The fool who thinks he is wise is a fool indeed
Dhammapada verse 63
By Dr. Ari Ubeysekara
Introduction
Lord Gautama Buddha lived and preached in India during the sixth and fifth centuries BC. Throughout the ministry of forty five years from enlightenment at the age of thirty five to passing away at the age of eighty, Lord Gautama Buddha, through compassion for other beings, travelled from place to place mainly in North Eastern India, teaching the path out of suffering to a diverse range of people. Since the first Buddhist council that was held three months after the passing away of the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings were categorised into the now well-known Pāli Canon consisting of the three baskets. The teaching of the Gautama Buddha which is believed to consist of around 84,000 items is contained in the three baskets (tipitaka).
- Basket of the disciplinary rules for the monastic community (vinaya pitaka)
- Basket of the discourses (sutta pitaka)
- Basket of the Buddha’s higher teaching (abhidhamma pitaka)
The basket of the discourses (sutta pitaka) consists of:
- Collection of long discourses (dīgha nikāya)
- Collection of middle length discourses (majjhima nikāya)
- Collection of connected discourses (samyutta nikāya)
- Collection of numerical discourses (anguttara nikāya)
- Collection of minor discourses (khuddaka nikāya)
Collection of minor discourses (khuddaka nikāya) consist of 15 divisions of a variety of small discourses and others. The second division is the Dhammapada, the other divisions being Khuddaka pātha, udāna, itivuttaka, sutta nipātha, vimānavatthu, petavatthu, thera-gāthā, theri-gāthā, jātaka stories, niddesa, patisambhidā magga, apadāna, Buddhavamsa and cariya pitaka.
The Pāli word “Dhamma” seems to have several meanings such as the natural law, natural phenomena, objects of the mind, religious doctrines and specifically the Lord Gautama Buddha’s teachings. The word “Pada” means path, step, word or the foot. So, the word Dhammapada has been described as the “Path of Righteousness”. The Dhammapada containing a collection of the sayings of the Buddha in verse form, is one of the best known books in Buddhism familiar to almost all of the practising Buddhist disciples universally as well as to others who study the teachings of the Buddha.
Dhammapada contains 423 verses said by the Buddha in different contexts. Most of the verses have been taken from the discourses of the Buddha. It has been noted that more than two thirds of the verses are taken from the discourses contained in the two collections of the Buddha’s discourses known as the Samyutta Nikāya and Anguttara Nikāya. The 423 verses are divided into 26 chapters or vaggas each with a particular heading. The fifth chapter is named “Bala vagga” meaning the chapter of “Fools”, which contains 16 verses said by the Buddha. The back ground story of the 63rd verse, which is the 4th verse of the Bala vagga is about two pick-pockets who went to the Jetavana monastery and while one listened to the Buddha’s teaching and became a Stream Enterer (Sotapanna) the other was preoccupied in stealing money from a disciple.
Background story of verses 63
At one time the Buddha was staying at the Jetavana monastery in Sāvatti which was donated to the Buddha by the chief benefactor Anāthapindika.
At one time, the Buddha was giving a Dhamma discourse at the Jetavana monastery. A group of lay disciples from Savatti visited the Jetavana monastery to listen to the Buddha’s discourse and two pick-pockets also joined this group and went to the monastery. When the Buddha was delivering the Dhamma discourse, one of the pick-pockets listened to it very attentively and as a result he understood the Dhamma and attained the supra mundane stage of Stream Enterer (Sotapanna). The other pick-pocket did not listen to what the Buddha was saying as he was preoccupied with the thought of stealing some money from those listening to the Buddha. He managed to steal a small amount of money from one of the lay disciples listening to the Buddha’s discourse.
After the discourse, the two pick-pockets went back to the house of the pick-pocket who stole the money to have a meal. His wife who was cooking the meal, taunted the other pick-pocket saying to him: “You are so wise, you don’t have any money to even cook a meal in your house.” When he heard this comment from the other pick-pocket’s wife, he thought to himself: “ This woman is so foolish that she thinks she is being very clever.” Then he went to the Buddha accompanied by some of his relatives, and told the Buddha what happened.
Then the Buddha recited the following verse which is recorded as the 63rd verse of the Dhammapada.
“Yo bālo maññati bālyaṁ,
pandito vāpi tena so,
bālo ca panditamānī,
sa ve bālo ti vuccati.”
“The fool who knows his foolishness,
can for that reason, be a wise man,
the fool who thinks that he is wise,
is a fool indeed.”
References
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