Saṁyutta Nikāya — Discursos Conectados — 7.1 — With Dhanañjānī

1So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the squirrels’ feeding ground.

2Now at that time the wife of a certain brahmin of the Bhāradvāja clan, a brahmin lady named Dhanañjānī, was devoted to the Buddha, the teaching, and the Saṅgha. Once, while she was bringing her husband his meal, she tripped and expressed this heartfelt sentiment three times:

3“Homage to him, the blessed one, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha!

4Homage to him, the blessed one, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha!

5Homage to him, the blessed one, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha!”

6When she said this, the brahmin said to Dhanañjānī:

7“That’d be right. For the slightest thing this lowlife woman praises that shaven ascetic. Right now, lowlife woman, I’m going to refute your teacher’s doctrine!”

8“Brahmin, I don’t see anyone in this world—with its gods, Māras, and divinities, this population with its ascetics and brahmins, its gods and humans—who can refute the doctrine of the Blessed One, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha. But anyway, you should go. When you’ve gone you’ll understand.”

9Then the brahmin of the Bhāradvāja clan, angry and upset, went to the Buddha and exchanged greetings with him. When the greetings and polite conversation were over, he sat down to one side, and addressed the Buddha in verse:

10“When what is slain do you sleep at ease?
When what is slain is there no sorrow?
What is the one thing
whose killing you approve?”

11“When anger’s slain you sleep at ease.
When anger’s slain there is no sorrow.
Anger has a poisonous root
and a sweet tip, O brahmin.
The noble ones praise its killing,
for when it’s slain there is no sorrow.”

12When he said this, the brahmin said to the Buddha, “Excellent, worthy Gotama! Excellent! As if he were righting the overturned, or revealing the hidden, or pointing out the path to the lost, or lighting a lamp in the dark so people with clear eyes can see what’s there, worthy Gotama has made the teaching clear in many ways. I go for refuge to the worthy Gotama, to the teaching, and to the mendicant Saṅgha. May I receive the going forth, the ordination in the worthy Gotama’s presence?”

13And the brahmin received the going forth, the ordination in the Buddha’s presence. Not long after his ordination, Venerable Bhāradvāja, living alone, withdrawn, diligent, keen, and resolute, soon realized the supreme culmination of the spiritual path in this very life. He lived having achieved with his own insight the goal for which gentlemen rightly go forth from the lay life to homelessness.

14He understood: “Rebirth is ended; the spiritual journey has been completed; what had to be done has been done; there is nothing further for this place.” And Venerable Bhāradvāja became one of the perfected.