| Summary: | This work is intended as an exploration and development in a Buddhist context of a previously neglected area in the study of sacred texts, identified by William Graham as "the sensual dimension", or the response of a community to its sacred texts. The focus of the study is the Dhammapada Commentary, a Pli narrative text. As a genre of religious literature, narrative has either been over-emphasised or disregarded by scholars in the study of sacred texts. The thesis presented is that the Dhammapada Commentary can be examined, utilising a narrative theory formulated by Ian Reid, which involves the analysis of the way texts are framed by readers. Four areas are explored, including the form of text's presentation, the particular preoccupations revealed in the text and brought to the text, the structure of text as commentary and how the text is seen in relation to other texts. Of particular significance are the preoccupations displayed in the text and the emphasis in the text on evoking a particular response to the text, through which the text is aligned intertextually with an already established mode of response. The implications of this, particularly for the nature of the relationship between canon and commentary, are also considered.
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