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I’ve wanted to add this to my collection of translated Indian Spirituality Books. So this was so perfect. It was also so interesting reading an author/translation I haven’t yet.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and review this book.

"One of the best known and most beloved of the Buddhist scriptures, The Dhammapada is a collection of the sayings of the Buddha. According to tradition, each of the verses contained within the text were spoken by the Buddha, surviving through the centuries to find their way into the hands of modern readers."

This book was interesting and I learned a lot. If you want to learn more about Buddhism you should read this.

The Dhammapada is the one text written by Buddha that I will return to year after year. It is the one text that appears simple to understand, yet complex enough to review and reflect on my progress as a Buddhist. In a world torn apart by war, corruption and greed, this is the one book that can transform someone’s perspective to let go of material wealth, money-seeking attitudes, and wrongdoing. To seek a pathway toward happiness and freedom is to succeed despite only reaching the start of the pathway. I understand no one will achieve Nirvana at this present moment, yet everyone who knows of the Buddha understands that people will soon achieve this blissful state to cause the end of all wars.

Whether you need ‘to cut down the forest of desire’. or recapture the ideas of ‘the Elephant’. There is no one who sins more than the ‘Fool’. This text as stated by the translator, Eknath Easwaran, can be easy or can be difficult to read. For its deeper and transcendental meanings. You might think you can master this text because of its straightforward approach to lyrics. But you may take only a few steps on the pathway throughout your lifetime. You can read this over and over until you achieve your blissful state of freedom.

Thank you to Buddha, Eknath Easwaran, and St. Martins Press for the copy to review.

I would consider this more of a reference book. It is difficult to read at a normal pace..much like reading a thesis. This is more for research than enjoyment.

Every time I read the Dhammapada I get something more out of the words of Buddah.
I think everyone can benefit from reading this work, even if you are not a practitioner.
This was a great translation and easily approachable for a new or seasoned reader.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this dARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Dhammapada is a collection of sayings from the Buddha. There is so much wisdom to be found within these pages. The book includes a section written by the translator and an information packed introduction. Then come the sayings; each of them is worth a ponder.

Highly recommended for those who are looking for insight from one of the world’s greatest thinkers.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this title. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this translation of The Dhammapada, Sayings of the Buddha translated by Max F. Muller and produced by Eknath Easwaran.

My review is on the translation and work of Mr Muller and not its compilation.

This is the author's third edition of the translation of the Dhammapada. The first by his own account was published in 1870, the second in 18881 and this edition I suspect somewhere around 1881, although it is hard to surmise.

I began reading the book in the hopes that it would shed some light on the Buddhist cannons, particular the Pali Buddhist Canon. The book is in essence a treatise on the Pali Buddhist canon, an interesting collection of verses in which the author shares and then lends his own interpretation and those of others where he may agree or disagree. This is no easy task for Buddhist verses are in one sense easy to grasp, but in another hard to understand, especially if there are different interpretations or intents on a particular word or collection of words. Often times, Muller finds his interpretation of a particular word to be at odds with what might be the true meaning or what others have interpreted. This back and forth in the translation attempt makes the book a difficult read.

For the time period in which the author did his translations, his audience would have been very receptive to his work, especially in the academic arena, which I find the book more suitable for. In the academic setting you are charged with digging deep, peeling back the meanings and debating among your peers and with the professor. One does not have the luxury nor the classroom rigor when the reading is an attempt to gain more knowledge and understanding, unless of course you approach the task from an academic estudiante standpoint. One willing to parse the book, do background checks and research and spend time beyond the casual read.

The Dhammapada by Eknath Easwaran

254 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Essentials
Release Date: December 6, 2022

Nonfiction, Religion, Spirituality, Buddhism

This is an older book being rereleased. It was first published in 1870. There is much discussion regarding the year of the Buddha’ birth and death. There are twenty-six chapters which include scriptures believed to be written by the Buddha. It is an almost a form of poetry. I had to read this several times because of the informative footnotes. Once I read it through the first time with the footnotes, the read was much smoother, and I was able to understand it better. Lovely and insightful sayings.

