(Looking for a new project to commit to, I’ve been going through various Chinese Jātaka / Avadāna collections, which vary a lot in Indic / Chinese content, and the increasingly misogynistic attitude that comes with the later literature leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Hoping to find a project that was more relevant to an EBT student, with good stories, interesting history and sound Dharma, I’ve decided to focus my attention on T211, after researching their parallels.
Tracing the parallels of narratives and verses both proved extremely interesting, so I’m sharing now my work on the first chapter of the collection before the translations. I hope you enjoy it!)
Introduction to 法句譬喻經 “The Scripture of Dharma Verses and Parables”
The Fǎjù pìyù jīng 法句譬喻經, “The Scripture of Dharma Verses and Parables,” (DS hereafter) is preserved as T211 in the Chinese Buddhist canon. It is a four-fascicle work, traditionally attributed to Faju 法炬 and Fali 法立 and catalogued as a Western Jin translation, probably dating to approximately 290–306 CE. Its thirty-nine chapters generally follow the chapter sequence of the Chinese Fǎjù jīng 法句經, T210, but T211 places narrative settings around selected groups of verses.
DS might loosely be called a “Dharmapada commentary,” but this description can be misleading. It does not appear to be a translation of the Pāli Dhammapada-aṭṭhakathā, and its stories frequently differ from the Pāli commentarial narratives attached to the same verses. It seems better understood as an independent collection of stories constructed around a shared treasury of Buddhist verses.
The verses themselves seem to belong to a broad tradition. Some have exact or near-exact equivalents in the Pāli Dhammapada, Sutta Nipāta, Saṃyutta Nikāya, Theragāthā, or Itivuttaka. Others are absent from the surviving Pāli collections but closely match the Buddhist Sanskrit Udānavarga. Frequently, DS combines verses that are now found in different Pāli books and supplies them with a single narrative setting.
Samuel Beal’s 1878 English translation of DS is available on SuttaCentral. It was pioneering, but it is often paraphrastic, commonly omits details, and occasionally interprets difficult Chinese rather freely. The Chinese text itself also seems to compressed . For that reason, the interpretations below are offered provisionally.
Note: All English translations of verses are my renderings of the Chinese, not the Indic versions. For Pāli, feel free to consult Bhikkhu Sujato; for Sanskrit, Bhikkhu Anandajoti.
The first chapter, 無常品, “Impermanence,” contains six stories.
1. Śakra’s Conversion
In the opening story, Śakra recognizes five signs that his heavenly merit and lifespan are exhausted. He learns that he is destined to be conceived as a donkey in a potter’s household. Terrified, he approaches the Buddha and takes refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha. He dies while still prostrating himself and is conceived in the donkey’s womb.
The pregnant donkey then breaks the potter’s vessels. The potter strikes her, causing the fetus to die, whereupon Śakra’s consciousness returns to his former divine body. The Buddha praises his refuge, and Śakra eventually attains stream-entry.
Narrative Parallel
The closest Pāli narrative seems to be DN 21, the Sakkapañhasutta.
There, Śakra approaches the Buddha, receives a teaching, becomes a stream-enterer, and declares that he has acquired a renewed or extended divine lifespan. The root Pāli discourse does not narrate the five death-signs, Śakra’s terror, or rebirth as a donkey. However, the commentary explains that Śakra’s life was ending, that he approached the Buddha out of fear, and that during the discourse he died and was immediately reborn as a young Śakra. DS seems to preserve a more dramatic relative of this explanatory tradition, although its donkey episode remains distinctive.
Verses
The first half of DS’s verse closely resembles the famous formula:
所行非常， 謂興衰法，
aniccā vata saṅkhārā, uppādavayadhammino …
“Conditioned things are indeed impermanent; arising and vanishing is their nature.”
In the Pāli canon this is spoken by Śakra after the Buddha’s final extinguishment at SN 6.15 and DN 16. DS has reassigned it to the Buddha, who speaks it to Śakra.
