For the comparative DHP studies nerds. ![]()
I’ve been going through the Atman sections of DHPs where I noticed something interesting.
DHP 163 has this:
sukarāni asādhūni / attano ahitāni ca / yaṁ ve hitañ ca sādhuñ ca / taṁ ve paramadukkaraṁ.
It’s easy to do bad things harmful to oneself, but good things that are helpful are the hardest things to do.
Yet, in T210, we see this (my attempt):
惡行危身, 愚以為易;
善最安身, 愚以為難。Evil deed endangers the self, the fools think it’s easy.
Goodness best secures the self, the fools think it’s hard.
It seemed exactly the different teaching! So I tried to find it in other sources.
Patna version seems to agree with Pāli (found in “Stains”):
sukarāṇi asādhūni āttano ahitāni ca ।
yaṁ ve hitaṁ ca sādhuñ ca taṁ ve paramadukkaraṁ ।।
As well as the Gandhari:
sukaraṇi asadhuṇi atvaṇo ahidaṇa yi ।
ya du hida ji sadhu ji ta gu paramadrukara ।।
However, the Sarvāstivādin Udānavarga has these two stanzas in Pāpavarga (“Wickedness”), with my attempt:
sukarāṇi hy asādhūni svātmano hy ahitāni ca ।
yad vai hitaṁ ca pathyaṁ ca tad vai paramaduṣkaram ।।sukaraṁ sādhunā sādhu sādhu pāpena duṣkaram ।
pāpaṁ pāpena sukaraṁ pāpam āryeṇa duṣkaram ।।It’s easy to do bad things that are harmful to one’s self,
That which is beneficial to one’s self is truly the hardest to do.Goodness is easy for the virtuous and hard for the wicked.
Evil is easy for the wicked and hard for the nobles.
So, without looking for the UV, I would’ve missed it and considered a corruption somewhere. But it seems the Chinese might’ve used (and paraphrased) this second line from UV Pāpavarga, without taking the previous line, and puts it in the Self-Care section! ![]()
Which is interestingly, found in Ud 5.8:
“It’s easy for the good to do good,
“Sukaraṁ sādhunā sādhu,
but for the bad, doing good is hard.
Sādhu pāpena dukkaraṁ;
For the bad, it’s easy to do bad,
Pāpaṁ pāpena sukaraṁ,
but for the noble ones, doing bad is hard.”
Pāpamariyehi dukkaran”ti.
Isn’t tracing DHP verses across editions so cool. Anyway, yes.
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