The Dhammapada and the study of classical texts

Part 2

The concept of salvation, of ultimate freedom of Nirvana that is advocated by Buddhism, too, needs to be clarified in the light of our discussion. The conventional wisdom is that Nirvana is a transcendental reality divorced from worldly concerns and that it is a form of blissful nothingness signaling the end of the cycle of births and deaths. However, certain Buddhist scholars, on the basis of imaginative interpretations of early Buddhist texts, advance the notion that Nirvana signifies a radical moral and spiritual transformation of the human being consequent upon adoption of the right vision in matters of human existence, and that those who have attained this status of (non) being can still exercise an influence on social life.

Vision

When one adopts this non-absolutist vision on Nirvana, one can make greater sense of the admonitions contained in the Dhammapada, and their bearing on the social and moral life of even if one does not totally subscribe to this interpretation, It is clear, on the basis of closer inspections of the scriptures, the path to Nirvana and the path to harmonious social living are one and the same.

Hence, it is scarcely surprising that this text can function as a guide to action for both monks and laity, in their respective efforts at personal salvation as well as harmonious social living. This approach to the concept of nirvana enables us to read the verses contained in the Dhammapada in a more informed manner. The idea of virtue presupposes the ability of men and women to live as social beings interacting in diverse ways with one another in their day to day life. There is a fairly widespread, although ill-founded belief that the path of virtue mapped out by the Buddha is of relevance only to Bhikkhus and recluses. A superficial reading of the Dhammapada might leave one with this misguided impression. Nothing could be further from the truth. A careful study of Buddhist texts will show that the Buddha, in his many discourses, addressed not only Bhikkgus but householders as well. And the issues addressed to householders have much to do with the business of worldly living. The duties and obligations incumbent upon householders have been delineated very carefully and methodically as they relate to interactions between husband wife, teacher and pupil, employer and employee and friend and friend.

For example, in discussing the mutual obligations of the employer and employee, it is said that the former should assign work to his employees according to their capabilities, provide them with suitable wages, look after them in time of need, grant them leave when appropriate and so on. On the other hand, it is advised that the employee should rise up before his master, perform his duties, and earn a good reputation from the master. These articulations of duties have to be understood against the prevalent social structures and norms and social conditions of the sixth century B.C.

Buddhism lays down ethics of conduct bearing not only on interpersonal relations but also on the mutualities between individual and state. The function of rules, their relationship to the state and the people, and the concept of power as it relates to statecraft have been explained in various Buddhist texts.

For example, it is evident that on the basis of textual analysis, that the notion of Buddhist kingship is one of mutual consent and not one of divine origin; it seeks to demonstrate its importance as a human institution premised in social contract.

Similarly, in the Kutadanta Sutta of the Digha Nikaya it is stated that in order to wipe out crime, the economic and social conditions of the people need to be improved – farmers should be provided with adequate facilities to pursue their profession justly, traders need to be provided with capital, employees should be paid reasonable wages, and those encountering financial hardships should be exempt from taxation.

The Dhammapada is a manual of guidance related to proper conduct, holding up an image of moral excellence; its true meaning can be fathomed only when it is located within the larger Buddhist intellectual discourse. When seen against the backdrop of this wider context, it becomes clear hat the message of the Dhammapada has a vital bearing on the conduct of ordinary people as they go about their daily lives trying to make sense of them.

Moral conduct

Earlier I said that behind all texts that seek to influence our moral conduct, we can discern an image of a highly esteemed ideal person who inspires emulation. In the case of the Dhammapad, this venerable figure that is configured through the verses is one who is thoughtful, mentally serene, disciplined, and free from excessive sensual desire. One who is engaged in a quest for real freedom through their strategies of non-attachment, self-control, and the cultivation of wisdom and insight.

