The Dhammapada

Abstract

The Dhammapada is an anthology of verses, belonging to the part of the Theravada Pali Canon of scriptures known as the Khuddaka Nikaya, and consists of 423 verses. Like most anthologies of verses, the Dhammapada is very uneven. Some verses are both profound and deeply poetic. Others are awkward, and little more than a list of technical terms. The overall effect of the Dhammapada however is undoubtedly of high moral and spiritual earnestness, and a typically Buddhist gentle persuasiveness. It would be hard to point to a poetic book of a similar length in world religious literature of a correspondingly sustained level.