What is the Dhammapada

Abstract from the book "Dhammapada";

INTRODUCTION
From ancient times to the present, the Dhammapada has been regarded as the most succinct expression of the Buddha's teaching. In the countries following Theravada Buddhism, it is a guidebook for the everyday life. Even withdrawn contemplatives must possess a copy of the book. Yet the admiration of the Dhammapada has not been confined to followers of Buddhism. Whenever it has become known its aphoristic wisdom and stirring message have won veneration of all.
The son of a king, the Buddha, was born in sixth century B.C. His name was Siddhattha and family name Gotama (Sanskrit: Siddhartha Gautama). Groomed to be heir to the throne, he encountered disturbing facts of suffering and lost all interest in the pleasures and privileges of rulership. One night, in his twenty-ninth year, he left home and became an ascetic, resolved to find the way to deliverance from suffering. For six years he experimented with different religious systems, subjected himself to severe austerities, but found that these practices did not bring him any closer to his goal. Finally, in his thirty-fifth year, sitting in deep meditation beneath the Bodhi tree at Gaya, he attained Supreme Enlightenment and become the Buddha. Thereafter, for forty-five years, he travelled throughout India, proclaiming the truths he had discovered and founding an order of monks and nuns to carry on his message. At the age of eighty, after a long and fruitful life, he passed away peacefully in Kusinara, surrounded by a large number of disciples.
To his followers, the Buddha is neither a god, a divine incarnation, nor a prophet bearing a message of divine revelation, but one who has reached the highest spiritual attainment, Supreme Enlightenment (Bodhi). He is a world teacher who, out of compassion, points out the way to Nibbana, (Sanskrit: Nirvana), final release from suffering. His teaching, known as the Dhamma, offers a body of instructions explaining the true nature of existence and showing the path that leads to liberation. Free from all dogmas and inscrutable claims to authority, the Dhamma is founded upon Buddha's own realization of reality, and leads one who practices it to that excellence.
In its twenty-six chapters, Dhammapada spans multiple aspects of the Buddha's teaching, offering a variety of standpoints from which to gain a glimspe into the heart of Dhamma-Truth. The inspirational verses on the fundamentals of the Dhamma are meant to be used as a basis for personal edification and instruction. As water, though one in essence, assumes different shapes due to the vessels into which it is poured, so the Dhamma of liberation takes in different forms in response to the needs of the beings to be taught. This diversity is evident in the verses of Dhammapada...

BHIKKHU BODHI

Forest Hermitage, Kandy.