This translation of essential Buddhist teachings credited to Eknath Easwaran is much more complicated than his presentation of The Bhagavad Gita. The editorial style would be appreciated if the end notes of each chapter weren't so confusing.

This 2022 version is translated by F. Max Muller who referenced a list of previous scholars, none of them were Pali speakers originally. They were renowned Sanskrit teachers and knew dialects including Pali, but there is much too much open to context and interpretation. One referenced author is Childers, the author of the first Pali Dictionary published in 1875. The preface explains all of these scholars who came before: Weber (German), Hu (French), Fausböll (Danish).

Muller believes the Dhammapada is considered an "easy" resource for people looking for Buddhist teachings. Yet, even Muller points out that the Dhammapada is both easy and very difficult. Muller takes a considerable amount of pages explaining who difficult the translation can be. If you're that type of scholar, pages about the etymology and dissection of one word is probably appealing. However, if you're a student looking for ways to understand the laws of Buddhism, this might not be the first book you want to reach for.

Muller says: "To find terms exactly corresponding to the varied terminology of Buddhism is simply impossible."

It's like that children's game Telephone. You form a circle or a line of students. The teacher whispers something, even one word, into the first student's ear. That student has to pass the message alone to the next and so on. By the end, the secret message is never accurate. It's never even close!

When an English translation doesn't even come from Pali, but rather is from a Chinese or German or French translation, it's bound to be quite dissimilar to the original story. Muller has a fantastic example of this in one chapter in particular where he believes the source material used puns. Puns and metaphors can be debated infinitely. Does "forest" mean an actual grove of trees or does it mean the "collection of desires" a person can harbor? Even the usage of the word/title "Buddha" refers to anyone who has arrived at complete knowledge, according to Muller.

A word that might be considered simple to translate is not. For example "naga" which means snake is also used in this text to mean elephant. Checking the learnsanskrit.cc dictionary, "naga" does mean cobra whereas "nagadanta" means elephant tusk.

This usage of "naga" is not even presented in the chapter notes as a debate about which animal the original text meant. Instead, Muller pulls from the other resources and says: "The elephant is with the Buddhists the emblem of endurance and self-restraint. Thus Buddha himself is called Naga, 'the Elephant' (Lal. Vist. p. 553), or Mahanaga, 'the great Elephant' (Lal. Vist. p. 553)...

The notes on "elephant" continue. And I'll make an important linguistic note here that my toolbar for writing doesn't even have a tab for special characters so I can't properly write the words with their accents as Sanskrit should be written. This is yet another 2022 instance of how we are losing languages.

Summary:

Do I think there are important ethical and moral lessons in The Dhammapada? Yes, mostly. Do I think they came from Guatama Siddhartha, The Buddha? I doubt all of it did. Like the Christian Bible, other people wrote lessons down long after oral history was the way to learn. For a fun and cheery look into how many times the Buddha is misquoted on the internet in memes, take a look at "I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha!" by Bodhipaksa.

Rating: 3 Stars

A collection of sayings from Buddha. They are broken down into 26 topics. The topics include On Earnestness, Thought, Flowers, Evil, Old Age, Anger, Happiness, and many more.

At the end of each topic (chapter), are the notes which are very helpful.

A well researched and annotated explanation, this scholarly tome is not for the casual reader.
I found it extremely interesting but it will take me dedicated time to read it fully.

Interesting. Had to re-read a few parts to fully grasp the meaning. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

One of most important ancient texts in Buddhism.Translated by M. F. Muller. 388 sayings of the Buddha on various topics. Divided into 26 chapters by topic with annotations at the end of each chapter. Index.

The Dhammapada is a re-release of a book that offers an overview of Buddhism written in laypeople's terms. It is easy to read and understand. It also offers insights for those new and older to Buddhism.

This version has been translated from the original Pali language.