PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto II.
Psalms of Two Verses
CXLVI
Puṇṇamāsa[1]
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
Reborn in this Buddha-age at Sāvatthī in the family of a landed proprietor, he left the world after the birth of his firstborn. And dwelling near a village, he strove and worked till he acquired sixfold abhiññā. Going thereupon to Sāvatthī and saluting the Master, he dwelt in a charnel-field. Now his son died, and his wife, desirous that their property, having no heirs, should not be taken over by the rājas, went with a large following to greet her husband, and induce him to leave the religious life. But the Thera, to show his passionless state and to vindicate his attainment, stood in the air and said:
[171] All the five Hindrances that bar the way[2]
Against the safe, sure peace[3] I put aside.
The mirror of the holy Norm I grasped: -[4]
The knowing and the seeing what we are -
[172] So I reflected on this grouped frame[5]
Within and eke without, and I beheld
How, whether it was mine or not of me,
"The body empty [is and vanity].
[1] See the other version in X. The Commentary recognizes no identity.
[2] Desires of sense, malevolence, sluggishness, distraction, perplexity - to 'put aside' these was the essential preliminary to attaining the serenity and detachment for fruitful intellectual effort (Dialogues, i. 82 84).
[5] Kāyo is both body (sarīra) and, generally, a group, or organism.
