ABSTRACT
In this age of decline, in which nothing less than the instant gratification of religious appetites is likely to make any headway in an increasingly crowded market place, little books of wisdom are virtually the only sort we have left. Yet within the Buddhist tradition, so compassionately aware of the puny capacity of mankind for spiritual improvement, one little book of wisdom has for centuries offered as an expedient bait just those bite-sized morsels of moral pabulum which are all that a mass market will tolerate. The Dhammapada, to use the title under which this anthology of Buddhist verses is best known in the West, was an international success long before the rise of modern publishing, as we may readily see from its four Chinese translations. Indeed, these multiple Chinese versions were themselves discussed and in one case translated by Samuel Beal more than one hundred years ago, resulting in 1902 in a mass market reprint as bijou in its Edwardian way as anything in any New Age bookstore today.1
