Buddha's Teachings - Being The Sutta Nipata Or Discourse Collection Book

Text extracted from opening pages of book: BUDDHA'S TEACHINGS BEING THE Sutta-Nipata or Discourse - Collection EDITED IN THE ORIGINAL PALI TEXT WITH AN ENGLISH VERSION FACING IT BY LORD CHALMERS G. C. B. Hon. D. Litt., Oxford Sometime Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge University Sometime Governor of Ceylon ndvra - ytXtos ical irdvra KOVIS Kal irdvra TO iravra - yap % dXd-ywv ^ EIA PREFACE SOME time ago, when reading the Sutta-Nipata, I was led to the conclusion that, while all verse when translated should receive a metrical rendering, it was particularly desirable to make the attempt here, so as to emphasize in English the historically significant varieties of versification found in the Pali. In 1928 Professor Lanman suggested that, with a Pali text on the opposite page ( as in the Loeb Classics), my metrical experiment should find a place in the Harvard Oriental Series. This volume is the outcome of his suggestion. My Pali text has been based on Fausboll's editio princeps of 1885 and on the new edition* of 1913 for the Pali Text Society ( by Andersen and Helmer Smith), as modified by the subsequent P. T. S. editions of the Commentary on the Sutta-Nipata ( Para matthajotika II) and of the canonical Niddesa. The conclusion borne in on me was that, apart from minor matters and a very few real divergences of readings, the text of the Sutta-Nipata ( thanks to this distinguished parampard of Danish scholars) was practically now a textus receptus; and that, in a volume which is primarily intended for English readers, it was unnecessary to discuss various readings which Pali scholars can readily investigate in the authorities quoted above. Where I have differed, I have aimed at the restora tion, not at the conjectural emendation, of the text. Nor, in the matter of interpretation of the text, have I thought it desirable to cumber the translation with polemic notes or with a record of others' renderings. I have therefore confined myself to an examination ( in the Introduction) into the literary evolution of the Sutta-Nipata, so far as it can be traced to-day, and will let the ver sion speak for itself as a commentary no less than as a rendering. viii Preface My conclusion is that, while its materials are by no means all of equal antiquity, there is no older book in Buddhist literature than the Sutta-Nipata, and no earlier corpus of primitive Buddhist doctrine than it contains. While the presence of the Pali on the opposite page forbids exuberance in translation, the limitations of metre ( and I have sought to make the English follow roughly the Pali scheme of versification) make it no easy matter even without rhyme to compress terse Pali into a relatively modest compass in English. Ignoscent experti. PETERHOUSE, 1 8 February 1931. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii INTRODUCTION xiii Tabular conspectus of the five main divisions ( Vaggas or ' Books') Book Name Suitas Stanzas Fausboll Name in Pali 1 Snake Book 12 221 1-221 Uraga vagga 2 2 ShRead More