What does mass donation of the Dhamma mean? What does mass donation of the Dhamma mean?

How is that done?

Does it include promotion of the Dhamma in public places or the Internet to vast audiences?

According to Itivuttaka 100:


  "There are these two kinds of gifts: a gift of material things &amp; a
  gift of the Dhamma. Of the two, this is supreme: a gift of the Dhamma.
  
  "There are these two kinds of sharing: sharing of material things &amp;
  sharing of the Dhamma. Of the two, this is supreme: sharing of the
  Dhamma.
  
  "There are these two kinds of assistance: assistance with material
  things &amp; assistance with the Dhamma. Of the two, this is supreme: help
  with the Dhamma.
  
  "There are these two kinds of mass-donations: a mass-donation of
  material things &amp; a mass-donation of the Dhamma. Of the two, this is
  supreme: a mass-donation of the Dhamma."
Here are a couple of lines of Pali (the first two lines of the verse at the end of the sutta):

“Yo dhammayāgaṃ ayajī amaccharī,
Tathāgato sabbabhūtānukampī ;

Here are the same lines from the translation quoted in the question:

He who, unstinting,
made the mass-donation of Dhamma,

Here are the same lines from another translation:

The Tathāgata has made the Dhamma-offering,
Unselfish, compassionate towards all beings;

Looking at the Pali, I think it's saying:

dhammayāgaṃ -- gift of dhamma
ayajī -- something to do with offering or sacrifice?
amaccharī -- without being a miser
Tathāgato -- the Tathagata

That just leaves sabbabhūtānukampī to translate.

I think that sabba means &quot;all&quot; or something like that ... that must be where the &quot;mass&quot; translation is coming from

And bhūtā means something like &quot;a being&quot;.

And kampī, I'm not sure, maybe perhaps being &quot;still&quot; or &quot;not trembling&quot; ... or maybe the second translation above suggests that this bit somehow means &quot;compassionate&quot;


Anyway, the Pali suggests to me that the &quot;all&quot; there is associated with the &quot;beings&quot; (i.e. &quot;to all beings&quot;) -- and that agrees with the second English translation that I quoted.
So I thik that what's translated as &quot;mass-donation&quot; in the first translation means &quot;donation to all&quot; ... i.e. that the Tathagata gave the dhamma to all beings.
But maybe the sutta (both the Pali and the second translation) is really saying, more literally ...

making the dhamma-offering unselfishly
the Tathagata (and something: compassionate, maybe) to all beings

... i.e. maybe the offering-of-dhamma wasn't &quot;to all&quot; ... and instead only the kampī (i.e. the stillness or compassion or whatever that means) was &quot;to all beings&quot; ... maybe the text could be read either way. This latter way might be more compatible with other suttas: e.g. he was teaching &quot;those with little dust in their eyes&quot; and so on, rather than everyone.

I don't understand though why the word &quot;mass&quot; also appears in previous lines of the translation you're using (because &quot;sabb...&quot; doesn't appear there, in the Pali: it's only in the verse).
Maybe this is the clearer or more straightforward, more literal translation:


The Dhamma-offering

This was said by the Lord…
“Bhikkhus, I am a brahmin, ever accessible to entreaties, open-handed, one bearing his last body, an unsurpassed physician and surgeon. You are my own legitimate sons, born from my mouth, born of Dhamma, fashioned by Dhamma, heirs of Dhamma, not heirs of material things.
“Bhikkhus, there are these two kinds of giving: the giving of material things and the giving of the Dhamma. Of these two kinds of giving, this is the foremost, namely, the giving of the Dhamma. There are these two kinds of sharing … these two kinds of help … these two kinds of offerings: the offering of material things and the offering of the Dhamma. Of these two kinds of offering, this is the foremost, namely, the offering of the Dhamma.”
The Tathāgata has made the Dhamma-offering,
Unselfish, compassionate towards all beings;
Living beings revere such a one,
Gone beyond being, as chief of devas and humans.