The Dhammapada
The Path of the Law
- Attributed to
- The Buddhist canon
- Translated by
- F. Max Müller
- Chapters
- 26
- This translation
- 1881
Free of copyright worldwide. The translator died in 1900, and this translation was published in 1881. Even under the longest copyright term in the world — the author's life plus 100 years, which applies in Mexico — the text has been free since 2001. Source scan
Every chapter is free to read in Taoist Diary, with no account and no ads. Listening — the narrated chapters and the daily audio — is the subscription, at $1.99 a month.
How it opens
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.
The Dhammapada · The Twin-Verses · translated by F. Max Müller
Before you start
- Is The Dhammapada free to read?
- Yes — all 26 chapters, with no account and no ads. F. Max Müller's translation is out of copyright worldwide, so there is nothing to buy in order to read it. The paid part of Taoist Diary is listening: the narrated chapters and the daily audio, at $1.99 a month.
- Which translation is this?
- F. Max Müller's, published in 1881. It is not modernised, paraphrased or trimmed — the sentences are his. The scan it was taken from is linked above, so any line here can be checked against it.
- How long is it?
- 26 chapters, listed in full below — The Twin-Verses through The Brahmana (Arhat). Most are short enough to read in a sitting, which is how the app serves them: one at a time, one a day.
The 26 chapters
- 1The Twin-Verses
- 2On Earnestness
- 3Thought
- 4Flowers
- 5The Fool
- 6The Wise Man (Pandita)
- 7The Venerable (Arhat)
- 8The Thousands
- 9Evil
- 10Punishment
- 11Old Age
- 12Self
- 13The World
- 14The Buddha (the Awakened)
- 15Happiness
- 16Pleasure
- 17Anger
- 18Impurity
- 19The Just
- 20The Way
- 21Miscellaneous
- 22The Downward Course
- 23The Elephant
- 24Thirst
- 25The Bhikshu (Mendicant)
- 26The Brahmana (Arhat)