se but treatises handed down by memory and that their form is
determined primarily by the convenience of the memory. We must not
compare them with Plato and find them wanting, for often, especially in
the Abhidhamma, there is no intention of producing a work of art, but
merely of subdividing a subject and supplying explanations. Frequently
the exposition is thrown into the form of a catechism with questions and
answers arranged so as to correspond to numbered categories. Thus a
topic may be divided into twenty heads and six propositions may be
applied to each with positive or negative results. The strong point of
these Abhidhamma works---and of Buddhist philosophy generally--lies in
careful division and acute analysis but the power of definition is weak.
Rarely is a definition more than a collection of synonyms and very often
the word to be defined is repeated in the definition. Thus in the
Dhamma-sangani the questions, what are good or bad states of mind?
receive answers cast in the form: when a good or bad thought has arisen
with certain accompaniments enumerated at length, then these are the
states that are good or bad. No definition of good is given.

This mnemonic literature attains its highest excellence in poetry. The
art of composing short poems in which a thought, emotion or spiritual
experience is expressed with a few simple but pregnant words in the
compass of a single couplet or short hymn, was carried by the early
Buddhists to a perfection which has never been excelled. The
Dhammapada[645] is the best known specimen of this literature. Being an
anthology it is naturally more suited for quotation or recitation in
sections than for continuous reading. But its twenty-five chapters are
consecrated each to some special topic which receives fairly consecutive
treatment, though each chapter is a mosaic of short poems consisting of
one or more verses supposed to have been uttered by the Buddha or by
arhats on various occasions. The whole work combines literary beauty,
depth of thought and human feeling in a rare degree. Not only is it
irradiated with the calm light of peace, faith and happiness but it
glows with sympathy, with the desire to do good and help those who are
struggling in the mire of passion and delusion. For this reason it has
found more favour with European readers than the detached and
philosophic texts which simply preach self-conquest and aloofness.
Inferior in beauty but probably older is the Sutt