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Title: The Dhammapada (Penguin Classics)
ISBN: 0140442847
Author:
Anonymous
Publicate Date: 1973-05-30
Publish: 1973-05-30
List Price: $8.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.54
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $1.19
Amazon Merchant Price: $8.95
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| Customer Review: |
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1: this penguin is rather an odd bird.....
A delightful basket of poems that illustrate what I imagine are some basic ideas of Buddhist belief. I have gone through several copies of this item.I was raised and am in a Christian Protestant tradition with English my birth language,so its going to be a stretch for me to make any any but the most cursory understanding of these writings. This is a Penguin publication . The author is a long deceased Oxford academic from the past century. Unlike the Oxford annotated Bible which has several extensive revisions the last half-century, I know I am looking at an outdated tome here and I will have to accept that.I expected more from Oxford and Penguin. Why bother with this little review?The verses are so sweet and somehow, don't ask me how, they reach out and touch the fundamentals of my heritage which was what I was seeking and found when I came across these verses 30 years back. Chance or Grace?
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2: My Foundation
This has been the single most important book in my life for many years now. Some reviews dislike the translation, well I have never read another version of this book, but this version has brought me peace and clarity many times with the wisdom found within it.
I recommend the Dhammapada to anyone who wants to travel the road of peace and self discovery. Read one chapter a day, every day, and you will find new meaning each day even if the chapter has been read many times.
As stated in the title, the book is my foundation.
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3: A Must Read
I've read about 100 buddhism books, and so far, I think this one (this translation of the Dhammapada) and the Dalai Lama's "A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night - A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life" are the best buddhism teachings I've read to date.
I read the earlier reviews by some stating this translation is not accurate. Maybe other translations are more literally word for word correct with the original; however, I feel that this translation conveys the teaching the best.
Read the various translations that Riku Simonen presented in his post, and the one that Thomas gave in the comment to Simonen's post. Forget about the accuracy of the translation, which one makes the most sense?
Supposively Buddha stated that a person should not follow any teaching based on blind faith, that all teachings should be questioned, and only the ones that are true to a person's heart should be followed.
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4: Excellent little book of buddhist Wisdom
This is the best value for you money and time you will find in religious literature.This is an excellent translation of the Buddhist Dhammapada(Path of Truth). If you are not familiar with Buddhism, this is a great starting point.Laying out the wisdom of the Buddha, in what is probably very close to his original oral teachings. It is very similiar to the Bible's book of proverbs. It has an excellent introduction.It is a very very quick read,I believe this is some of the world's best wisdom literature. Youy can read the whole book in less than an hour and a half.Start here on your journey to enlightenment.
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5: Beautiful and inspiring
The Dhammapada is one of the world's great religious classics, and its pithy, poetic style makes it very direct and inspiring. Like some of the other reviewers, I don't read Pali, and it's probably true that this isn't the most literal translation. However, I've read several translations of the Dhammapada and this has been my favorite for a long time. In any translation of a poetic nature, the translator must choose a certain balance between a strictly literal translation of the source material and a poetic rendering of the material in the target language, and Mascaro leans a little toward the latter. I've been a student of Buddhism for some years, though, and I find very few places where Mascaro's translation seems to be inaccurate --- even though there are other translations that may be a little more precise and literal. In any case, there are many Buddhist philosophical works where precision of terminology is critical, but, since the Dhammapada is a more general work consisting mainly of aphorisms, it's one work where a little poetic license seems acceptable.
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