BUDDHAGHOSA'S DHAMMAPADA COMMENTARY. 

 By Eugene Watson Burlingame. 



Presented by Charles R. Lanman, December 8, 1909. Received February 5, 1910. 



Prefatory Remarks. — My interest in Hindu Folk-tales was first 

 aroused by Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr., of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, who introduced me to the famous Arabian classic Kallla wa 

 Dirnna, giving me generously of his time, and granted me the privilege 

 of collaborating in the preparation of an English translation of the 

 recently published Cheikho recension of the text. Professor Morton 

 W. Easton, of the same University, to whom I am no less indebted for 

 valuable assistance in my work, then induced me to make a serious 

 study of the corresponding Sanskrit collections, Pancatantra and 

 Hitopadeca, and encouraged me to prosecute researches in the closely 

 related Pali collections. When, therefore, Provost Harrison of the 

 University of Pennsylvania, the giver of the Harrison Foundation, 

 granted me leave of absence from the University for this purpose, I 

 placed myself under the direction of Professor Charles R. Lanman, of 

 Harvard University. It was at his suggestion that I undertook the 

 task upon which, under his most wise and kindly guidance, I am at 

 present engaged, that of translating into English the important Bud- 

 dhist work entitled Buddhaghosa's Commentary on the Dhammapada. 1 



Divisions of the Buddhist Texts. — In order to give the reader 

 a clear idea of the relation in which Buddhaghosa's Dhammapada 

 Commentary stands to the Buddhist Canon, it will be necessary to 

 describe briefly the principal divisions of the Buddhist Scriptures. 

 They fall into three principal divisions called Pitakas (Baskets) ; first, 

 the Sutta Pitaka ; secondly, the Vinaya Pitaka ; thirdly, the Abhi- 



1 Several years ago my attention was first attracted to this fascinating 

 collection of stories by reading a brief description of it in Professor Rhys 

 Davids's American Lectures on Buddhism. The passage that caught my eye 

 occurs on page 69, and closes as follows : " Cannot some one undertake a 

 translation for us into English of these strange and interesting old-world 

 stories about a collection of verses so widely popular among Buddhists, and 

 now attracting so much attention in the West?" Nevertheless, it is due 

 wholly and entirely to Professor Lanman that I am able to answer " Yes." 