He is one who does not depend upon any supernatural powers and seeks by dint of his own effort to overcome the suffering that in 'heres' in the world. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the ideal person textualised in the Dhammapada with images of ideal persons projected by other equally significant texts representing different religious and intellectual traditions. For purposes of quick comparison I have selected the Bhagavad Gita, Analects and the Deliverance from Error from the Hindu, Confucian and Islam traditions respectively. The important point, though, is that all four texts, through the power of the ideal persons they have projected before us, illuminate the path of virtue that inevitably leads to happiness and human flourishing.

When examining the importance of the Dhammapada as a classical text worthy of study, we have to bear in mind the fact that it is a foundational text among ordinary Buddhists living in countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and that it continues to shape and direct the thought-patterns and influences the conduct of both educated and uneducated people in complex ways. It is a text that represents in concise form the essence of Buddhist teachings that relate to the good life. Hence people living outside Buddhist countries that wish to enter into the thought-worlds and preferred path of virtue of Buddhists, and thereby enlarge their thought-world and extend their cultural horizons, would be well advised to read and ponder texts like the Dhammapada.

The point here, though, is not to put this text on a pedestal and encourage paying homage to it; rather, the intent is to urge the text to be read, challenged, interrogated and reflected upon. To make it a part of one’s own site of contestation of meaning. Such an exercise would enable those living outside the cultural world represented in this text to see how that world has been put together.

As I stated earlier, the Dhammapada is a book that derives its power from the teachings of the Buddha, and hence such gaps as it may have can be purposefully filled by relating it to other canonical texts. As the eminent French literary critic Pierre Machery once observed, ‘A book never arrives unaccompanied.’ What this suggests us that the meaning of a given text can be understood only in relation to other texts with which it is intimately associates.

Thus in seeking to get at the meaning of the Dhammapada, we need to relate it to other texts that might expand, enlarge upon, and illuminate this or that passage in it which might not be clear enough or which is in need of further clarification. This is, of course, not to suggest that one who reads only the Dhammapada will not be able to derive any significance of meaning from it. This is indeed not the case. However, if one is to enter the thought- worlds reconfigured in this book, and engage it fully, then, it is important that the reader proceed from the Dhammapada to other texts and back.

Imagination

Such an effort serves to stretch one’s religious and philosophical imagination and locate the text in a wider field of interactive meanings. To be sure, this move serves to promote thinking in the real sense of the term. Thinking, I take it, involves the capacity to question and challenge, to see things from diverse vantage points, to move freely among diverse cultural worlds with their own distinctive topographies.

Physically, we often think alone wrapped in solitude’ mentally, we almost always think in the company of others. In this way, the Dhammapada can open pathways of inquiry that might bring unsuspected rewards of self-enlargement. A classical text like the Dhammapada, then, will yield exhilarations of reading and reflection when we adopt strategies of this nature.

The Dhammapda, like all texts, is a product of a specific historical moment, a cultural geography, an intellectual tradition and a moral climate. Indeed, it is both a product and producer of that culture. Most texts that have attained canonical status have succeeded in transcending the limits of its time and place, addressing issues that are increasingly topical; however, it needs to be kept in mind that they emerge out of distinctive historical conjunctures and bear the imprint of their origins. Hence when participating in the discourse of moral edification inscribed in texts, we need to be mindful of this fact.

To treat texts like the Dhammapda as if they were free-floating entities, unmoored from their historicality, is to ignore a vital segment of their meaning and informing logics. Texts such as the Dhammapada, are not, to use a phrase employed by the distinguished literary scholar Gerard Graff in a more literary context, ‘monuments of eternal verities.’ However, this should not be extended to imply that they cannot generate profitable dialogue that rises above their historical and cultural origins.

Such an attitude only serves to imprison these texts in cultural solipsism. These texts enable us to participate in a wider dialogue, a conversation, related to questions of human values, human virtues, human flourishing. Their very historical and cultural specificities should have the effect of promoting a more wide-ranging conversation among people from different cultural locations and traditions. This allows us to see how many different ways there are of being alive and virtuous in human society.