The second half compares human life to clay vessels made by a potter, all destined to break. This image occurs in Snp 3.8 and in the prose of SN 3.22. An even closer Sanskrit formulation appears in the Anityatāsūtra SF 299, where both of these stanzas occur together:
「所行非常， 謂興衰法，
夫生輒死， 此滅為樂。譬如陶家， 埏埴作器，
一切要壞， 人命亦然。」anityā vata saṁskārā utpādavyayadharminaḥ |
utpadya hi nirūdhyante teṣāṁ vyupaśamaḥ sukhaṁ ||yathāhi kumbhakāreṇa mṛttikābhājanaṁ kṛtaṁ |
sarvam bhedanaparyantaṁ sattvānāṁ jīvitaṁ tathā ||"Conditioned things are impermanent,
So it’s their nature to rise and decay.
Whatever is born must die;
Cessation of this is peace.Just as a potter
Kneads clay and makes vessels —
All of them are bound to break;
Human life is just like this."
2. King Pasenadi’s Mourning
In the second story, King Pasenadi has just buried an elderly royal woman who was more than ninety years old. Still wearing rough mourning clothes, he visits the Buddha. The Buddha explains that birth, aging, sickness, and death arrive without appointment, and that human life flows away as swiftly as the great rivers.
The Buddha advises the king not to destroy himself through grief. Instead, a filial person should perform good deeds and direct their benefit toward the deceased:
“Meritorious protection follows after them, like provisions sent to someone far away.”
SN 3.22, the Ayyikāsutta
The basic narrative closely parallels SN 3.22. There, King Pasenadi comes to the Buddha after the death of his 120-year-old grandmother. He says that he would surrender elephants, horses, villages, or even his kingdom if doing so could restore her. The Buddha replies:
“All sentient beings are liable to die. Death is their end; they are not exempt from death.”
The relationship in of the deceased with the King in DS is less explicit. DS adds the funeral procession, mourning dress, and teaching on dedicating merit, while omitting Pasenadi’s offer to exchange his kingdom for her life.
Interestingly, SN 3.22 also contains the potter’s-vessel comparison that DS places in the preceding Śakra story.
Verses
DS’s stanza closely matches UV 1.15. I couldn’t find a Pāli equivalent.
「如河駛流， 往而不返，
人命如是， 逝者不還。」yathā nadī pārvatīyā gacchate na nivartate ।
evam āyur manuṣyāṇāṁ gacchate na nivartate ।।“Like a river rushing onward,
Going and not returning,
So is human life:
Those who have passed do not return.”
The recommendation to benefit dead relatives through merit is not found in this form in SN 3.22. It is closer to the Tirokuṭṭasutta, Khp 7/ Pv 5, where gifts are dedicated with the wish, “May this be for our relatives,” and grief is explicitly said to be of no benefit to the departed.
DS thus seems to combine the narrative of SN 3.22, a Sanskrit river verse, and a teaching resembling the Pāli tradition of sharing merit with departed relatives.
3. Cattle unknowingly fattened for slaughter
In the third story, the Buddha encounters a large herd of well-fed cattle returning to Rājagṛha. They leap, bellow, and butt one another. Later he tells Ānanda that the herd originally contained one thousand cattle. Each day the butcher sends them to good pasture, selects the fattest, and kills them. More than half have already died, but the survivors remain oblivious.
The Buddha compares them to people who identify with “I” and “mine,” indulge the five sensual pleasures, nourish their bodies, and injure one another without recognizing that death may arrive at any time.
I have not found a close Pāli narrative equivalent to the butcher’s herd.
Verses
The first stanza is a close equivalent of DHP 135. The corresponding Sanskrit verse is UV 1.17. In the Pāli DHP commentary, however, this verse is attached to a discourse involving Visākhā and women observing the uposatha, not to cattle belonging to a butcher. DS seems to turn the verse’s comparison into an actual event witnessed by the Buddha.
「譬人操杖， 行牧食牛，
老死猶然， 亦養命去。」Yathā daṇḍena gopālo gāvo pājeti gocaraṃ;
evaṃ jarā ca maccu ca āyuṃ pājenti pāṇinaṃ.“Just as a person takes a staff,
Going to herd and feed the cattle;
Old age and death are just like this,
Also goading life away.”
