PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto I.
Psalms of Single Verses
LVI
Kuṭivihārin[1]
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
His story (in this life) is like that of Añjana-vaniya, with this difference: while striving for insight he was walking by the fields, and took shelter from the rain in the little empty hut of the field-watchman, and there won arahantship. Thereupon the watchman came and said: 'Who is in the hut?' The answer was: 'A bhikkhu is in the hut,' and the rest of the verse:
[56] Who's in my little hut? A brother 'tis,
Who in thy little hut, all passions tamed,
Hath throughly set his mind. Know this, O friend,
'Twas not for naught thou mad'st thy little hut!
Then the watchman said: 'Luck indeed for me, good luck indeed is mine, that your honour should have come into my little hut and be sitting there!'
And the Exalted One heard their converse by his celestial [58] hearing, and discerned the watchman's pleasure. And he addressed these verses to him:
Within the hut a brother dwells, peace in his heart, purged of all taint.
Fruit of this deed shall be to thee: lord of the gods thou'll come to be
Six times, ay, seven, lord of the gods, ruler over celestial realms,
Thereafter all thy passions tamed, a Silent Buddha[2] thou shalt be.
From that time the Thera began to be called Kuṭivihārin.
[1] I.e., hut-dweller; in the Commentary Kuṭivihāriya.
[2] Pacceka-buddha. See Sisters, p. 11, n. 4.
