# Buddhist self-criticism complicates the monopoly on humility

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH07.P031](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH07.P031/#char=504,571): "There is nothing really humble about the abnegation of the Buddhist"

The Dhammapada offers a useful check on this sweeping contrast. In F. Max Müller's translation, inspected in Gutenberg's transcription of Sacred Books of the East, volume X, part I (the 1881 edition, with introduction and notes omitted), verse 63 distinguishes recognizing one's foolishness from foolishly believing oneself wise. Verses 73–75 condemn craving precedence, authority and recognition; verse 94 commends freedom from pride. [Dhammapada, chapters V and VII](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2017/2017-h/2017-h.htm). These are positive disciplines of self-criticism and resistance to self-importance, not simply outward mildness.

That comparison does not make Buddhist liberation identical with Christian humility, nor does the text supply Chesterton's specific proposal to seek the political judgment of shy people. Indeed, verse 75 directs the monk away from honour toward withdrawal. It does show why his institutional insight and his religious exclusion should be evaluated separately: the argument for hearing the obscure can stand without the much larger claim that genuine humility belongs exclusively to Christendom. No evidence inspected establishes that Chesterton was answering this text or had read Müller's translation.

## Sources

- [The Dhammapada, translated by F. Max Müller](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2017/2017-h/2017-h.htm), Chapter V, verses 63 and 73–75; chapter VII, verse 94; transcription header identifies Sacred Books of the East X.1

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