points to a time when the Buddha’s words were orally transmitted and when a more logical rearrangement would have been difficult. Yet there is some order indeed, for the first verses point to the very heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: “Mental states are forerun by mind, Mind is chief, mind-made are they…” The last chapter of verses on the arahat, the person who is of supreme worth since without any defilements, gives one a clear picture of the final goal reached in this world by patient effort and perseverance. But in between there is a mixture of verses and topics which are arranged more for ease of memorization than anything else. It is likely that many of the Dhammapada stories do record events that happened in the Buddha’s time, for they often quote from the Suttas or are based on them. In the latter case they always amplify the rather sparse accounts found in the Suttas. Sometimes the process of embroidery can be clearly seen, as when teachings or classifications not known during the Buddha’s lifetime are attributed to him or to that period. Examples of this are the mention of the Three Piṭakas (the “baskets” into which the Buddha’s words were arranged), which probably began to be compiled from the time of the First Council onwards; and mention of the two duties (dhura) for monks and nuns, that is, either scholarship (which meant oral repetition of the Buddha’s words to pass them on to the next generation of students) or meditation—a dichotomy not clearly found in the Buddha’s time. Many other examples could be given. Some of the stories have no counterparts in the Suttas and we do not know where they came from. But as some of them are good stories, well told, conveying the taste of Dhamma, they have been included here. “The Weaver’s Daughter” (No. 24) and the next tale of “A Certain Layman” are noteworthy examples. The Dhammapada Commentary as we have it now was written down by the great Buddhaghosa and his pupils, nearly fifteen hundred years ago. They converted the collections of stories as found in old Sinhalese, together with the word-commentary explaining the verses, into Pāli, which even a thousand years after the Buddha was still a lingua franca. In that language it has remained, preserved on palm-leaf manuscripts, until modern times. The whole work has always been used as an enjoyable and easy text for novices learning the Pāli language. After this brief sketch of the history of the Dhp. stories it might be a good idea to give some hints on how to read them and how not to. They come from a culture far separated from us in time, though if we live in a Buddhist country the “distance” is not so great. However, modern Western-type education is based on very different assumptions from those which lie behind the world of the Dhp. stories, a fact which may make some of them difficult to understand. Stories which I felt would not have much impact now, or which might easily lead to misunderstandings, have been left out of this selection. Even so, the ancient commentators did not hesitate to embroider them with the strange and marvellous, sometimes in the middle of an otherwise straightforward account. In this case I have included the tale thinking that its teaching will be remembered while the embroidery can be forgotten. The purpose of the stories, after all, is to illustrate the Dhamma and to provide memorable incidents which will serve as a pattern for one’s own Dhamma practice. If this is forgotten (as seems to have been the case in later collections of Buddhist legends), then the marvellous takes over and the Dhamma teaching disappears. So when reading these stories it is the Dhamma which is important, not whether the incident concerned really happened. The old commentators were not concerned with history or whether precisely these words
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