The second stanza closely corresponds to UV 1.21. Again, I couldn’t find a Pāli equivalent:
「千百非一， 族姓男女，
貯聚財產， 無不衰喪。」Anekāni sahasrāṇi naranārīśatāni ca
bhogāṁ vai samudānīya: vaśaṁ gacchanti mṛtyunaḥ.“Not just one, but hundreds and thousands,
Men and women of great families,
Accumulating, storing wealth and property —
None are spared from decline and loss.
The third stanza is nearly identical to SN 4.10 and Theragāthā 145, with its Sanskrit parallel is Udānavarga 1.18.
「生者日夜， 命自攻削，
壽之消盡， 如 ［榮-木＋巾］ ［雨／井］ 水。」“Accayanti ahorattā,
jīvitaṁ uparujjhati;
Āyu khīyati maccānaṁ,
kunnadīnaṁva odakan”ti.Atiyānti hy ahorātrā, jīvitaṁ coparudhyate,
āyuḥ kṝīyati martyānāṁ, kunadīṝu yathaudakam.“Days and nights, for all living beings
Life is thus withered away.
One’s lifespan dwindles,
Just like water dripping from a crevice."
4. The brahmin who loses both his daughter and his harvest
The fourth story is very brief. A brahmin’s only daughter dies of an illness. At the same time, a wildfire destroys his ripe grain. Overcome by both bereavement and financial loss, he becomes almost deranged with grief and approaches the Buddha.
The Buddha teaches four things that cannot remain:
- what appears permanent becomes impermanent;
- wealth and high position end in poverty or decline;
- union ends in separation;
- strength and life end in death.
The brahmin’s mind clears, he goes forth, and he becomes an arahant.
I have not found an exact Pāli narrative parallel.
Verses
The verse closely corresponds to UV 1.22:
「常者皆盡， 高者必墮，
合會有離， 生者有死。」Sarve kṣayāntā nicayāḥ patanāntāḥ samucchrayāḥ;
Saṃyogā viprayogāntā maraṇāntaṃ hi jīvitam.“Everything accumulated is exhausted,
That which is high will inevitably fall.
Union ends in separation;
Those who are born have to die."
(The Chinese 常者皆盡, “what is permanent is exhausted,” does not exactly match Sanskrit nicayāḥ, “accumulations.” One possibility is that the Chinese translator was working from a Middle Indic form that could be interpreted in more than one way.)
The same Sanskrit stanza occurs in the Anityatāsūtra, the Divyāvadāna, the Mahāvastu, and elsewhere in Indian literature. It seems to have been a widely circulating maxim.
5. Lotus and the phantom woman
The fifth story concerns a courtesan named Lotus, 蓮華, who decides to become a nun. On the way to the Buddha, she sees her reflection in a spring and becomes captivated by her own beauty. She changes her mind and decides to enjoy her youth instead.
The Buddha creates a woman incomparably more beautiful than Lotus. The two return to the spring, converse intimately, and the phantom falls asleep with her head in Lotus’s lap. She then dies and rapidly passes through bloating, putrefaction, infestation by worms, loss of hair and teeth, and bodily disintegration.
Lotus realizes that her own beauty cannot last. She goes to the Buddha, receives a teaching, becomes a nun, and attains arahantship.
Khemā and Rūpanandā
The central device strongly resembles the commentarial stories of Khemā and Janapadakalyāṇī Rūpanandā.
In Khemā’s story, the Buddha creates a woman more beautiful than the queen and causes the apparition to age and collapse. Khemā realizes that bodily beauty has no lasting essence and eventually becomes an arahant.
In Rūpanandā’s story, the created woman passes successively through youth, maturity, old age, sickness, death, bloating, decomposition, and dismemberment. This sequence comes even closer to the graphic transformation seen by Lotus.
