Inspired Verse Utterances of Buddha — Topical Compilation
Ched du brjod pa’i tshoms
Kg mdo sde sa, 209a1-253a7

Description: “Tibetan Dharmapada”
Similar to Pali Dhammapada. A Dharmapada is a particular school’s collection of Buddha’s pith inspired verse utterances [udāna]. These are spoken to fully summarize a particular teaching and compiled by various topics. A number of partially complete extant versions have been found. This is the most widely known and complete collection widely known and studied from Tibet.

Dr. Lozang Jamspal
International Buddhist College
Tibetan Classics Translators Guild of New York
Translated from Tibetan and Sanskrit

Udānavarga © Dr. Lozang Jamspal is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, CC BY-SA 4.0,

TRANSLATOR’S SUMMARY
Udānavarga is divided into 33 chapters. These chapters vary in number from 12 to 94 verses.

First ten chapters
The first chapter is about impermanence as the entrance of Dharma practitioners; the second and third are about eliminating desire and craving; the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh are respectively about cultivating carefulness, the beloved, morality, and good conduct; the eighth and ninth are about distinguishing bad from good words and karma; and the tenth is about cultivating faith in virtuous ones so that one can achieve virtuous results even up to perfect enlightenment.

Second ten chapters
The eleventh to twentieth chapters deal with good and bad things with examples. The Blessed One gives advice on what to do and not do on such topics as the ascetic, the path, honors, enmity, recollection, miscellaneous, water, flowers, horses, and anger. Buddha gives teachings to eliminate bad action and cultivate virtuous actions.

Final thirteen chapters
In the final section, there are thirteen chapters. In these chapters Buddha gives superb advice and teachings dealing with: Tathāgata, studies, self, comparisons, friendship, nirvāṇa, seeing, nonvirtue, verse pairs, happiness, mind, the monk, and the Brahmin. In this final Udāna chapter, it is shown how only a Buddha has the characteristics of a person who can be a Brahmin.

TRANSLATOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche and supporters of “84000 Buddha Word” for giving me this opportunity to translate into English from Tibetan Kangyur this Udānavarga. The English draft translation has been assiduously edited by Norman Guberman, although he knows some Tibetan. He has a good knowledge of Buddhism and is a devotedly trustful and jovial person. I am very thankful to him as well his wife Sa’tsho ma, Sharon. 

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

Introduction to Udānavarga in Tibet.

There are eighty-four thousand teachings of the Buddha as antidotes to the eighty-four thousand defilements of worldly people. These teachings are all included in the Three Baskets (Tripiṭakas), composed of the Vinaya (morality), Sūtra(meditation) and Abhidharma (wisdom) teachings. At the beginning of the Udānavarga, its Tibetan translators pay homage to the All Knowing One (thams cad mkhyen pa), which indicates that the Udānavarga is included in vinaya piṭaka.

Udānavarga has been a very important text for Mahāyāna Buddhism in India. Vasubandhu in his Abhidharmakośa Autocommentary quoted many verses from it. In fact, quotations from it can be found in almost all Tibetan Buddhist preliminary teachings texts.

Udānavarga was included as one of their six books (bka’ gdams gzhung drug) in the curriculum of the Bka’gdams pa tradition. The six books are: Jātakamālā and Udānavarga, for the sake of faith; Śikṣāsamuccaya and Bodhicaryāvatāra, for the sake of good conduct; and Bodhisattvabhūmi and Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, for the sake of good meditation.

The Bka’bdams pa tradition was founded upon the Dharma teachings of Atiśa and flourished from the 11th through the 13th century. After the Dge lugs pa tradition arose, the Bka’gdams pa tradition became merged into it.

The Tibetan Udānavarga was translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan by the Indian Abbot Vidyākara Prabhā and Tibetan translator Vande Rin chen mchog. It was edited by the well-known Tibetan translator Vande Dpal brtsegs. These translators likely flourished at the end of 8th and beginning of the 9th CE. 

Along with it there is Tibetan translation of Commentary of Udānavarga by Prajñāvarma. Its Sanskrit title is Udānavarga Vivaraṇa. The commentary gives stories and contexts for the verses, telling for whom they were spoken for by the Buddha.

I have long been captivated by the beauty of its verses and their teachings. In 1974, I first began translating it intending to translate whole text. However becoming engaged into other projects I was not able to continue this work.

So when I saw in 2010 Udānavarga on the list of works to be translated for the 84000 Buddhist Literary Heritage Project, I immediately felt that it was the right time for me to translate it into English. For this purpose I typed up both the Tibetan and Sanskrit together assigning numbers to the verses according to the Tibetan Derge [sde dge] edition. You can find the folios from the Commentary in Derge volumes Tu and Thu on the right side of the Tibetan verse numbers. In chapter 27, after verse 10 there are four prose passages without any corresponding Sanskrit; in chapter 32, verses 43 and 44 are translated as prose, but the Sanskrit verses are partially similar to the Tibetan prose passages. 

