Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 10.djvu/65

 DHAMMAPADA.

CHAPTER I.

THE TWIN-VERSES.

I. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel fol- lows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.

I. Dharma though clear in its meaning, is difficult to translate. It has different meanings in different systems of philosophy, and its peculiar application in the phraseology of Buddhism has been fully elucidated by Burnouf, Introduction á THistoire du Buddhisme, p. 41 seq. He writes: *Je traduis ordinairement ce termepar condition, d'autres fois par lois, mais aucune de ces traductions n'est parfaitement complete; il faut entendre par d harm a ce qui fait qu'une chose est ce qu'elle est, ce qui constitue sa nature propre, comme Ta bien montr^ Lassen, k Toccasion de la c^lbbre formule, " Ye dharma hetuprabhavd." ' Etymological ly the Latin for- ma expresses the same general idea which was expressed by dhar-ma. See also Burnouf, Lotus de la bonne Loi, p. 524. Faus- boll translates : * Naturae a mente principium ducunt,' which shows that he rightly understood dharma in the Buddhist sense. Gogerly (see Spence Hardy, Eastern Monachism, p. 28) translates : expressed ; while Professor Weber's rendering, * Die Pfiichten aus dem Herz folgern,' is quite inadmissible. D'Alwis (Buddhist Nir- wana, p. 70 seq.), following the commentary, proposes to give a more technical interpretation of this verse, viz. * Mind is the leader of all its faculties. Mind is the chief (of all its faculties). The very mind is made up of those (faculties). If one speaks or acts with a polluted mind, then affliction follows him as the wheel follows the feet of the bearer (the bullock).' To me this technical acceptation Digitized by Google
 * Mind precedes action,' which, if not wrong, is at all events wrongly