DS nevertheless gives the motif a distinct form. Lotus is a courtesan rather than a queen or an already ordained nun. Her initial resolve to renounce is reversed by seeing her reflection. The apparition befriends her, rests in her lap, and dies away from the Buddha’s physical presence. The intimacy of the encounter makes the teaching unusually personal.
The four verses
The first verse closely parallels DHP 148, with its Sanskrit parallel at UV 1.34:
「老則色衰， 所病自壞，
形敗腐朽， 命終其然。」Parijiṇṇamidaṁ rūpaṁ roganīḷaṁ pabhaṅguraṁ;
bhijjati pūtisandeho maraṇantañhi jīvitaṁ.Parijīrṇam idaṁ rūpaṁ, roganīḍaṁ prabhaṅguram,
bhetsyate pūty asaṁdehaṁ, maraṇāntaṁ hi jīvitam.“With old age, appearance fades;
Struck by illness, it breaks down.
The body decays and rots;
At life’s end, such is its fate.”
The second verse closely matches UV 1.36:
「是身何用？ 恒漏臭處，
為病所困， 有老死患。」Kim anena śarīreṇa sravatā pūtinā sadā;
nityaṁ rogābhibhūtena jarāmaraṇabhīruṇā.“What use is this body,
Always leaking, a foul place?
Beset by illness,
Afflicted by old age and death.”
The third verse closely matches UV 2.15:
「嗜欲自恣， 非法是增，
不見聞變， 壽命無常。」Gṛddhā hi kāmeṣu narāḥ pramattā hy adharme bata te ratāḥ;
antarāyaṁ na te paśyanty alpake jīvite sati.“Craving desires, indulging oneself,
What is against Dharma grows.
Not seeing or heeding change,
Life is impermanent.”
The fourth is a close version of DHP 288, with its Sanskrit parallel at UV 1.40:
「非有子恃， 亦非父兄，
為死所迫， 無親可怙。」Na santi puttā tāṇāya na pitā nāpi bandhavā;
antakenādhipannassa natthi ñātīsu tāṇatā.Na santi putrās trāṇāya, na pitā nāpi bāndhavāḥ,
Antakenābhibhūtasya, na hi trāṇā bhavanti te.“Children cannot be relied upon,
Nor father and brothers.
When pressed upon by death,
No relative offers refuge.”
This story therefore gathers verses that are now dispersed between DHP and different sections of the UV then places them within a narrative related to Pāli stories about Khemā and Nandā.
6. Four ascetics attempt to hide from death
In the final story, four ascetic brothers possess the five mundane supernormal powers and know that they will die in seven days. Confident that they can move mountains, stop rivers, and touch the sun and moon, they decide to hide:
- one in the middle of the ocean;
- one inside Mount Sumeru;
- one in the sky;
- one among the crowds of a great marketplace.
All four die when the seven days expire. The king asks the Buddha whether any of them escaped. The Buddha replies that birth, aging, sickness, and death cannot be avoided. DS introduces this sequence with the unusual statement that one in the intermediate existence, 中陰, cannot avoid taking birth. This explicit intermediate-state formulation does not have a clear equivalent in the Pāli parallel material discussed below.
Verses
The first stanza is a very close version of DHP 128, with the corresponding Sanskrit verse at UV 1.25:
「非空非海中， 非入山石間，
無有地方所， 脫之不受死。」Na antalikkhe na samuddamajjhe na pabbatānaṁ vivaraṁ pavissa;
na vijjatī so jagatippadeso yatthaṭṭhitaṁ nappasaheyya maccu.“Not in the sky or in the sea,
Not by entering among mountain rocks;
There is no region or place
Where one escapes without meeting death.”
The Pāli commentary attaches Dhp 128 to Suppabuddha the Sakyan. Having heard a prediction concerning the place and time of his death, Suppabuddha confines himself to the upper floor of his palace. Despite his precautions, he is forced downstairs and dies at the predicted place. This has the same basic pattern of foreknowledge of death followed by a failed attempt to avoid it, but not DS’s four brothers or four hiding places.
DS appears to have expanded the geographical alternatives named in the verse into separate characters: ocean, mountain, and sky become actual hiding places, while the marketplace supplies a fourth, darkly comic strategy.
