserts of Asia to the Pacific Ocean. The Mahinda College, Galle, of which he was the mainstay for nearly twenty years, is a shining memorial of him. But who can estimate the gracious influence of his personality? The memory of it will be a cherished possession to his friends, young and old, and an inspiration to them all, and their grat.i.tude and good wishes follow him unstintingly to his Tasmanian home.

P. ARUNACHALAM

_Ponklar, Colombo_ October, 1921.

[1] Usually but erroneously translated "priest," ignoring a fundamental difference between Buddhism and other religions. Buddhism recognises no priesthood. By "priest" one understands a mediator between G.o.d and man, a vehicle of divine grace, a person with delegated authority from G.o.d to administer the sacraments of religion, to admit into the faith or eject from it, to absolve from sin, etc. Such an inst.i.tution can have no place in Buddhism. _Bhikkhu_, (literally, a "beggar" and etymologically the same word) is one of a brotherhood of men trying to live as Buddha lived, to purify and discipline themselves, earnest pilgrims on the road reaching unto deliverance (_Nirvana_). The layman demands from the _bhikkhu_ no a.s.sistance in heavenly, no interference in worldly, affairs, but only that he should live as becomes a follower of the great Teacher. The nearest English equivalent of _bhikkhu is_ "mendicant friar".

[2] Sansk. _Artha Katha_.

[3] _Maha-vagga_, i, 6-10 _seq._ The message continues: "I teach you, I preach the Norm. If ye walk according to my teaching, ye shall be partakers, in a short time, of that for which n.o.ble youths leave their homes and go into homelessness, the highest end of religious effort: ye shall even in the present life apprehend the Truth itself and see it face to face."

[4] (1) Samma di??hi, (2) Samma sankappo, (3) Samma vaca, (4) Samma kammanto, (5) Samma ajivo, (6) Samma vayamo, (7) Samma sati, (8) Samma samadhi.

[5] Shipwrecked off Trincomalee in 1660, he remained an unwilling but favoured guest of King Raja Sinha II for twenty years. Escaping to Europe, he wrote his excellent _Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon_, published 1681.

[6] It was uphill work for Colonel Olcott, but his magnificent courage and enthusiasm prevailed over every obstacle. I was then a Magistrate in the Kalutara district of the Western Province, and remember that well-known Buddhists, appearing as witnesses, would not acknowledge their Faith and swore on the Bible rather than affirm. The Portuguese and Dutch Governments had persecuted them, and the English Government, though it did not persecute, continued for years many disabilities.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

I made this translation of the _Dhammapada_, intending it to be a simple memorial text-book for my pupils, at intervals some seven or eight years ago, when reading the Pali as a lesson in religion with my senior cla.s.s in Ceylon. Its publication has been held up for several years owing to various causes, and, having left Ceylon in 1919, I was unable owing to distance to correct the proofs. My thanks are due to Mr. Fritz Kunz, B.A., of Adyar, Madras, for seeing the book through the press. The rather long list of alterations[1] is due to the fact that I saw no proofs till the whole was printed off, and had meanwhile desired to recast certain verses. The use of metre of course often prohibits the exact translation of certain philosophical and technical terms, but I have kept as close to the original as was possible. I have followed the Pali text of Fausboll (1900), and have been much helped by Dr. Dines Andersen's _Glossary of the Words of the Dhammapada_. The Pali Text Society's edition of the text (by Suriyogo?a Suma?gala Thero) appeared just after I had finished, and I have made several alterations in accordance with the readings of that edition.

F.L. WOODWARD

_Chartley, West Tamar,_ _Tasmania_ 1921.

[1] transcribers' note--all alterations of the list mentioned have been duely incorporated in the text following, and the list itself has been omitted in this e-book.

Glory to Him, the Blessed Saint, the All-Enlightened one.

The Buddha's Path of Virtue.

CHAPTER ONE.