Dhammanīti

Dhammanīti — the longest of the four nīti collections at 414 verses, and the one that leans hardest on Pali sources for the material it adds to the inherited stock.

The nīti collections exist because a king needed advice. Bode puts it plainly: a king's ācariya “must be able to discourse on ethics and polity, pronounce moral maxims, and give advice”, and “the Rājanīti, Lokanīti, and Dhammanīti represent this sort of literature, modelled on Sanskrit originals” (Bode 1909, p. 51). Hinüber says the same thing technically: all four collections “rely heavily on Indian Subhāṣita traditions” and add verses from Pali sources, some of them — especially in the Rājanīti — direct translations from Sanskrit, which is what produces “an at times rather Sanskritized Pali”.

Neither its author nor its date is certain. Bechert and Braun place it after 1367 CE and before 1500 CE, which is as narrow as the evidence allows. Schnake finds it among the nīti texts that circulated in the northern Thai region.