PSALMS OF THE BRETHREN
Canto II.
Psalms of Two Verses
CXLI
Uttara
Translated from the Pali by Mrs. C.A.F. Rhys Davids.
Public Domain
[Pali]
Reborn in this Buddha-age at Sāketa,[1] in a brahmin's family, he was named Uttara. Convinced by the twin-miracle at the Gandamba tree at Sāvatthī,[2] whither some business had taken him, he was induced to leave the world when the Master, at Sāketa, preached the Kālaka Park discourse.[3] Going with the Master to Rājagaha, he there developed insight and acquired sixfold abhiññā. Returning again to Sāvatthī to wait on the Buddha, the bhikkhus asked him: 'What, Brother, have you already accomplished your [129] religious duties?' He, declaring anna, replied in these verses:
[161] Well do I understand the factors five,
And well is craving rooted out in me,
Developed are the seven wisdom-chords,
And all the poison-fumes are shrunk to nought.
[162] And since the factors now are understood,
I - look you![4] - casting out the Huntress fell
[Who sets her netted snare for every thought],[5]
And cultivating wisdom's harmony,[6]
Sane and immune, in peace shall pass away.[7]
[1] See XXVIII.
[2] Wrought by the Buddha (Sum. V., 57).
[3] Ang., ii. 24, on a Tathāgata's clarity of knowledge and integrity.
[4] So'haṃ, lit. 'this [self-same] I.'
[5] Expansion of the one word jūlinī, 'she who lays a net' - i.e., craving - 'by the suffusion of which the manifold web of the senses becomes as a net' (Atthasālinī, p. 363; Bud. Psy., p. 278, n. 2). Cittacittasantānato uddharitvā (Commentary).
[6] Bojjhangā, as in verse 161. Cf. Compendium, pp. 66, 180 f. The Commentary calls the seven 'the concord of the Norm.'
[7] Nibbāyissaṃ anāsavo, 'by the expiry of the last (moment of) consciousness, like a fire without fuel, I shall parinibbān-ate without danger (of rebirth)' (Commentary).
