The Dhammapada : The Path of Virtue

The Dhammapada, The Path to Virtue, is one of the most practical ethical handbooks of Buddhism. It is included in the canon of Buddhistic Scriptures and is one of the Buddhist texts that can be read and appreciated by anyone.

Neither the date nor the authorship of the text is known but there is conclusive evidence that this canon existed before the Christian era. Many scholars agree in ascribing its utterances to Buddha himself, while others are of the opinion that it is a compilation made by Buddhist monks from various sources.

The Dhammapada is divided into twenty-six chapters and the keynote is struck by the sentence "The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is happy in the next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he has done; he is still more happy when going on the good path."

The first step in the "good path" is earnestness, for as The Dhammapada says, "Earnestness is the path of immortality (Nirvana), thoughtlessness the path of death; those who are in earnest do not die, those who are thoughtless are as if dead already." Earnestness, in this sense, evidently means the power of reflection and of abstracting the mind from mundane things. There is something very inspiring in the sentence, "When the learned man drives away vanity by earnestness, he, the wise, climbing the terraced heights of wisdom, looks down upon the fools: free from sorrow he looks upon the sorrowing crowd, as one that stands on a mountain looks down upon them that stand upon the plain."

The true worth of The Dhammapada can only be realized by a careful study of this charming text; this site features a full English translation.