PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN

Canto II.
Psalms of Two Verses

CXXXVII
Tissa^[1]

Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.

Public Domain

[Pali]

 

Reborn in this Buddha-age at Rājagaha, in a brahmin's family, and named Tissa, he became an expert in the Vedas, teaching the mantras to five hundred brahmin boys, and winning the highest praise and renown. When the Master came to Rājagaha, Tissa saw the Buddha-majesty, and believed and entered the Order, thereafter winning arahantship through established insight. So also he won praise and renown.

Now certain worldly-minded bhikkhus noting the attention paid to the Thera were unable to endure it. The Thera knew this, and declared the evil in such attentions and his own detachment therefrom in these verses:

[153] Many the foes he gets, the bhikkhu shorn,
Wrapt in his robe, to whom the world gives gifts
Of food and drink, raiment and where to lodge.

[154] Let him then, knowing all the bane herefrom,
The fearsome peril in the world's regard,
Taking but little, free from lusting's taint,
Wary and mindful, hold his onward way.

Then those bhikkhus straightway sought the Thera's forgiveness.

 

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^[1] Clearly quite a different Tissa from either of the foregoing Theras so named. Cf. Ps. XXXIX., XCVII.