Monks, there are these three effluents. Which three?

A short poem on the ending of the out-flows.

Taking the verses in the Dasanipata of the Theragatha as examples, this article focuses on the stylistic interplay of rhythmic uniformity and change in the expression of core messages in a Pali poem. It aims to unveil the poets’ strategies in the use of various types of metres and prosodic elements to create the narrative style of each poem and draw the audiences’ attention to the Buddha’s key teachings in the verses.

This article examines a poem in the Kaludayittherapadanavannana which expands on the poem attributed to Kaludayitthera in the Theragatha; the poem in the Kaludayittherapadanavannana did not make it into the final canon. The hypothesis of this paper is that the poem may be a popular Dravidian song adapted to Buddhist use and translated into Pali, and this is the primary reason it was excluded from the canon.

This conclusion is based on several factors. 1) The author of the Pali poem was not well versed in the Pali language and made constant mistakes in translation. 2) Gratuitous repetition; the poem itself is not very good poetry, containing the kind of needless repetition one associates with a popular song. 3) 13.4% of the words in the poem are direct lifts from Dravidian words; this compares to only 3.9% of the words in the Theragatha poem itself, of which this poem is an extension. While this does not prove that the source was a Dravidian poem, it raises the probability quite significantly. In addition, this kind of literature—making lists of biota in the natural world for comparison, personification and poetic effect— is common in Dravidian Sangam literature. 4) The poem contains wrong or awkward phrases in Pali which can be better understood as Dravidian imports, and 5) an extensive and growing body of linguistic evidence shows that the adoption of Dravidian terminology into Buddhist thought and practice was not an uncommon occurrence.

when the thread of the warp is stretched out
And the weft is woven through, back and forth
In the end the thread runs out:
Like this is the life of mortals.

In Sarvāstivādin and Mūlasarvāstivādin circles the Udānavarga was as popular as is the Dhamma-pada in Theravādin circles, and it circulated widely in South and Central Asia.

through nonclinging find delight
In the relinquishment of grasping

The eightfold path leads from the near to the far shore.

Master Gotama, I have four sons. At their wives’ order my sons chased me out from my house.

The Buddha gives him a verse to recite in the village council, contrasting his faithless sons to his trusty wooden staff. Ashamed, the sons take back their father.

What is the abode of wealth?
What drags a person around?

How does one cross over the flood?
How does one cross over the ocean?

A yakkha demon challenges the Buddha with riddles and threatens to “hurl out his mind, rip open his heart, or hurl him across the River Ganges” if he doesn’t solve the riddles to the yakkha’s satisfaction.

No ties torment one who has nothing

A series of Satullapa gods address the Buddha in verse.

Live like a suckling babe,
for Death has not come for you.

The Buddha says that life is short.

You can get the booklets for both albums here:

• Dhammapada
• Therigatha

It smashes the mechanism of deeds,
And drops the thunderbolt of knowledge
On the taking up of consciousnesses.

A poem extolling the virtues of the Noble Eightfold Path.

Let him be able, and upright and straight,
Easy to speak to, gentle, and not proud…

“What should be done” by us Buddhists.

Those who thus abide, ever remain invincible, in happiness established. These are the greatest blessings.

I’ll stay in the grove.

I saw this population flounder,
like a fish in a little puddle.
Seeing them fight each other,
fear came upon me.

The Buddha speaks in poignant terms of the saṁvega that led him to leave the household life. He concludes with recommendations for practice and a description of the person who has attained the goal.

Now, what we can say is that, it is within these spaces of practices of mental cultivation that poetry, in the Buddhist world, takes its place, as well as being part of literary culture; as well as being part of religious culture. But, it has a central place in the practice of mental cultivation. 

In this lecture, Professor Charles Hallisey describes how Buddhism has historically used poetry as a vehicle for its teachings. Further, through various examples, he offers the idea that, in the Buddhist world, scholatiscism and poetry are forms of mental cultivation as much as meditation and ritual and have always been so. 

