Theragatha
Chapter IV — The Fours

193

Rāhula

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

For free distribution only.

 

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    In both ways    
    consummate,^[1]
I'm known as Rāhula
    the Fortunate:
because     I'm the son of the Buddha,
because     I've the eye that sees Dhammas,
because     my effluents are ended,
because     I've no further becoming.
I'm deserving of offerings,
a worthy one
    a three-knowledge man,^[2]
    with sight
    of the Deathless.

    Those
blinded     by sensuality
covered     by the net,
veiled     by the veil of craving,
bound     by the Kinsman of the heedless,^[3]
    are like fish in the mouth of a trap.

Throwing that sensuality aside,
cutting through Mara's bond,
pulling out craving, root and all,
    cooled am I,
    Unbound.

 

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^[1] This phrase can be taken in two ways: (a) consummate in that he has a pure lineage on both his mother's and his father's side; and (b) consummate in that he belongs both to a well-born lineage in the worldly sense and, by means of his meditative attainments, to the lineage of the noble ones.

^[2] One with knowledge of past lives, knowledge of the passing away and rearising of living beings, and knowledge of the ending of mental effluents.

^[3] Mara.