The text of the Dhammapada as presented here has been established through a comparison of the four standard printed editions:

I have also consulted the following texts for comparison of the readings (but have not entered the variants in the notes):

For the prosody I have consulted:

When I started preparing the Dhammapada for the Sri Lanka Tipitaka Project, I really had no intention of re-establishing the text, but as the work progressed, and I grew more familiar with the Buddha Jayanti Tripitaka edition (BJT), it became clear that there were many problems in the text, including non-standard forms, Sanskritisation, and unmetrical readings. I therefore began a comparison of BJT with the other main editions and started entering the variant readings found therein. During the process of that work it became clear that none of the other texts were quite satisfactory either, and what had started out as a simple re-presentation of the text as it is found in the Sri Lankan tradition, has finished up requiring a complete re-appraisal of the text, especially from the point of view of its metre.

As with any verse text, of course, it is essential to understand the prosody that underlies the composition, otherwise the likelihood is that wrong readings will find their way into the text. This should not be understood as implying that every verse should be rigidly conformed to a standard metre. Indeed it is such unskilful editing that is one of the faults in the main editions available to us. To understand the prosody correctly, one must know not only what is its standard pattern, but also what amount of deviation is allowed from the norms that otherwise prevail. And to understand that we must let the texts themselves be our guide.

A normal feature of Pàëi prosody is the resolution of one presumed heavy syllable into two light ones. As I have explained elsewhere there is an underlying rule regarding resolution which states that only the first two syllables in a word may be resolved (including syllables that appear as the second half of a compound, or after a prefix). With the help of this rule we are able to identify more accurately the underlying variation, especially in the Siloka prior lines. In the text as here established I count resolution 60 times. 58 of these comply with the rule outlined above, and there are only two examples where the rule may not hold, the first at 27a, where the line in question is the opposite of a line in the preceding verse - something which often disturbs the prosody; and at 137c.

As can be seen from the table below the syllable most liable to resolution is the 1st, and in the Tuññhubha/Jagatã verses that occur in the Dhammapada it is the only resolution found (marked in red in the table - all the rest of the resolutions occur in Siloka lines).

We may note here that resolution is found in two places within the same line in the following lines: 8a (1st & 6th); 185a (1st & 5th); 302f (1st & 4th).

The compliment to the rule of resolution is the rule of replacement, which states that when 2 presumed light syllables are replaced by a heavy one, it is always the first two syllables in a word that are presumed to be light.

In this edition of the Dhammapada there is replacement in line with the rule at 40c & 125c. As with resolution, the application of the rule of replacement can also help us to identify the underlying structure of the verse, in a way that has not been recognised before. The reading at 19d (together with its repetition at 20f) has a Tuññhubha line with the following structure:

Because of the need to meet the requirements of the metre, which demands syllables of a specified length in certain places to produce the rhythms which make up a verse, there are certain changes which take place in word form. As can be seen from the following lists it is the lengthening of i > ã, especially at the end of a word, that is by far the most common change that occurs.

long ã at the end of a word (36 instances):

long ã medially (14 instances):

other vowels lengthened medially (6 instances):

shortening of vowels (6 instances):

consonants doubled unhistorically (8 instances):

consonant groups simplified (4 instances):

niggahãta dropped (13 instances):

There are 5 metres that are employed in the Dhammapada, they are:

By far the most common metre in the canon, and in the Dhammapada in particular, is the Siloka which accounts for some 83% of the verses found in the collection. The Siloka is an addhasamavutta syllabic metre, which means it has two dissimilar lines which make up a pàdayuga; two pàdayugas (or occasionally three) make a verse. There are normally 8 syllables to each half of the pàdayuga (pair of lines).

The Siloka has a pathyà (normal) structure and 7 variations. The normal structure can be described as follows:

In the text as it has been established here there are pathyà lines in 82% of the Siloka pàdayugas. Another way to emphasize how high this percentage is, would be to note that there are only 7 Siloka verses in the whole collection that do not have pathyà lines in them.

7 variations occur in the first half of the pàdayuga. They have the following structure (with the percentage of their occurrence):

There are also 8 lines that are irregular.

Verse no 150 is unusual because, as it stands, it is in Anuññhubha metre, but whether we should count this as a seperate metre, or as Siloka with 2 Anuññhubha variations in the prior line is not sure.

It is well established that in the opening of the Siloka metre, 2 shorts are normally avoided in 2nd and 3rd positions. That this is so can simply be proved by reference to the texts themselves, and noting that the number of times this opening appears is very much less than a random choice could possibly entail. Besides this though, we can also see that changes are regularly made to word forms in order to avoid the opening.

The description of the openings is the same for both metres, so they will be treated together here.

In the prior lines the openings are:

In the posterior lines the openings are:

It is perhaps worth noting here that in verse, the last syllable in the line is always counted as heavy, no matter what its real length is. We could perhaps suggest that this phenomena, which is known as pàdantagaru, may well find its compliment here, where the first syllable sometimes has to be counted as light m.c., no matter what its true length is. We could perhaps call this phenomena pàdàdilahu, which would also be complimentary to the phenomena of pàdàdigaru, which is found in gaõacchandas verses.

Other regular forms:

The extended form of the metre, pausing at the fifth and restarting from the same syllable, occurs in 3 places, showing the following forms:

There are 4 places where the break has only 2 syllables owing to replacement occurring at the 6th (see above).

It should be noted that 347a is unusual in that there is nowhere we can easily count a break as occuring. The following lines, which are irregular, are commented on in the text: 84c, 329d; 330d.