Get up and meditate!
What’s the point in your sleeping?

Don’t let an opportunity for practice pass you by.

If you don’t feel challenged by the text, then the text isn’t doing its work.

… but I feel my life has been enriched by having these verses come bubble up in my mind.

This talk took place at the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, MA, in 2005, as a book launch for Gil Fronsdal’s then-newly published translation of the Dhammapada. In his talk, Fronsdal gives context to the Dhammapada and proceeds to read various verses and explain them, giving a broad flavor of the work.

Notable cross-culturally conceived feminist critiques of this decade show no awareness of Therīgāthā and the characteristic preoccupations with womanhood and the feminine that come to the fore in this setting are also apt to be overlooked in conventional expositions of Buddhist thought.

This work takes a closer look at the Therīgāthā, songs of the elder nuns, found in the Pāli Canon giving an introductory analysis from both the feminist and Buddhist perspectives.

When we confront our rebellious minds as we try to follow [the Buddha’s] path, we can take heart from the tales of nuns who had to put forth years and years of intense, persistent effort before they eliminated all their defilements.

You can also listen to this book on Pariyatti’s YouTube Channel.

The notion of poetry I have in mind relates not so much to its formal properties, but to the realms of experience or types of consciousness it involves.

When we look at the texts assembled in the KN, we find that the concern with the character of the Buddha, and in a broader sense with Buddhist holy men and women, is a central, constitutive interest of the collection.

The employment of metaphor points us in aesthetic directions, suggesting meanings that emphasize experience, rather than theory.

This article discusses the antiquity of the Aṭṭhakavagga of the Suttanipāta seeing it not as an attempt to lay out the earliest Buddhist teachings, but instead as an example of early Buddhist poetry meant mainly to inspire our faith in the goal.

A wise person would not be too sure of themselves,
Until they have attained the end…

… the original composer of the gāthās was likely aware of and comfortable with the polyvocal nature of the teachings, which added a richer and deeper dimension to the teaching.

Again & again farmers plow the fields.
Again & again grain comes to the kingdom.

The Buddha is invited to return home after his enlightenment.

Devadatta,
–regarded as wise, composed,
incandescent with honor–
in the thrall of heedlessness
assaulted the Tathāgata…

Conquered by three forms of false Dhamma, Devadatta was incurably doomed to hell.

It’s hard to see the unaffected…

Then at that time many moths rushing and falling down into those oil lamps, were coming to grief, were coming to ruin.

Like moths to the flame, living beings are draw to appearances at their own peril.

Then at that time the Gracious One was sitting reflecting on his own abandonment of countless bad, unwholesome things, and how through development countless wholesome things had come to fulfilment.

False pundits, totally muddled…

The compassionate one, who sees the ending of rebirth,
understands the one-way path.

Just after the Buddha’s awakening, Brahmā Sahampati supports the Buddha’s reflection that the four kinds of mindfulness meditation are the way to nibbāna.

Then Mara the Evil One, in the presence of the Blessed One, recited these verses of disappointment…

He laments his failure with the similes of a crab whose limbs are smashed and a crow who tried to eat a stone.

Though many creatures crawl about,
Many terrors, flies, serpents,
The great sage gone to his empty hut
Stirs not a hair because of them.

Māra manifests as a huge serpent, but the Buddha remains unshaken.

The nights and days do not afflict me,
I see for myself no decline in the world.

The Buddha rests after being struck by stone splinters, and though Māra criticizes him for being lazy, the Buddha rests easy.

Where name-and-form ceases,
Stops without remainder,
And also impingement and perception of form:
It is here this tangle is cut.

This generation is all tangled up like a nest of matted hair. Who can untangle this mess and how?

An “Udāna” from the AN.

But by fully understanding what is expressed
One does not misconceive the speaker.

Four translations of this sutta from John Ireland, Ajahn Geoff, SuttaFriends, and Bhante Sujato respectively showing how Pāḷi poetry can often be translated in various ways.

