The Buddha's Path of Virtue: A Translation of the Dhammapada

CONTENTS
The Dhammapada, of which a metrical translation by Mr. Woodward is here presented, is a precious Buddhist Scripture which deserves to be widely known. The Theosophical Society is to be congratulated on securing so competent and sympathetic a translator and on publishing it in a popular form.
The Scriptures of the Buddhist Canon are known collectively as the Ti-piṭaka (Sansk. Tri-piṭaka ), the Three Baskets or Treasuries . These divisions correspond to the two Testaments of the Christian Bible and contain (excluding repetitions) more than twice as much matter. They are known separately as the Vinaya piṭaka , Sutta piṭaka and Abhidhamma piṭaka , the Basket of Discipline, the Basket of Discourses and the Basket of Metaphysics. These scriptures are regarded with the utmost veneration by Buddhists as containing the word of Buddha ( Buddha-vacanam ), and are reputed to have been recited at the first Council held, according to tradition, at Rājagaha immediately after Buddha's death circa 540 B.C.
It seems more probable that they grew up gradually and did not receive their final shape till about three centuries later, at the Council held under the auspices of the Emperor Asoka at Pāṭaliputra circa 247 B.C. The account given of the First Council in the closing chapter of the Culla vagga seems to indicate that the Basket of Metaphysics was then unknown or unrecognised, and that the scriptures were then a Dvi-piṭaka (Two Baskets) rather than a Ti-piṭaka (Three Baskets).
If the Culla vagga account is accepted, it would appear that at this Council, expressly held by the Emperor for the consecrative settlement of the holy texts, the five Nikāyas or divisions which constitute the second Basket formed the subject of discussion between the President Kassappa and Buddha's favourite pupil Ānanda. The Dhammapada is a book of the fifth Nikāya. The Mahāvansa (Ch. v, 68) carries it back a few years earlier than the Council, to the time of the Emperor's conversion to the Buddhist faith, for on that occasion his teacher, Nigrodha, is said to have explained to him the Appamāda-vagga , which is the second chapter of the work. It was therefore known in the middle or early part of the third century B.C.