— The Dhammapada, verse 224 (tr. F. Max Müller, 1881)
About this quote
हिन्दी में
सच बोलो, क्रोध के वश में मत होओ, और माँगे जाने पर थोड़े में से भी दो — इन तीन क़दमों से तुम देवताओं के निकट पहुँच जाओगे।
What it means
What the verse offers is three specific actions, not a virtue to cultivate: say the true thing, do not let anger carry you, and part with something when you are asked. All three are deliberately small. Truthful speech costs nothing material, not yielding to anger is a subtraction rather than an effort, and the giving is explicitly scaled to someone who has little to give.
The promise is measured with the same care. They are called steps, and they take you near — proximity, not arrival. A verse of this age could easily have promised more and did not, which is what makes it usable. It also says do not yield to anger rather than do not feel it; the instruction is about what anger is permitted to move, not about whether it arises.
What it teaches you
Treat these as a daily floor rather than an aspiration. Anger is handled at the point where it reaches your mouth or your hands, not at the point where it appears in your chest — so the test is what you did in the ninety seconds after, not whether you were calm. And the giving clause removes the most common excuse: it specifies a small ask and a small giver, so I don’t have enough to help is precisely the condition the line was written for.
अर्थ और सीख
यह पद्य कोई बड़ा आदर्श नहीं, बल्कि तीन छोटे और रोज़मर्रा के काम बताता है — सच कहना, क्रोध के बहाव में न बहना, और माँगे जाने पर अपने थोड़े में से भी कुछ दे देना। ध्यान देने की बात यह है कि वचन भी उतना ही नापा-तौला है: ये ‘क़दम’ हैं जो देवताओं के ‘निकट’ ले जाते हैं, वहाँ पहुँचा नहीं देते। सबक़ यह कि क्रोध का आना नहीं, उसके पीछे चल पड़ना रोकना है, और देने की शर्त में ही मान लिया गया है कि देने वाले के पास कम है — इसलिए ‘मेरे पास कम है’ कोई बहाना नहीं बचता।
Where it comes from
This is verse 224 of the Dhammapada, from the chapter called Anger — the mastery of anger in body, speech and mind; overcoming anger by love.
The Dhammapada is a collection of 423 verses in Pali, among the oldest and most widely read records of the Buddha’s teaching. This English translation is by F. Max Müller (1881), the pioneering Oxford scholar of Indian texts; the verse number is cited with this quote.