Moral path

The Dhammapada as a text, as I have pointed out earlier has cleared a moral path of virtue through the dark and forbidding jungle of human interaction and desire. Consequently, the question of virtue and its bearing on the problem of how one should lead one’s life are central to the intent of the book. Human values, to my mind, are not trans-historical or trans-contextual; that grow out of specific social, historical, cultural locations and moments.

However, the way these values strain to speak to certain universal themes and concerns make them relevant to those outside the immediate contexts which give rise to them. The well-known literary theorist Stanley Fish has pointed out, in a different context, that values are historical products fashioned and re-fashioned in the crucible of discussion and debate. Hence the values inscribed in the Dhammapada can best be understood in relation to the fact that it proposes a path of virtue, an agenda for moral edification, that stands in opposition to a text like the Bhagavad Gita, important as the latter text is.

The fact that values are products shaped by the hands of history and culture does not necessarily mean they lack the reach to influence, and enter into conversations with, other historical periods and places. The strength of a text like the Dhammapada is that it serves to promote a productive discussion about human values, human goals, in relation to (and possibly from unexpected angles) one’s own lived cultural experience.

As we probe into the nexus of ethical and moral conceptions woven around the Dhammapada, we begin to develop a sharper and more focused appreciation of the relevance (or irrelevance) of the human virtues that underpin the text and organize its discourse.

Textual system

In this regard, it is very important to value a book like the Dhammapada as constituting a textual system if we are to get at its understanding of human beings and their lived world. The human values inscribed in the text can be more clearly and usefully understood in relation to the generality of Buddhist literature.

A hasty, and an unconnected reading with the textual system of which it is a part, can leave readers with a misleading impression of the intent of the book. Arthur Danto, who has written so perceptively about important Buddhist and Hindu texts says,’ To be sure, Buddhism as a religion is concerned with salvation. But we can see that the demands of salvation and the demands of morality are not automatically and simultaneously fulfilled, and they may even be antithetical.’

I think Danto is mistaken in his view. Texts such as the Chakkavatti Sihanada Sutta, Kalama Sutta, Agganna Sutta, Kutadanta Sutta inducate very clearly the deep and sustained engagement with ethical issues that Prof, Danto regards as those that address ‘How we should treat one another, not merely with how we treat ourselves alone.’

Moreover, he seems to conceptualize nirvana solely in terms of a transcendental reality, ignoring the fact that it could also, suitably interpreted, could provide one with a paradigm of human excellence, a blueprint for wholesome social living, as indeed some Buddhist scholars, in my judgement, have cogently argued. The important point is that texts like the Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita, Analects can instigate profitable discussion and engender significant issues as Danto’s stimulating observations indicate.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that the British literary scholar frank Kermode, while commenting on the Bible remarked that it constitutes ‘a complete guide to conduct, private and public, as well as to salvation.’

The Dhammapada is an honoured text that has come down from the past with the endorsements of tradition. It is, in other words, a canonical text. An argument advanced by those who oppose the canonisation of texts is that it generates an elitism, and serves to legitimise the thought-worlds of a privileged few, ignoring other voices, alternate visions, and most notably of those who are marginalized by society. In the case of the Dhammapada, this is clearly not the case. it has influenced, and continue to influence, the ordinary people, even those illiterate, in countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar, even as it engages the interest of scholarly elites.

The folk-poetry, chants, fables, of these countries contain numerous tropes and topoi taken from the Dhammapada, while religious sermons (bana) addressed to ordinary laypersons often take as their point of departure a statement or proposition from this book. Hence the popularly advanced argument by oppositional scholars that canonical texts serve to perpetuate a kind of elitism does not hold in the case of the Dhammapada. It continues to put into circulation a discourse which inspires the participation of vast numbers of people mostly from the lower rungs of the social ladder.

