Dhammapada

What it is

The Dhammapada is a collection of 423 verses attributed to the Buddha, part of the Khuddaka Nikaya. It was compiled around the 3rd century BCE. The photograph shows one page of the text carved into a marble slab at the Kuthodaw in Mandalay, where the whole Buddhist canon was inscribed on stone tablets.

Why it matters

The Dhammapada is considered the clearest, most quoted distillation of the Buddha's moral teaching. Its survival and repeated copying, including being carved permanently into stone centuries later in Burma, shows how important these verses became to Buddhist communities across Asia, long after the Buddha's lifetime.

Look closer

• Why might a community choose to carve teachings into stone rather than only on paper?
• What does the care taken in carving these verses tell you about how people valued them?
• These verses were written down centuries after the Buddha lived. What does that mean for how we judge their accuracy?