PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto I.
Psalms of Single Verses
CII
Setuccha
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
Reborn in this Buddha-age as the son of the rāja of a district,[1] he was unable to maintain his country's independence, and lost his throne. Wandering about the land unhappy, he saw and heard the Exalted One, entered the [95] Order, and won arahantship. And inveighing in his psalm against worldliness, he thus in divers ways confessed aññā:
[102] By vain conceits deluded, and their wits
Corrupted by the varied things of sense;
Flushed by their gains, by dearth thereof upset,
They fail to win the concentrated mind.
Maṇḍala-rājā. I would guess from the title 'Circulating-king', that this was a temporary rulership, perhaps subject to periodic election, or subject to the whim of a greater king.
— p.p.
[1] Maṇḍala-rājā. See p. 83, n. 6. [this ed. n.2]
