..續本文上一頁meanings. In the Abhidhânapadîpikâ it is explained by place, protection, Nirvâna, cause, word, thing, portion, foot, footstep.

　　 Hence dhammapada may mean ”footstep of religion,” and thus the title was first rendered by Gogerly, only that he used the plural instead of the singular, and called it ”The Footsteps of Religion,” while Spence Hardy still more freely called it ”The Paths of Religion.” It may be quite true, as pointed out by Childers, that pada by itself never means path. But it means footstep, and the footstep towards a thing is much the same as what we call the path to a thing. Thus we read, verse 21, ”appamâdo amatapadam,” earnestness is the step, i.e. the path that leads to immortality. p. xlvi Again, ”pamâdo makkuno padam” can hardly mean anything but that thoughtlessness is the path of death, is the path that leads to death. The commentator, too, rightly explains it here by amatasya adhigamupâya, the means of obtaining immortality, i.e. Nirvâna, or simply by upâyo, and even by maggo, the way. If we compare verses 92 and 93 of our text, and verses 254 and 255, we see that pada is used synonymously with gati, going. In the same manner dhammapada would mean the footstep or the footpath of virtue, i.e. the path that leads to virtue, and supply a very appropriate title for a collection of moral precepts. In verses 44 and 45 ”path of virtue” seems to be the most appropriate meaning for dhammapada^[1], and it is hardly possible to assign any other meaning to it in the following verse (Kundasutta, v. 6):

　　”He who lives restrained and attentive in the way that has been well pointed out, in the path of the law, cultivating blameless words, such a Bhikkhu they call a Maggagîvi (living in the way).”

　　 I therefore think that ”Path of Virtue,” or ”Footstep of the Law,” was the idea most prominent in the mind of those who originally framed the title of this collection of verses. It seems to me that Buddhaghosa also took the same view, for the verse which D”Alwis^[2] quotes from the introduction of Buddhaghosa”s commentary,--

Sampatta-saddhammapado satthâ dhammapadam subham Desesi,

　　and which he translates, ”The Teacher who had reached the very depths (lit. bottom) of Saddhamma, preached this holy Dhammapada,”--lends itself far better to another translation, viz. ”The Teacher who had gained a firm

　　[1. Cf. Dhammapada, v. 285, nibbânam sugatena desitam.

　　2. Buddhist Nirvâna, p. 62.]

　　p. xlvii footing in the Good Law, showed (preached) the holy Path of the Law.”

　　 Gogerly, again, who may generally be taken as a faithful representative of the tradition of the Buddhists still preserved in Ceylon, translates the title by the ”Footsteps of Religion,” so that there can be little doubt that the priests of that island accept Dhammapada in the sense of ”Vestiges of Religion,” or, from a different point of view, ”The Path of Virtue.”

　　 M. L. Feer^[1] takes a slightly different view, and assigning to pada the meaning of foot or base, he translates Dha, mmapada by Loi fondamentale, or Base de la Religion.

　　 B, ut it cannot be denied that the title of Dhammapada was very soon understood in a different sense also, namely, as ”Sentences of Religion.” Pada means certainly a foot of a verse, a verse, or a line, and dha…

《The Dhammapada - Introduction》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…