The second stanza closely matches UV 1.41. I have not found an exact Pāli equivalent:
「是務是吾作， 當作令致是，
人為此躁擾， 履踐老死憂。」Idaṁ kṛtaṁ me kartavyam idaṁ kṛtvā bhaviṣyati;
ity evaṁ spondato martyāṁ jarā mṛtyuś ca mardati.“‘This work is mine to do;
I must act and bring this about.’
People are agitated by such things,
Treading the sorrow of old age and death.”
The final stanza closely parallels Iti 46, with its Sanskrit counterpart at UV 1.42:
「知此能自靜， 如是見生盡，
比丘厭魔兵， 從生死得度。」Tasmā sadā jhānaratā samāhitā,
ātāpino jātikhayantadassino;
Māraṁ sasenaṁ abhibhuyya bhikkhavo,
bhavatha jātimaraṇassa pāragā.Tasmāt sadā dhyānaratāḥ samāhitā, hy ātāpino jātijarāntadarśinaḥ,
Māraṁ sasainyaṁ hy abhibhūya bhikṝavo, bhaveta jātīmaraṇasya pāragāḥ!“Knowing this, one can become still;
Thus one sees birth exhausted.
A monk turns away from Māra’s army,
And crosses beyond birth and death.”
The progression seems deliberate. Death cannot be escaped by changing one’s location. Nor can it be defeated by completing an endless series of worldly projects. What Buddhist practice offers is not physical escape from a particular death, but release from the process of repeated birth and death.
Summary table
| DS story | Narrative parallels | Verse parallels | Major divergences |
|---|---|---|---|
| Śakra’s Conversion | DN 21 and its Pāli commentary: Śakra approaches the Buddha, gains stream-entry and renewed divine life | “Conditioned things are impermanent”: SN 6.15/DN 16; potter’s vessels: Snp 3.8, SN 3.22; combined in the Sanskrit Anityatāsūtra SF 299 | The root Pāli discourse does not mention the five death-signs, fear, or donkey conception. DS makes death, rebirth, refuge, and restoration physically explicit. |
| Pasenadi’s Mourning | SN 3.22, Ayyikāsutta | River verse: UV 1.15 | Pāli: grandmother aged 120; DS: 大夫人 aged over ninety, funeral and mourning details. DS adds dedication of merit resembling Khp 7/Pv 5. |
| Cattle fattened for slaughter | No close Pāli prose parallel located | Dhp 135 / Uv 1.17; Uv 1.21; SN 4.10 / Thag 145 / Uv 1.18 | DS literalizes the cowherd simile as a butcher’s herd and joins three independently transmitted verses. |
| Brahmin grieving his daughter and harvest | No exact Pāli narrative located; thematically related to grief teachings such as Snp 3.8 | Uv 1.22; also in the Anityatāsūtra SF 299, Divyāvadāna, and Mahāvastu | The double loss of daughter and crop appears distinctive. Chinese 常者 may reflect an uncertain rendering of an Indic form corresponding to Sanskrit nicayāḥ. |
| Lotus and the phantom woman | Pāli commentarial stories of Khemā and Rūpanandā/Nandā | Dhp 148 / Uv 1.34; Uv 1.36; Uv 2.15; Dhp 288 / Uv 1.40 | Lotus is a courtesan on her way to ordain; the phantom befriends her and dies in her lap. The Pāli versions use queens or nuns and attach different verses. |
| Four ascetics hiding from death | Pāli commentary to Dhp 128: Suppabuddha attempts to avoid a predicted death | Dhp 128 / Uv 1.25; Uv 1.41; Iti 46 / Uv 1.42 | DS distributes the hiding places among four wonder-working brothers and explicitly introduces 中陰, an intermediate existence before rebirth. |
I hope you enjoyed this brief (!) journey through the texts and traditions. One chapter down, now onto the translations — and then 38 more to go. 
If you notice any errors, have any suggestions for the translations, or if you find any parallels that I’ve missed, please feel free to inform me!
Thanks a lot for the kind words!
