The Dhammapada closes with its longest chapter and boldest re-definition. In the Buddha's India, 'brahmin' named a hereditary priestly class; verse after verse strips the word of birth and hands it to attainment. Not by matted hair, nor clan, nor birth does one become a brahmin — in whom there is truth and Dhamma, that one is pure, that one is the brahmin (26.11); what use is matted hair and an antelope skin when inside there is a tangle? (26.12). I do not call one a brahmin because of a brahmin mother, says 26.14 — but the one who owns nothing and grasps at nothing.
The refrain 'him I call a brahmin' then builds the Dhammapada's final portrait of the perfected person: the one who endures abuse and imprisonment without anger, whose strength is patience (26.17); to whom sense-pleasures cling no more than water to a lotus leaf or a mustard seed to a needle's point (26.19); friendly among the hostile, peaceful among the violent, ungrasping among the grasping (26.24); free of longing for this world or the next (26.28); stainless as the moon (26.31). The book ends where chapter one began — with the trained mind — now fully realized: the awakened one, unshaken, gone beyond (26.40–26.41).
Key verses
Not by matted hair, nor by clan, nor by birth does one become a brahmin. In whom there is truth and Dhamma, he is the pure one; he is the brahmin.
The one who endures abuse, beating, and imprisonment without anger — whose strength is patience, whose army is forbearance — him I call a brahmin.
Like water on a lotus leaf, like a mustard seed on the point of a needle — the one to whom sense pleasures do not cling — him I call a brahmin.
Read Chapter 26 in full
Every verse with translation, word meanings, and commentary — free.
ऐप में मुफ़्त पढ़ेंपरंपराओं से पूछें
एक प्रश्न। पाँच परंपराओं के उत्तर।
बिना खाते के हर 24 घंटे में 2 प्रश्न।