Path of virtue

The Dhammapada is, admittedly, a compilation of verses that lays out a path of virtue leading to the total emancipation of the human being. It seeks to answer the question; how should we lead a morally purposeful life? But it is also a poem, and like all good poems strain to enact their meanings. The form and structure of the poem carry a significant freight of its meaning. Let me explain this in greater detail.

What is interesting about the Dhammapada is that it has been examined largely from doctrinal and traditional textual analytical viewpoints. It has very seldom been studied as a work of conscious literary art.

This is hardly surprising in view of the fact that the Dhammapada does not contain the kind of exploration of rich and complex human experiences that one finds in, say, the Therigatha and Theragatha. Or the kind of graphic imagery and psychological probing one comes across in the Jataka stories. Rhys Davids says that the Dhammapada verses are fairly often anything but poetry.

It is indeed true that a large number of the verses do not dazzle with poetic intensity. However, in order to grasp the real literary merit of this book one has to look elsewhere than just poeticality of language. Its literary merit resides, I am persuaded, in the complex verbal organisation that underwrites the work. Indeed this is an aspect that Rhys Davids does not pay much attention to. A work of creative literature, it seems to me, needs to be seen as a complex and multi-layered text preoccupied with a specific discourse. Consequently, it is imperative that we pay close attention to the verbal structure. It is my contention that literary significance of the Dhammapada, which is one of the most popular Buddhist poems, can be understood only by dissecting its complex verbal structure.

Discourse

Rhys Davids says that in the Dhammapada we have no enframing matter, nor have we any continuous discourse; every verse, or here and there, any two or three verses, are so many detached poems. This, in my judgment, is to misread the complex verbal art, the undeniable organizational power that animates the poem. I wish to argue that not only does the Dhammapada embody a complex verbal art but that it also, in its sophisticated verbal structure, enacts the core meaning of Buddhism. In other words, there is a sophisticated literary sensibility behind the organization of the verses in this book.

The Dhammapada underscores the virtues of mental restraint, moral effort, concentration of mind, piety, leading to the highest bliss – total tranquility. It encourages readers to undertake the journey from darkness to light, ignorance to knowledge, carnal pleasure to mental purity.

It can be argued that the central discourse of the Dhammapada consists of two important sub-discourses. The first deals with the ideas of motion, travel, movement, reminding the readers the significance and the imperative of moving away from darkness towards light, from ignorance to knowledge. The second delineates the importance of calmness, tranquility, and peace. and the firstly sub-discourse leads logically to the second, reinforcing the central discourse of the poem, the attainment of total tranquility.

At this pint, it might be useful to investigate into the concept of discourse. The main point, it seems to me, to remember about discourse is that the language, the various verbal devices, employed, are constitutive of the meaning of discourse. In other words, it is not helpful to discuss discourse in isolation from the particular linguistic style and the verbal organisation of the given discourse as Paul Ricoueur has observed, ‘to mean is both what the speaker mean, that is, what he intends to say, and what the sentence means, that is, what the conjunction between the identification function and the productive function yields.

As Hayden White remarked, troping is the soul of discourse and without which discourse cannot do its work and realize its objectives. Gerard Genette, in exploring the idea of discourse from the perspective of the art of narration says that narrative discourse is a study of a threefold relationship –that between narrative and history, between narrative and narrating, between narrating and story.

In the case of The Dhammapada, there is no discernible story. However, we can press into service Genette’s approach to comprehend the predominant discourse of the poem. To do so, it is important that we pay sustained attention to the poetic narration and the way of narrating – one cannot get at the meaning of the poem without adequate attention to this conjunction.

Trope

The word trope is increasingly used in contemporary literary theory as a way of signifying a turn in language. The word tropic is derived from the Greek word tropikos, related to tropos, meaning turn, way, and manner. It enters the stream of modern Indo-European languages through the Latin word tropica meaning figure of speech. The concept of trope figures prominently in modern literary analysis and it is in this sense – as a figure of speech – that I wish to employ the term trope in my analysis of The Dhammapada.

