Dhammatools is a free reading tool for the Dhammapada — the collection of 423 short verses attributed to the Buddha, preserved in the Pali canon. Read one verse each day, draw one at random, find the verse for what you feel, and keep any verse as a card.
What you will find here
- The verse of the day — one verse for each day, in book order, the same for every reader. It changes at midnight UTC.
- A random verse — the whole book as a deck: 423 verses drawn one at a time, none repeated until the round is spent.
- A verse finder — write how you feel in plain words and the finder matches real verses by their themes. It runs entirely in your browser.
- Verse cards — every verse downloads as a 1080×1080 square and a 1080×1920 phone wallpaper, drawn on your own device. Free, no watermark, no account.
- The complete text — all 423 verses in Pali and English, in the 26 traditional chapters.
What this site is not
- It is not affiliated with any monastery, lineage, tradition, or organisation.
- It offers no commentary and no teaching — the text speaks for itself, and a teacher is where understanding comes from.
- It is an independent project and does not represent the view of any Buddhist community.
The book, in numbers
| Verses | 423 |
| Chapters | 26 |
| Language of the original | Pali |
| Canon | Pali canon, Khuddaka Nikāya (Sutta Piṭaka) |
| Cantos per verse | Usually one four-line stanza; some longer |
| Translation used here | Bhikkhu Sujato, CC0 (SuttaCentral) |
| Pali edition used here | Mahāsaṅgīti, via SuttaCentral |
| Free for commercial reuse | Yes — CC0 |
How to say it
“Dhammapada” is four syllables in English: dum-uh-PAH-duh, with the stress on the third. In the Pali the doubled mm is actually held, and both d sounds are dental — tongue behind the teeth, not curled back. The name means “verses of the Dhamma”; there is a page on the word itself.
Where to go next
- New to the book — what the Dhammapada is
- Want it by subject — quotes on anger, on death, on the mind
- Want to check a quote — Buddha quotes that can be traced, and the ones that cannot
- Want the whole text — the complete Dhammapada
How the site is funded
The site is free and carries no advertising at launch. If that ever changes, the text itself stays public domain and the tools stay free.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or a verse that seems mislabelled: see the contact page. The text's sources and licences are on the sources page.