There are already two English version translations [1] of Udānavarga from the Tibetan by W.W. Rockhill and Gareth Sparham. Both translations have lengthy introductions and useful footnotes. Therefore, I feel it unnecessary to make a long introduction to my English translation.

W.W. Rockhill’s translation of the Udānavarga was published in London in 1883. In his introduction he wrote of its similarity and overlap with the well-known Dhammapada:

“The Udānavarga contains 300 verses, which are nearly identical with verses of the Dhammapada; 150 more resemble verses of the work; twenty are to be found in the Sutta Nipāta, and about the same number are very similar to parts of the same book. Thus more than half of the Udānavarga is found in works of the Southern canon, it appears highly probable that if the Udāna, the Therigāthā, &c., had been examined, many more of the verses of the Tibetan work would have been found in the them.”

I placed Rockhill’s corresponding Dhammapada verse numbers right after our Udānavarga verse numbers to facilitate verse comparisons. In making these comparisons with Dhammapada, I also utilized the original Pāli and English translation by John Carter and Mahinda Palihawadana. In addition, I compared these to the renowned Tibetan scholar dGe ‘dun Chos ‘phel’s translation of the Dhammapada into Tibetan from Pāli in Srilanka published in 1944. 

Garetth Sparham’s translation was published over a century later in 1985. Sparham wrote a good introduction and included 443 notes that are very useful in understanding the meanings of the verses.

Udānavarga has 33 chapters; some are short and some long. For each of these chapters, Ācārya Prajñāvarman, a Sarvāstivādin, wrote a commentary that exists only in Tibetan translation, which all Tangyur collections contain. I consulted the Derge edition that exist in Abhidharma (mngon pa) section in 2 volumes, Tu and Thu.

There is a saying in Tibetan:

gsung gcig nyid du gsungs gyur kyang/ du ma nyid du so sor go/

“Although Buddha spoke in one voice,
People understood in different ways.”

There is no doubt these three translations, W.W. Rockhill’s, Gareth Sparham’s, and mine translated many verses of Udānavarga with different understandings of the exact meaning of its words. (See especially ch. 4, v. 37; ch. 18, vv. 2 and 7; ch. 20, vv. 7–10; and ch. 33, vv. 35 and 36.)

The Sanskrit version of this scripture edited by Dr. Franz Bernhard (1965) and Ānandajoti Bikkhu (version 2.1, January 2005) has approximately 1100 verses; Charles Willeman [from the Chinese] has about 927 verses; Rockhill about 968 verses; Gareth Sparham about 961 verses; while our present version has 998 verses plus 13 prose paragraphs.

I have corrected the Sansrit version through reading the English transliterated Sanskrit text by Ānandajoti Bhikkhu. Nonetheless the Sanskrit version still needs further correction of words from my own as well as other people’s works. Reading and pondering, we will make better versions of Udānavarga, Inspired Verse Utterances of the Buddha.

Lozang Jamspal
International Buddhist College
Thailand
December 14, 2016

TRANSLATION

Inspired Verse Utterances of the Buddha -- Topical Compilation

[F209.a] Udānavarga

I bow down to the Omniscient One [1]

Compilerʼs Preface
0.1
The Victorious One spoke these inspired verse utterances
That I [2] shall now well transmit;
Dispel drowsiness and sluggishness,
Give rise to a joyous mind, and listen well.

0.2
The Omniscient One, Protector, 
Great Sage, Compassionate One,
Maintaining his final body,
The Blessed One spoke thus

1 Salutation indicative of a vinaya text

2 Refers to Dharmatrāta who is the compiler of the Udānavarga

Chapter 1
Impermanence

Chapter 2
Desire <chapter header>

Chapter 3
Craving <chapter header>

Chapter 4
Carefulness <chapter header>

Chapter 5
The Beloved <chapter header>

Chapter 6
Morality <chapter header>

Chapter 7
Good Conduct <chapter header>

Chapter 8
Words <chapter header>

Chapter 9
Karma <chapter header>

Chapter 10
Faith <chapter header>

Chapter 11
The Ascetic <chapter header>

Chapter 12
The Path <chapter header>

Chapter 13
Honors <chapter header>

Chapter 14
Enmity <chapter header>

Chapter 15
Recollection <chapter header>

Chapter 16
Miscellaneous <chapter header>

Chapter 17
Water <chapter header>

Chapter 18
Flowers <chapter header>

Chapter 19
Horses <chapter header>

Chapter 20
Anger <chapter header>

Chapter 21
Tathāgata <chapter header>

Chapter 22
Studies <chapter header>

Chapter 23
Self <chapter header>

Chapter 24
Comparisons <chapter header>

Chapter 25
Friendship <chapter header>

Chapter 26
Nirvāna <chapter header>

Chapter 27
Seeing <chapter header>

Chapter 28
Nonvirtue <chapter header>

Chapter 29
Verse Pairs <chapter header>

Chapter 30
Happiness <chapter header>

Chapter 31
Mind <chapter header>

Chapter 32
The Monk <chapter header>

Chapter 33
The Brahmin <chapter header>

Notes <part header>

Bibliography <part header>

Appendix <part header>

Sanskrit-Tibetan Text <part header>