In examining the natures and contours of the poetic discourse inscribed in The Dhammapada, I wish to invoke the idea of root image; this is clearly connected to the notion of trope that I alluded to in the earlier paragraph. The similes, metaphors, symbols, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, in a given weave of prose or verse tend to coalesce around a dominant image which in term the root image.

It seems to me that through an analysis of that root image we will be able to decode the complex verbal organisation of the given piece of writing. We can, for example, select some plays of Shakespeare and attempt to get at the organisation of the text and deepen our understanding of that organisation by examining their root images.

As Ralph Berry has said, the root image would enable us to comprehend the dominant impulse in bringing together numerous perceptions of associations to organise and articulate a dramatic situation. To cite a few instances, in Richard III the root image is that of play and audience; in king john it is that of authority and legitimacy; in tempest it is that of power and possession while King Lear has as its root image blindness and vision. In Joseph Conrad’s powerful novel Heart of Darkness, darkness functions as the root image.

In The Dhammapada, as I pointed out earlier, there are two sub-discourses that feed the central discourse. And each of these sub-discourses is constructed around a dominant root image. The two sub-discourses are those of motion and tranquility. In the Dhammapada, by my count, of the 423 verses nearly 120 contribute to the strengthening of the root image of motion. For example, the entirety of chapter 20 which is titled ‘Maggavaggo’, (The Path) tends to highlight this root image. These are a few representative examples.

Eightfold path

Of paths the eightfold is the best; of truths the four sayings are the best; of virtues freedom from attachment is the best; of people those who have vision are the best

This is the path; there is no other that leads to purity of insight. Traverse this path. and you will surely confound the Mara.

Traversing this path, you will eliminate your suffering. This path was shown by e when in comprehended the removal of the thorns

You yourself must strive. The Buddhas are only teachers. Those who enter the path and practice meditation are freed from the bondage of death.

All created things are ephemeral. When through the wisdom one realizes this, he becomes dis-enamored of sorrow. His is the oath to purity.’

In all 17 verses contained in this chapter, the image that recurs is that of the path and motion towards purity. In many of the verses the image of the path acquires an allegorical significance.

Images

Throughout The Dhammapada we find a dense tissue of images that deal with such activities as walking, running, navigating, journeying, meandering, departing and arriving. These go to form the root image of motion that I discussed earlier. These are some examples that serve to illustrate this point.

Earnest among the unenergetic, awake among the sleepy, the wise man advances like a river, leaving behind the pack.

A mendicant who delights in vigilance who looks with fear on thoughtlessness rushes like a fire destroying every bond, small or great

Even as a fish taken out of water home and thrown on the dry ground, our thoughts quiver all over in order to escape the dominion of death.

Death carries off a man who gathering flowers, whose mind is distracted just as a flood carries off a sleeping village.’

In all these verses, then, what we come across are images of movement in varying guises and they serve to intensify the domineering effect of the root image of motion.

In some of the stanzas gathered in The Dhammapada, the reader is admonished directly regarding the requirements that he or she needs to fulfill in the journey of life/.

Long is the night to him who is awake; long is the league to him who is weary’ long is the cycle of rebirth to the foolish who do not know the law. ‘

If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better or equal let him firmly pursue his journey by himself; there is no companionship with a fool.

One is the road that leads to wealth; another is the road that leads to nirvana; let the mendicant, the disciple, of the Buddha, having learnt this, not long for honor, bur strive after wisdom.

The journey, the path, and the act of departing, are replete with symbolic meaning. In these examples what we see is the complex ways in which the root image of motion feeds into the central message of the poem, the need to achieve permanent tranquility. I shall point out, in subsequent columns, how this root image of motion contrasts with that of the other root image in the poem- tranquility..

(To be continued)