They had come to him glittering with beauty—
Taṇha, Arati, and Raga—
But the Teacher swept them away right there
As the wind, a fallen cotton tuft.

Depressed, Māra laments to his three daughters of his failure to distract the Buddha. So they take on the task themselves and assume a variety of sensuous forms to tempt him. But they fail too, and Māra castigates them for being so presumptuous

Some ascetics and brahmins regard the attainment of the meditation on universal water to be the ultimate.

The female lay follower Kāḷī of Kuraraghara in Avantī asks Venerable Mahākaccāna about a verse spoken by the Buddha in “The Maidens’ Questions” (SN 4.25). He replies unexpectedly in terms of the necessity of going beyond the ten kasinas to develop liberating insight.

… most of the people in Sāvatthī were excessively attached to sensual pleasures…

Again & again one wearies & trembles.
Again & again the dullard goes to the womb.

A brahmin complains when the Buddha visits for alms many days in a row. The Buddha takes the chance to point out that all natural phenomena repeat in cycles, and only an awakened one escapes the cycle of rebirth.

Abstaining from perceptions of sensuality,
overcoming all fetters,
having totally ended delight in becoming,
one doesn’t sink
into the deep.

The Buddha explains to a yakkha how one crosses over the flood.

You’re right, brahmin, I don’t have
fourteen oxen
missing …

A brahmin is searching for his lost oxen when he sees the Buddha meditating peacefully in the forest. He laments the many sorrows of his life, celebrating the Buddha’s happiness and freedom from worldly sorrows.

Monk, don’t be bitter. If you’re bitter, corrupted by putrefaction, flies will, without a doubt, plague and infest you.

The Buddha helps a monk in distress by teaching of “bitterness”, “rotting flesh”, and “insects”.

‘The straight way’ that path is called,
And ‘fearless’ is its destination.

To escape from the Forest of Delusion, one needs the vehicle of the Dhamma.

Tell me how you’re a farmer when asked:
how am I to recognize your farming?

A brahmin farmer criticizes the Buddha for failing to be productive, merely living off the work of others, so the Buddha explains his line of work.

Suppose, bhikkhus, a man was being borne along by the current of a river…

An extended metaphor for the dangers of “going with the flow.”

Sāriputta, see this
young boy coming,
carrying a water pot,
serene inside himself…

What is this body full of piss and shit?
I wouldn’t even want to touch it with my foot.

Māgandiya offers the Buddha his daughter in marriage. The Buddha refuses and further subdues Māgandiya’s pride by describing a state of peace Māgandiya doesn’t even understand.

As I strove to subdue myself
beside the broad Nerañjarā…

Māra attempts to dissuade the Bodhisatta from his path.

Learn the recitation passage and analysis of One Fine Night, mendicant, memorize it, and remember it. It is beneficial and relates to the fundamentals of the spiritual life.

The verses from MN 131 are explained in a different way by Venerable Mahakaccāna.

Then a certain brahmin who was a reciter of the mystic syllable ‘huṁ’ went up to the Buddha and exchanged greetings with him.

For Bhante Sujato’s fascinating explanation of his unorthodox translation of this sutta, see the essay on D&D about it.

What need for a well
if there were waters always?

Wanderers of other sects try to keep the Buddha from drinking the water in a well.

if you’re patient, mindful and calm,
then you act for the good of both
for yourself and the other person

A brahmin visits the Buddha and abuses him, but the Buddha responds with patience.

It seems that we are actually impermanent, though we thought ourselves permanent; it seems that we are actually transient, though we thought ourselves everlasting

A lion’s roar terrifies beasts. The Buddha’s teaching terrifies the gods.

We must recall here that it is attachment to these five aggregates that has to be given up and that this is a gradual process. We must not expect our habitual likes and dislikes, our enjoyments and desires to vanish all at once; nor can they be broken by force.

A translation and analysis of Snp 1.1.

Where dreadful serpents slither,
where the lightning flashes and the sky thunders
in the dark of the night;
there meditates a mendicant

Brahmā Sahampati appears to the Buddha and speaks in praise of the renunciates staying fearless in the deep forest, and celebrates the many who have found freedom.

