Date: 2026-10-29
Traditions: Pāli Dhammapada; Pāli Karaṇīyamettā Sutta
Motif: Hostility answered through a cultivated wish for others’ welfare
Connection verdict: Related ethical teachings within the Pāli tradition; no direct quotation shown
Research status: Deep reading of the shorter comparison
Summary
Dhammapada 1:5 says hatred is not ended by hatred. The Karaṇīyamettā Sutta develops an expansive practice of goodwill toward living beings. This longer reading follows each text in context, identifies the consequential difference, and grades the evidence for the connection.
Passages and their settings
Dhammapada 1:5 states in memorable verse that hatred is not brought to an end by hatred. The Karaṇīyamettā Sutta, preserved in the Pāli textual world, instructs a practitioner to extend loving-kindness widely. Both resist a retaliatory narrowing of concern, but their literary forms are different. One makes an arresting claim about the pattern of enmity; the other offers a sustained exercise in disposition. Reading them as distinct forms prevents a short maxim from being mistaken for an entire practice manual.
Close comparison
- Shared point: Dhammapada 1:5 says hatred is not ended by hatred. The Karaṇīyamettā Sutta develops an expansive practice of goodwill toward living beings.
- Consequential difference: The verse states a concise principle; the sutta gives a sustained pattern of attitude and practice, including the famous maternal comparison.
In the Dhammapada’s opening cluster, mind, speech, and action are linked to suffering and happiness. Non-hatred is therefore not merely a polite way to win an argument; it interrupts a causal pattern. The Metta Sutta asks what sort of conduct and mental training might sustain such interruption: humility, contentment, and a wish for the well-being of beings near and far. Its image of a mother guarding a child conveys intensity, but the practice is not limited to one’s own family.
Evidence assessment
The shared ethical direction is strong within a related Pāli tradition. That does not establish that one passage was written as a commentary on the other, and translation choices for mettā and the vocabulary of hostility matter. These texts also should not be appropriated as a claim that Buddhism asks people to ignore injustice. The deeper comparison is between diagnosis and discipline: what a memorable statement about hatred names, and what an extended cultivation practice asks a hearer to do.
The shorter study's evidence boundary remains important: Shared ethical direction is clear, but one text need not be a retelling of the other; their forms and immediate goals differ.
Sources and reading notes
- Dhammapada 1–20 — Accessible textual witness; check the named passage and translation context.
- Karaṇīyamettā Sutta, Sn 1.8 — Accessible textual witness; check the named passage and translation context.
Source limit: These links provide passage access and translation context, not a complete critical edition or a settled history of textual transmission. Historical and theological judgments beyond the quoted relationship require further specialist work.
Further research
Compare the cited passages in their surrounding chapters and, where relevant, in their original languages or critical editions. Track any proposed intermediate witness before claiming a precise route of influence.