PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto I.
Psalms of Single Verses
LXXXII
Kassapa
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
Reborn in this Buddha-age at Sāvatthī, as the son of a brahmin of north-western origin,[1] he was named Kassapa. His father died while he was a child, and his mother brought him up. When one day he heard the Exalted One preach at the Jeta Grove, he was then and there impelled by maturing conditions to enter the First Path. And going to his mother, he asked her permission for his ordination.
Now when the Master had ended the rainy season with the Parivāra festival and was starting on his country tour, Kassapa was anxious to go with him. And first he went to take leave of his mother. She let him go with this admonition:
[82] To any place where alms are easy got,
Where'er 'tis safe and free from peril, there
Go thou, my boy; vex not thy life with care.
Then the Thera thought: 'My mother wants me to go where I shall be free from care. Come then, for me 'tis right to win a place entirely and absolutely free from care.' And, striving, he set up insight and soon won arahantship. Thereupon, inasmuch as his mother's words had been his spur in winning it, he repeated that very verse.
[1] Udicca-brāhmaṇassa. Cf. Jāt., i. 324; Milinda, ii. 45, n. 1.