Even in a confining place they find it,
the Dhamma for the attainment of unbinding.

Pañcālacaṇḍa praises the Buddha for finding the opening amid the confinement of the world. But the Buddha affirms that anyone with mindfulness and stillness may find such an escape.

Standing to one side, that deity recited this verse…

We think our attachments bring us happiness, but they really bring sorrow.

What should one who desires the good not give away?
What should a mortal not reject?

These brighten up the heavens
Where they’ve been reborn.

The Buddha is asked about the future destiny of people who are generous—and not.

One should not pursue a course
That is painful and harmful.

Kokanada gives a pithy teaching in verse.

Although the early dictionaries, like Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary and A Critical Pāli Dictionary, did utilize the Jātaka word definitions considerably, up and till now no one has translated the word commentaries into English in full. It is this gap that the present work seeks to fill with a new translation of the 500 verses of the first three books, together with their explanations, which takes us up to Jātaka 300.

Even if a thousand mighty princes and great archers,
well trained, with strong bows,
were to completely surround me;
I would never flee.

The early Saṅgha’s foremost poet praises the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṅgha and rouses us to practice.

See this fancy puppet,
a body built of sores…

Some of the most clever turns of image in Pāli poetry.

I’m not afraid
    of danger
    of fear

relying on my youth,
I despised anyone who was not my equal…

A former courtesan roars her lion’s roar.

The ancient Indian gāthā – a proverbial, succinct type of single-stanza poetry, often collected in thematic sets – became a favoured form of expression among groups of ascetics from the middle to the end of the 1st millennium BCE.

Its selection of chants is still influential in Theravāda liturgies today.

I shall keep reciting the Way to the Beyond

Perhaps the last sutta of the early Pāli Canon, the Pārāyanānugītigāthā extols the virtues of the Buddha and of those who preserve, and realize, his teachings.

One to whom it might occur,
‘I’m a woman’ or ‘I’m a man’
Or ‘I’m anything at all’–
Is fit for Māra to address.

Shrines in parks and woodland shrines,
Well-constructed lotus ponds:
These are not worth a sixteenth part
Of a delightful human being.

Whether in a village or forest,
In a valley or on the plain–
Wherever the arahants dwell
Is truly a delightful place.

Sakka asks what place is truly delightful and the Buddha replies.

Thought is the source of desire.

A fairy sings a love song for the Buddha, and Sakka asks a few deep questions.

A monkey went up to the little hut

A canonical basis for the ubiquitous “monkey mind” metaphor.

Whoso has boys, has sorrow of his boys,
Whoso has kine, by kine come his annoys.
Man’s assets, these of all his woes are chief.
Who has no more, no more has grief.

In this dramatic poem, the Buddha and a cowherd debate who is more prepared for a coming storm.

For those who have one love, they have one suffering.
For those who love nothing, they have no sorrow.

Lady Visākhā wished for many grandchildren.

The person who’s to their body-cave
Clouded by many moods…

Those who remain attached to the body, to sensuality, and to their sense of “mine” will have a hard time freeing themselves from fear of death and from further rebirths.

Whatever doubts there are…
The meditators give up all these

The Buddha rejoices in Ven. Revata’s diligent meditation.

doing his manly duties,
[he] won’t fall away
from ease.

A short poem on arousing energy in the practice.

let a mindful one avoid at every turn
these sense-desires,
with them abandoned,
cross the flood

What is the one thing, O Gotama, Whose killing you approve?

… by thoroughly understanding conceit, he has made an end of suffering.

How the three types of feeling should be viewed.

Faith is the seed, practice the rain,
And wisdom is my yoke and plow.

A simile on the work of the practice as farming.

A very famous example of poetic analysis and hermeneutics in action at the time of the Buddha, this sutta gives several subtle cues on how to read obscure passages.

The fire of lust burns mortals; Infatuated by sensual pleasures

A short, poetic description of Nibbāna.